In 1974, Stephen King’s Carrie captured the public’s imagination with its portrayal of a young woman’s rage—and ultimate demise—after being pushed to her limits. Fifty years later, Carrie’s anger remains relevant, as society continues to villainize women who take a stand for themselves, instead of depicting them as victims seeking justice. [1] This echoes the plight of women, globally and throughout human history, who have been abused by people, cultures, or societies who claimed to protect them. In her third novel, Island Witch, Sri Lankan author Amanda Jayatissa has, like King, chosen to embody her female protagonist’s wrath in a supernatural form: Mohini, Sri Lanka’s most popular ghost.
As the author explains, “Mohini is Sri Lanka’s ‘Woman in White,’ a lonely white-clad figure who asks solitary passers-by for help, only to kill, or posses [sic], or harm them.” [2] Yet, whereas Carrie’s story clearly portrays her as retaliating against her oppressors, history has silenced Mohini’s voice. The lack of context regarding Mohini’s beginnings, and her motives for assaulting wayfarers, has haunted Jayatissa, and she has decided to give the ghost an origin story. [3] Island Witch takes place in the nineteenth century, when the British had colonial rule over the island country, which they called Ceylon. Against this backdrop, Jayatissa explores the atrocities for which her home country has reason to rage—in her words, against both “those committed against us, and also those we have committed against each other.”
The result is a dark coming-of-age tale. In 1880s British Ceylon, under the influence of the religious practices introduced by the colonizers, Amara, the daughter of the local Capuwa (a “demon priest”), is ostracized by the villagers, who used to respect her family’s craft. Now, men are being assaulted in the jungle, with community leaders accusing her father of the crime. To clear his name, Amara must find the culprit. Meanwhile, she’s been having bizarre dreams that seem to predict the attacks, and she begins to suspect that everything connects to the night she woke up to the sound of her mother crying out “no one can find out what happened.”
Island Witch opens with the sighting of a man moving confidently through the jungle by himself. The narrator reflects:
Fear is a woman’s burden. We are entrenched in it from the time we are born. Told to protect ourselves, especially our bodies. Heaven knows we’ve been told to value them more than our minds. We’ve been told to keep safe. Caution becomes our second nature from the time we are young girls […] Our fathers, our neighbours, our villagers rally around to protect us, lest we, delicate things, are unable to fend for ourselves. Be careful of strangers they warned. Be careful of the jungle. Be careful even of your own thoughts. They say this, even though the fathers, the neighbours, the villagers are often the very ones we need protecting from. (p. 1)
As Amara investigates the assault cases, she comes to discover that many male villagers have been hurting the women in their care. They are variously guilty of domestic violence, prostituting their wives, impregnating an unmarried girl, infidelity, and sexual assault. But they are guilty of more than the obvious crimes. Here, Jayatissa weaves psychological horror by revealing the ways that women have been oppressed. They must dress modestly, speak softly, and otherwise please men—because any power or security that they possess comes from the opposite sex. Yet, even if they follow all of the unspoken rules of their sex, their security relies on the discretion of their male protectors. Amara reveals this sentiment when she confesses that “nothing scared [her] more than disappointing [her] father” (p. 18), and in her attempts to suppress her doubts about her lover’s need to possess her like an object (p. 110). Because she holds no power of her own, Amara can only trust the men in her life to do right by her, and her encounters with other women show that they share her plight.
Reliance on men has conditioned the village women to assist their oppressors. Instead of holding men accountable for wandering eyes and hands, women shame other women for dressing immodestly. And, lest they admit that a trusted man has gone astray, women blame other women for seducing the man and causing him to change. After all, it is easier to think ill of an outsider than to admit that a loved one has an ugly side to him. As Amara acknowledges:
I had a certain perception of [redacted] and it felt deeply unsettling to sully it, especially with something unpleasant. It was normal to feel that way, wasn’t it? To not want to ruin your impression of someone? To believe what you see because it’s far more comfortable to accept than what someone chooses to hide? (p. 225)
Even when women try to help one another, their help means teaching their peers and daughters how to “raise [their] position” within the patriarchal, colonial system (p. 194). At one point, Amara suspects that her mother also “struggle[s] alone in the still of the night,” but she never confirms the fact. Amara’s thought that, “in another life, [she] would have found the courage to ask her” is telling (p. 72). In another life, another place, another culture, Amara and her mother could have supported one another. But their society pits women against each other. Although Amara may share more in common with her mother than either woman would care to admit, in this life Amara is the “child who tied her to him [the man who impregnated her] irrevocably” (p. 69). Thus, Amara’s mother can only view her as a shackle, not another victim of the realities of life in a male-dominated society. The older woman’s hurtful actions toward her daughter remain inexcusable. Nevertheless, the parallels between the two women’s stories invite the reader to consider the possibility that Amara’s mother once loved her—and to ponder what her change of heart exposes about the society in which they live.
