At the start of his novel The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike jumps right into his thickening plot, assuming the reader already knows essentially everything about the three "witches", Alexandra, Jane and Sukie. He makes a fair amount of references to the realm of fantasy and witchcraft, which paints an ambiguous portrait of these characters for his audience. This begins to occur on the second page, when Updike uses a simile comparing Jane's offended voice to "a black cat's fur, iridescent..."[pg 4] and continues throughout the exposition. At first, I made the assumption that these metaphors of foreshadowing were exactly that, just metaphors. However soon it is made clear that these three middle-aged suburban women are not quite on the ordinary side of the spectrum of normalcy. It was a pretty conspicuous tip-off when Alexandra sees her future through a cabinet door:
"...she was concious of the atomic fury spinning and skidding beneath such a surface, like an eddy of weary eyesight. As if in a crystal ball she saw that she would meet and fall in love with this man and that little good would come of it."[pg 4]
When the author then begins to delve into Jane's musings on the discintegrations of the three witch friends' lovers, the idea that these women are witches is no longer just a possibility. It establishes itself as fact in the story.
This is effective in that it reels the reader in through the constant stemming of questions, relentless in that the answer to one inquisition inevitably leads to the inspiration of another. Updike plays on his audience's natural sense of curiosity to maintain intrigue.
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