Practical Magic

“Night and Day, the aunts called them, and although neither girl laughed at this little joke or found it amusing in the least, they recognized the truth in it, and were able to understand, earlier than most sisters, that the moon is always jealous of the heat of day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep.”

This moment uses the motifs of the sun and moon, long associated with astrology, alchemy, and witchcraft, to illustrate Sally’s and Gillian’s characterization. It presents them as both in balance and in juxtaposition; although they complete each other, they cannot exist within the same space. This is a dynamic they bring forward with them into their adult years.

“Desire had a way of making a person oddly courageous. In the aunt’s opinion, it could sneak up on a grown woman and turn her from a sensible creature into something as foolish as a flea that keeps chasing after the same old dog.”

The narrative uses irony in this moment to illustrate the dual nature of love. The story explains that love begets courage, a trait normally associated with positivity and strength. Here, however, it is inverted to become something volatile and dangerous. This use of irony and contrast shows how love itself can be a force for both good and ill, a vehicle of both inner strength and destruction.

“What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake. If the girl from the drugstore had been smart, she would have asked for an antidote, not a charm, in the first place.”

In this moment, the narrator explores The Destructive Power of Love by framing its relationship to the lovesick as a dynamic of status. Love is something that needs an “antidote,” suggesting that love is a type of sickness, toxin, or even a magical curse. Here it becomes something external to the body, rather than something born from within, with a malevolent nature that thrives on its power over others.

“If you took all the trouble most girls got into as teenagers and boiled it down for twenty-four hours, you’d wind up with something the size of a Snickers candy bar. But if you melted down all the trouble Gillian Owens got herself into, not to mention all the grief she caused, you’d have yourself a sticky mess as tall as the statehouse in Boston.”

This moment takes a more lighthearted approach to the nature of both love and Gillian’s character. The narrator uses tactile imagery to create the sensation of a broken, melted candy bar, then personifies that imagery to give the reader a deeper understanding of Gillian’s uncontrolled teenage years.

“The lesson Sally had learned so long ago in the kitchen—to be careful what you wish for—was so far and so faded it had turned to yellow dust. But it was the sort of dust that can never be swept up, and instead waits in the corner and blows into the eyes of those you love when a draft moves through your house.”

This section explores Sally’s newfound happiness at finding the “normal” life she always dreamed of. In this moment, the story takes a soft but distinctive turn toward the sinister as that happiness comes to the brink of collapse. The “draft” here serves as a metaphor for fate, suggesting, along with the omens the aunts observe around the house, that Michael’s death was predestined. The narrator uses creative domestic imagery to communicate a much bigger idea.

“In time, Sally stopped believing in anything at all, and then the whole world went gray. She could not see orange or red, no certain shades of green—her favorite sweater and the leaves of new daffodils—were completely and utterly lost.”

Here, objective color is presented as directly intertwined with the concept of belief. Because Sally loses her belief in the world around her, she loses the ability to see it. This literal expression serves as a metaphor for being able to “see” the value in everyday life; the moment suggests to the reader that belief in one’s own potential, and in the potential of those around you, is essential in order to perceive the beauty life has to offer.

“Sally had expected Antonia to be a big sister in the same manner she herself has been, but that wasn’t Antonia’s style. Antonia felt no responsibility to anyone; she was nobody’s caretaker.”

This moment deals with expressing Antonia’s characterization as well as the preconceptions which Sally brings to motherhood. She hopes for a microcosm of herself, but instead ends up with someone much more like Gillian. This suggests that Sally is doomed to repeat the same cycle until she is able to fully embrace herself. It also sets up the foundation for Antonia’s character development throughout the novel as she comes to care more deeply for Kylie and becomes a more nurturing figure.

“Never look back, that’s what she’s told herself. Don’t think about swans or being alone in the dark. Don’t think of storms, or lightning and thunder, or the true love you won’t ever have. Life is brushing your teeth and making breakfast for your children and not thinking about things, and as it turns out, Sally is first-rate at all of this.”

This moment introduces the symbolic parallel between lightning and love, a motif that is later explored with the introduction of Gary Hallett. The narrative expresses the divide between Sally’s true self and the manufactured self that she’s created to protect herself. The structure of this moment creates its own trajectory, with the first concepts on the list being negative experiences, and the following ones being things that could be seen as both destructive and liberating, and the final element, true love, being a positive force.

