The Witch

appears to each family member in a way specifically designed to most freak them out. To Caleb, struggling with emerging sexuality and the guilt his upbringing makes him feel about that, she's a sexy and/or scary siren. To Katherine, the witch steals and corrupts her children, and very literally attacks her maternity; mutilating her milk-giving breasts. To the twins, who are small children, she's a cackling old crone, a simplistic visualisation of a witch from a children's story. To William and Thomasin, the characters most alike in temperament and intelligence she's more unseen, what she does is more subtle. She undermines William's position as powerful patriarch and makes him rue his pride (and a strong symbol of male virility and power in the billy goat is what ultimately and decisively overpowers him, leaving his battered body in a pile of the logs that symbolised his futile efforts to provide for his family). And for Thomasin, who's probably at some level figuring out that being a beautiful, intelligent girl is dangerous and only going to become more so as her sexuality and attractiveness matures, she undermines people's perceptions of her purity and innocence, makes people suspect and distrust her, and very quickly deprives her of her closes ally in Caleb.