Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

Wellwood Home for Unwed Mothers is the institution where Fern, Zinnia, Holly, Rose, and others are forced to spend their pregnancies. The grim, oppressive nature of the home reflects society’s unease with unwed, pregnant teenagers, and the draconian restrictions enforced by the staff act as a microcosm of the efforts that real-world parents, medical professionals, and social workers took in order to control pregnant girls. As such, the dynamics of Wellwood Home enable the author to explore The Social Stigma of Teen Pregnancy in exhaustive detail. 

Because Wellwood is in a remote, rural location, the girls are separated from everyday society: a situation that is deliberately engineered in part to hide the taboo sight of a pregnant girl from the general public. During the 1970s, mainstream American culture widely considered teen pregnancy to be shameful, and the practice of hiding pregnant girls allowed communities to pretend that young women simply did not get pregnant outside of marriage. Within the context of the novel, Wellwood Home’s secluded location also keeps the girls from socializing with anyone who might deter them from giving up their children for adoption or otherwise lead them “astray.” Wellwood is staffed almost exclusively by individuals who reinforce the notion that the girls are “sinful,” in need of moral guidance, and generally unfit to parent their children. The girls are taught to internalize patriarchal societal norms that dictate when women are permitted to become sexually active. Miss Wellwood’s goal is to convince the girls to judge themselves just as harshly as she does, thereby ensuring that they will not become pregnant again or have empathy for anyone who does. Miss Wellwood herself embodies the grim results of this process because she was once an unwed, teenage mother who was subsequently indoctrinated to believe that premarital sex is inherently wicked and that those who engage in it are deeply sinful.

Astrology is one of the novel’s key motifs. All of the girls at Wellwood are interested in astrology, and they often chat together about their sun signs and horoscopes. The author uses astrology as a point of common ground amongst the girls—something that enables them to forge strong friendships despite Miss Wellwood’s efforts to keep them isolated. Astrology therefore becomes closely linked with the author’s thematic focus on illustrating the Solidarity Among Women. Because teen pregnancy is seen as shameful in 1970s society, the girls are encouraged to compartmentalize and eventually “forget” their experiences at Wellwood—as well as the babies to whom they give birth. To emphasize this mindset, Miss Wellwood even goes so far as to rename the girls, essentially robbing them of their identities. She also forbids them from discussing their lives, the fathers of their children, or anything meaningful. This deeply damaging and controlling approach is designed to isolate the girls spiritually and emotionally, rendering their stay at Wellwood Home a grim form of punishment for their perceived misdeeds. Miss Wellwood and the medical and social services staff therefore seek to control every aspect of the girls’ lives and rob them of all bodily autonomy, implementing a “divide and conquer” strategy. 

However, as the girls bond over astrology, literature, and other common interests, they gradually reclaim vestiges of their power and autonomy. When Fern, Zinnia, Holly, and Rose form meaningful bonds with one another, each girl feels stronger and better supported, and they begin to reassert control over their own bodies. They talk back. They break rules. They find that they are stronger as part of a cohesive group than they are on their own, and Hendrix therefore argues that it is through solidarity and friendship that women can succeed at Reclaiming Bodily Autonomy in Patriarchal Societies.