“His boots are snakeskin and they obviously cost a fortune. They’ve been very well cared for; if somebody spilled a beer on those boots by accident, or kicked up too much dust, there’d be trouble, you can tell that by looking at the polished leather. You can tell just by looking at Jimmy’s face. Dead or alive, he is who he is: somebody you don’t want to mess with.”

Here, the narrator zooms in on a specific object and setting element in order to communicate character. Unlike the film adaptation, the novel never features Jimmy alive—not even in flashbacks. Instead, it uses small details like these to create a broad picture of the man. This illustrates the power of specificity in a narrative to convey a larger whole.

“For weeks people will find themselves drawn to the sidewalk in front of Sally Owens’s house, pulled out of their own kitchens and dining rooms by the scent of lilacs, reminded of desire and real love and a thousand other things they’d long ago forgotten, and sometimes now wish they’d forgotten still.”

The lilacs are a powerful motif within the novel, and here they are shown in their full influence. This moment uses an unexpected juxtaposition to create tension: the imagery, scent, and references to the positive emotions of desire and true love set up one meaning, while the closing line inverts it in a different way. Like a symbol for love itself, the lilacs give the impression of something beautiful but have an underlying sinister tone.

“Girls in the neighborhood had begun to whisper that if you kissed the boy you loved beneath the Owenses’ lilacs he’d be yours forever, whether he wanted to be or not.”

This moment parallels the one earlier in the novel in which people of the neighborhood convince themselves of a malevolent force around the Owens house. While this moment is an inversion of that, drawing people closer rather than pushing them away, it illustrates the way people instinctively search for magic and meaning in everyday life.

“You begin to look at young boys with tenderness, since they know so little and think they know so much. You watch teenage girls and feel shivers up and down your arms—those poor creatures don’t know the first thing about time or agony or the price they’re going to have to pay for just about everything.”

Using the second-person narrative style, this moment highlights the journey Gillian has taken from being one of these young girls, filled with hope and self-belief. Here she becomes almost maternal toward an entire generation who has yet to face the battles she has faced. There is a softness as well as a tragic inevitability to her observations, knowing that these young people will make their own mistakes in their own ways.

“For her whole life she has been measuring herself against her sister, and she’s not going to do that anymore. That is the gift Gillian has given her tonight, and for that she will always be grateful.”

Kylie expects her 13th birthday to be a coming-of-age milestone, and it does not go how she plans. While she manages her own uncertainty and feelings of betrayal, she begins to come into her own individuality and sense of self for the first time. Her sense of gratitude for the transition is a true indication of her introspection and maturity, which was absent in prior scenes and is only surfacing when she is given space to process her feelings alone.

“If Gillian stood before a mirror that was stretched to present someone younger and taller and more beautiful, she’d be looking at Kylie. When you’re thirty-six and you’re confronted with this, so very early in the morning, your mouth can suddenly feel parched, your skin can feel prickly and worn out, no matter how much moisturizer you’ve been using.”

A large part of Gillian’s journey is coming to terms with her own mortality and declining physical beauty. Because her attractiveness is what put an end to her childhood bullying and changed her in the eyes of her peers, she grew to associate beauty with self-worth. By seeing herself in juxtaposition with someone who embodies those traits more than she does, she is forced to confront her own limitations and re-examine her own strengths.

“If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he had a real fear of people disappearing on him, which is why he turned to magic in the first place. In Ben Frye’s act, what vanished always reappeared, whether it was a ring or a quarter or Buddy himself.”

In Gillian’s life, Ben Frye becomes a foil character in multiple ways. His attitude toward her and his kindness are juxtaposed against the cruelty and domineering nature of her former lover; his use of prestidigitation is also juxtaposed against her background of true magic. This moment shows that while true magic is unpredictable, stage magic is, for him, characterized by its predictability and security.

“Antonia considers the countless horrible things she’d said and done, for reasons she herself doesn’t understand, and her throat and face become scarlet with shame. She never even thought to be generous or kind.”

