49 pages 1 hour read

Helen Oyeyemi

White Is for Witching

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Character Analysis

Miranda Silver / Miri

Content Warning: This section of the guide mentions suicide, self-harm, and disordered eating. It also includes racist and xenophobic content, including offensive terms for Black people and undocumented citizens, which is replicated in this guide only in direct quotation of the source material.

Miranda Silver, also known as Miri, is the protagonist of White Is for Witching. A striking figure, she is Luc Dufresne and Lily Silver’s daughter, Eliot Silver’s twin sister, and a person who lives with pica (a medical condition that triggers compulsive eating and swallowing of non-foods). The subject of every narrator, Miranda herself doesn’t speak unless her speech is recorded by others. Eliot and Miranda’s girlfriend Ore describe her in detail, relating her experiences with the house and pica. The Silver House also describes Miranda throughout the novel, highlighting her female lineage and punishing her for her friendship and love affair with Ore.

Described similarly to the spirits who inhabit the Silver House, Miranda reflects the archetypal role of the soucouyant (an aged woman whose vampiric spirit leaves her body to attack at night), with her girlfriend Ore even seeing her as a soucouyant. Like employee Sade, Miranda can see beyond the physical and literal settings of Dover and Cambridge University.

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