Magic Post

The most ironic aspect of Katharine Ann Porter’s short story “Magic” is the suppression of a woman by a woman. Usually, stories of prostitutes, trapped in the paradox of their lives, fall victim to men and remain ensnared under his strength. However, in “Magic,” the antagonist is no masculine pimp, but Madame Blanchard, manager of the “fancy house” in which the narrator previously worked. The relationship to Madame Blanchard and one particular employed prostitute, Ninette, represents the social constraints women placed upon each other at the time of this short story’s publication. Women believed they must succumb to the wishes of men and encouraged each other to do so. Porter argues through this story that women, not men, reinforced the social implication that women were inferior to men and must act in submission to their husbands, or to the male population in society, as the weaker partner. Madame Blanchard symbolizes how women ensnare women in social bondages through such ideology. She serves as a metaphor for the reins that women held on each other, trapping each other at the low tier of patriarchal hierarchy. Madame Blanchard, while female in gender, dominates the girls who work for her with the same violence of a man. If threatened, she yanked a girl “back by the hair and smash a bottle on her forehead”—a typical episode. To prevent escape, Madame Blanchard physically abuses Ninette in the areas that define the nameless girl’s femininity. She kicks “this girl most terribly in the stomach and even in her most secret place,” the womb and the genitals, the two areas that characterize physical womanhood. By abusing her in these areas, Blanchard seeks to strip her of her female independence and remind her that her weakness stems from her gender. Moreover, even the police, th “law” in the country seems to be on Madame Blanchard’s side. They agree that women must remain in bondage and used to the want of the man. Blanchard’s bargain with the police symbolizes society’s unwritten bargain with the men of the 40’s and 50’s. Additionally, Madame Blanchard, prevents Ninette from establishing any economical security as did most husbands during this time period. Blanchard steals the money she earns week to week and steals her escape money, ensuring that Ninette remained dependent on her. The entire idea of the “fancy house” represents the commodification of women in this point in history, the idea that women worth only in correlation to what men view them. In this logic, women must depend on men for their self worth and their survival. When men begin asking for Ninette after she leaves, only then can Madame Blanchard deem her valuable. She then conjures up her “magic” and beckons her back. This idea of “magic” personifies, not only the invisible hold that men have over women, but the affirmation of that holding by other women. Only when Ninette gives away her independence to Madame Blanchard because she gives in to the spell of the social structure does the narrator finally name Ninette—previously she was referred to as “the girl.” Though this magical spell, Ninette becomes submissive to Madame Blanchard the ideology for which she stands, and she receives an identity through the lens of that same ideology.