Such an existence is lonely. When Amara meets a young woman who listens, really listens, to her, she feels understood for the first time. The other woman echoes the sentiment when she tells Amara, “It actually makes me feel better talking to you. Like I’m not the only girl in the world with problems. It makes me feel less like I’m on my own” (p. 122). Amara’s alienation within her own village demonstrates that women need a supportive community to thrive. She has no one in whom she can confide, no one she can completely trust, not even herself: the people closest to her conceal the truth from her, gaslighting her and guilting her into conforming with their desires and expectations. Even those who genuinely love her comply with societal norms, until it is too late to do right by her.
One of these people, Neha, serves as a foil to the villagers who adopt Christianity to gain sociopolitical status. Although she initially embraces the religion for the sake of her family’s advancement, she comes to truly believe in God. Whereas other professed Christians communicate, to Amara, a God of “fire and thunder and rage,” and shame her for being the Capuwa’s daughter, Neha projects an image of a “kind and gentle” God (p. 272). Her assurance in God’s love causes Amara to envy the other girl’s certainty in her place in the world. It also leads Neha to try to understand Amara and to give her the love she needs, rather than forcing her to conform to their colonizers’ way of life. Imperfect as it may be, Neha’s attitude invites readers to imagine what the world would look like today if religious teachers abstained from spreading “hateful vitriol” (pp. 250–251), choosing instead to engage in conversation with the goal of achieving mutual understanding.
Instead, as Amara becomes increasingly isolated in her village, her dreams grow increasingly eerie, personal, and real. And as her anger grows, it gets more difficult to manage because she is not allowed to confront her tormentors. Amara has valid reasons for her anger: the villagers treat her family like criminals, her father has cast her aside, her dreams make little sense to her, and now she is learning about the violence that too many village women suffer. If the people around her showed more care and compassion, perhaps Amara would not be driven to the extreme decision that she makes at the novel’s end. But, as a woman in British Ceylon—indeed, in any oppressive society or system—she has to “keep [her] head down, choke back any outrage, and learn to make peace with it” (p. 127). Only after she realizes that she cannot rely on anyone to protect her does she unleash her rage.
Amara’s story reminds readers that behind every angry woman there is an origin story. This one is about a once-hopeful young woman who loses faith in humanity. In the beginning, she believes that she is different from the yakshaniya, or “demoness,” who haunts her dreams: she is “not wicked,” and she is “not cruel” (p. 74). Her transformation occurs against her will, as she learns more about the injustices that have occurred, and are occurring, in her village. Amara’s yakshaniya—into which she metamorphosizes—is thus more than a supernatural creature who preys on men, as the folklore behind Mohini might lead a person to believe. Instead, the yakshaniya serves as the embodiment of female rage toward the injustices committed against women. She is a demoness created, against her will, by the people who failed her. Her existence thus raises the question of who is the real monster: the ghost-woman lurking in the jungle, or the evil prowling in human hearts?
A gothic horror novel, Island Witch presents a snapshot in the life of a desperate woman and the fury she unleashes when she is pushed to her limits. Through Amara’s struggles in 1880s British Ceylon, Jayatissa examines the biases underlying the torment that marginalized groups suffer at the hands of their oppressors. As she unravels the horrors of colonial conquest, religious persecution, and violence against women, she exposes the terrifying effects these atrocities have on communities, Sri Lankan and otherwise, as those in power exploit the vulnerable and the vulnerable suffer in silence. In the end, Jayatissa joins the voices crying out for justice by asking readers to listen to one account of a woman whose story has been erased from the annals of history and folklore. Listen before labeling her as a villainess simply for daring to express her rage.
Endnotes
[1] Jayatissa has written an insightful piece on Carrie’s themes and its continued relevance to society today. See Amanda Jayatissa, “The Rage in ‘Carrie’ Feels More Relevant Than Ever,” The New York Times, April 5, 2024. [return]
[2] Elise Dumpleton, “Q&A: Amanda Jayatissa, Author of Island Witch’,” The Nerd Daily, February 18, 2024. [return]
[3] Dumpleton, “Q&A: Amanda Jayatissa, Author of Island Witch’.” [return]