White Is for Witching

Miranda’s twin brother, Eliot Silver, is a round foil, as he grows into someone who sees and records the development and symptoms of his sister. One of the novel’s narrators, he and the Silver House narrate much of the novel. The twins experience conflict at several points, physically fighting in their mother Lily’s photo studio; later, Ore accuses Eliot of resenting his sister’s admission to Cambridge. Still, Eliot’s role as foil manifests in his care for Miranda, who often doesn’t eat food and continues to lose weight. The twins’ childhood reinforces this care: In their Arthurian roleplay, Eliot pretended to be a knight, and Miranda pretended to be Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister and a witch.

While Eliot loves Miranda, he’s often shocked by her appearance, including her color choices. Although he imagines himself as her knight, he finds her girlfriend Ore attractive, which interferes with him saving his sister. He tries to be intimate with Ore, and then bakes Miranda a pie with the Silver House’s poisoned apples. In other words, Eliot’s desire to be helpful (and loved) prevents him from genuinely helping—perhaps exacerbated by him being Miranda’s living double (as a twin).

Miranda and Eliot’s father Luc Dufresne serves as a foil to Andrew Silver, the original owner of the Silver House and husband of Anna Silver. While Andrew doesn’t appear in the novel except in descriptions of Anna’s life, he anticipates Luc’s position at the Silver House, as a foreigner whom the house deems acceptable. Andrew is the scion of an American merchant family, while Luc is the son of a pastry chef in Paris. Luc courts his future wife Lily Silver with food, making her peach tarts.

Following Lily’s death, Luc retreats from his children and finds Miranda’s pica inscrutable. Luc’s suppressed grief drives a wedge between him and his children. He copes with Miranda’s lack of eating by making elaborate pastries and, as a round character, becomes more involved with her situation, eventually nailing her cabinets and drawers shut.

Despite Luc and Miranda’s relationship being strained by her symptoms, his interactions with her seem more positive than those with his son Eliot. By the end of the novel, Luc takes more initiative in his parenting, as he interrogates Eliot to determine why he used winter apples in a pie. Frustrated by his parents’ visits after Miranda’s disappearance and Eliot’s last dealings with her, Luc abandons the bed and breakfast, closing the Silver House to future guests.

Ore is an attractive girl whom Miranda’s peer Tijana, Miranda herself, and Eliot attempt intimacy with. She is primarily Miranda’s love interest at Cambridge University. Adopted by working-class white parents, Ore, who is Black, first meets Miranda at their college interviews. Ore experiences discomfort in her English surroundings, exacerbated by her cousin spouting anti-immigrant propaganda and the Silver House’s harassment. The house manifests its racism by attempting to expel Ore from it and Miranda. A complex character, Ore hesitates to identify as Nigerian and English, rebuffing recruitment by the Nigerian Student Association and Sade’s desire to create community through their shared background.

Ore confesses that her background pressures her to “earn her keep” and convince her parents that her adoption was wise. In other words, her story serves as a metaphor for immigrants and their tenuous relationship with England (or any new home for that matter). She falls in love with Miranda and tries to help her fight her fate, finding her style and peculiar personality attractive. Ore’s relationship with Miranda symbolizes immigrants’ love for their new home, regardless of this love being reciprocal.

29 Barton Road, also known as the Silver House, is a castle-like house in Dover that functions as the static antagonist of the novel. The house has seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, and many hidden spaces, filled with “looking people” (lost souls). A malevolent force, the house imprisons the Silver women and confesses to resurrecting their spirits. Personified as both antagonist and narrator, it describes Anna Good (Anna Silver), Jennifer, and Lily, offering its own version of their life experiences. Obsessed with racial “purity”—specifically, the purity of the Silver family—the house uses spirits and doppelgängers to “preserve” the Silver women, even if its efforts trap or kill them. It prevents Anna from harming herself or her unborn child following Andrew’s death, and stops Miranda from escaping and recovering from pica.

Along with Eliot, the Silver House narrates much of the novel and possesses almost omniscient knowledge of the Silver family and their truths and lies. It even reaches Cambridge to call Miranda back home. Driven by racism and xenophobia (which began with Anna’s hatred of German and African soldiers), the house traps Black guests in its rooms, poisons them, and attempts to drive off Sade after successfully expelling Azwer and Ezma and their children.

Sade functions as the novel’s moral center, actively battling the Silver House and seeing past its physical spaces. An African immigrant with English citizenship, she takes over as housekeeper and cook at the house, following the departure of Azwer and Ezma. She can see and communicate with spirits like Miranda—but working at the house proves a struggle due to its blatant xenophobia. She practices juju (imbuing objects with positive or negative energy) in order to combat the house. These beliefs inform Sade’s cooking as well, as she attempts to comfort Miranda with fried dough. Although she seems defeated at several points, she ultimately survives the house and leaves on her own terms. Sade embodies immigrant rights and open defiance against racism and xenophobia, a major point of difference between her and the uncertain Ore.