While Kylie is the one who experiences this traumatic moment, it had a deeper and more lasting impact on Antonia herself. It becomes a coming-of-age moment in which she realizes that the world and all its dangers are bigger than her petty childhood malice. This moment marks a major turning point in their relationship and brings them together in a way the adults around them don’t understand, which makes their connection even more personal and intimate.

“If Kylie doesn’t go for the jugular, if she doesn’t pull out all her best moves, he’ll know they’re not friends anymore. He doesn’t want it to be that way, but if they can’t be their true selves with each other, they might as well walk away now.”

In contrast to the sudden, untamable love explored in other places in the novel, the love between Kyle and Gideon has a foundation of authenticity and trust. This makes their connection more real than what Sally discovers with Gary or what the women who came to the aunts thought they had with their loved ones. The irony is that these two characters are the youngest in the novel and have the least amount of worldly experience. This suggests that true love is an inborn instinct which later becomes clouded with judgment.

“As Gary drives through this suburban neighborhood, he’s thinking that his grandfather wouldn’t have liked this area of New York much. Lightning could come up and surprise you here. There are too many buildings, they’re endless, they block out what you ought to see which, in Sonny’s opinion, and in Gary’s as well, should always be the sky.”

At several points in the novel, lightning becomes a metaphor for The Destructive Power of Love. Here, the emotional metaphor is extended to include the setting, which is crowded with obstacles. Gary and his grandfather both believe in being able to clearly see the world around them, literally as well as figuratively. There is a connection between this idea and Sally’s inability to perceive color until she is more clearly able to see herself.

“Gary has been close to people and has a whole town full of friends, but he’d never once felt he’d known anyone the way he felt he knew the woman who wrote this letter. It was as if someone had ripped off the top of his head and hooked a piece of his soul.”

Gary falls deeply in love with Sally before even meeting her through the power of her words. This can be interpreted in different ways; it may suggest that there is a degree of fate involved in bringing them together, and that each was intrinsically designed to understand the other. More pessimistically, it can be read as Gary projecting his own needs onto a blank canvas. This unbalanced and precarious nature of love is a common thread throughout the novel.

“At this moment Sally seems to be someone who would rush headlong into a river, when she hasn’t yet learned how to swim. She’d jump from the branches of the tallest tree, convinced all she needed for a safe landing were her outstretched arms and a silk shawl to billow out and catch the air as she fell.”

This moment illustrates the cataclysmic change Sally has undergone since the beginning of the novel, at which point she was restrained and practical to the point of her own spiritual suffocation. She is being led by love, even if she does not yet recognize that for what it is, as well as her need to be authentic to herself. After being led by her perceptions of propriety and utilitarianism for decades, she has reached a point when the risks of remaining shut away outweigh the risks of breaking free.

“From the very start, Sally has been lying to herself, telling herself she can handle anything, and she doesn’t want to lie anymore. One more lie and she’ll be truly lost. One more and she’ll never find her way back through the woods.”

This reference to the dark woods is a classic motif in fairy tales as well as in psychological analysis. In this instance, Sally has lost herself because she has gone a lifetime without embracing her true inner nature. Her existence has become one extended misrepresentation of who she is, and it is only now that she is able to examine the repercussions of that unconscious choice openly and honestly. In doing so, she is given a second chance to live again.

“Their hearts had been broken on the night those two brothers ran across the town green; they’d been broken so hard and so suddenly that the aunts never again allowed themselves to be taken by surprise, not by lightning, and certainly not by love.”

This moment shows the aunts’ humanity, something that many people, including Sally and Gillian, have had difficulty seeing. Here, the narrative again equates lightning and love in a tangible and visceral way. The men from the aunts’ past were destroyed by their need to prove themselves and by their relationships to these women. The women, in turn, were destroyed by allowing themselves to love.

“Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies, for instance, and women who’ve been in love with the wrong man too often.”

Each of the central characters in the Owens family goes through a major change over the course of the story—even the aunts, although theirs happens early on when they receive Sally and Gillian into their home. Gillian acknowledges that her experiences and her new relationship with her nieces have turned her into someone stronger, more thoughtful, and more responsible. Some of these changes happen due to facing hardship and challenges, while others happen because of new possibilities and honesty with herself.