“A big old ugly witch and I told her to go away and she went away,” the little boy went on, in a quiet narrative to himself, “she came and said, ‘I’m going to eat you up,’ and I said, ‘no, you’re not,’ and I chased her away, the bad old mean witch.”Although very short (just over 1,400 words), there are enough dark elements in this Shirley Jackson story to unsettle most readers. Themes in this story include parental inattention, boredom, imagination, witchcraft, innocence and its possible manipulation, violence.
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