mid-17th century

In Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch, the mid-17th century functions as a distant, almost mythic anchor for the novel's central meditation on motherhood, sacrifice, and female power. It appears not as a lived memory but as a historical reference point within Wanda White's A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, the book that the mother turns to in her darkest hours. The era is invoked to describe the Apothecarian tribe, a group of women who, "on the brink of starvation in the mid-seventeenth century, ensured that their young were not only fed, but fattened, while all the matured adults of the species died off one by one." This single, stark image of maternal self-annihilation for the sake of offspring becomes a touchstone for the mother, offering a historical precedent for the brutal, all-consuming nature of motherhood that she experiences in her own contemporary life. The mid-17th century is thus not merely a date but a symbolic landscape where the novel's most extreme vision of maternal devotion is located, a place where sacrifice is absolute and the survival of the child is the sole purpose of the mother's existence.

The Apothecarian Precedent

The mid-17th century is introduced to the reader through the words of Wanda White, the mythical ethnographer whose field guide becomes the mother's sacred text. In a moment of profound crisis, after the gruesome killing of the family cat, the mother cannot sleep and turns to the guide for solace. She finds Wanda discussing "predatory women," those "truly rare breeds" who, though terrifying, "would never injure their own young, even to their own detriment." The example given is the Apothecarian tribe, whose behavior in the mid-17th century is presented as the ultimate proof of this devotion. The image of these women, starving themselves to fatten their children while they themselves die off, is a radical inversion of the modern, sanitized ideal of motherhood. It presents a world where a mother's love is not gentle or nurturing in a conventional sense, but a fierce, biological imperative that prioritizes the child's life above all else, even at the cost of the mother's own. For the mother, reading this, it is a revelation: her own rage, her own animalistic instincts, and her own sense of being consumed by motherhood are not aberrations but echoes of a deep, historical pattern of female sacrifice.

A Counterpoint to Modern Motherhood

The mid-17th century stands in stark contrast to the mother's own experience of motherhood in the present day. Her world is one of relentless schedules, the drudgery of grocery shopping, the pressure to maintain a career, and the societal expectation to be a "hot" mother. She feels trapped by a system she suspects is "masterfully designed to put a woman in her place and keep her there." Her rage is directed at "the system and capitalism and the patriarchy and then religion and gender roles and biology." The Apothecarian women, by contrast, exist in a world where the choice is stark and simple: the child lives, or the mother does. There is no pretense of balance, no expectation of a career, no societal myth that a woman can "have it all." Their sacrifice is total and unambiguous. This historical example provides the mother with a framework for understanding her own feelings. It suggests that the violence she feels, the desire to be a monster, is not a personal failing but a fundamental, ancient part of what it means to be a mother. The mid-17th century, in this light, is not a primitive past to be pitied but a brutal, honest mirror held up to the sanitized and neutered version of motherhood she is supposed to embrace.

The Unbroken Lineage of Togetherness

The significance of the mid-17th century extends beyond a single historical anecdote. It becomes part of a larger, mythic lineage that the mother comes to identify with as she transforms into Nightbitch. The novel suggests that this lineage of maternal ferocity and sacrifice is an "unbroken lineage of togetherness" that keeps women alive across generations. The Apothecarian tribe is one link in this chain, which also includes the WereMothers of Siberia, a self-fertilizing species who mother their cubs without males. By placing the mother's story within this lineage, the novel reframes her transformation from a personal, isolated breakdown into a reconnection with a deep, collective female history. The mid-17th century is the earliest specific date given for this lineage, grounding it in a concrete, if distant, past. It is a time when the choice between mother and child was a matter of life and death, and the women chose the child. This historical echo validates the mother's own journey, suggesting that her rage, her animal nature, and her ultimate performance are not a rejection of motherhood but a return to its most primal, powerful, and unapologetic form. The era serves as a testament that the forces she is tapping into are not new but have always existed, waiting to be reclaimed.

A Place of Arrival

The mid-17th century, as a reference point, ultimately contributes to the novel's central thesis about identity and arrival. The narrative famously declares that "Wanda White is not a person. Wanda White is a place at which a person finally arrives." In a similar vein, the mid-17th century is not just a time but a symbolic destination. It represents a state of being where the conflict between the mother and the woman, the human and the animal, is resolved in favor of a singular, ferocious devotion. The mother's journey, which culminates in her final stage performance, is a movement toward this state. She is no longer torn between her ambition and her biology; she has become a creature for whom the two are one and the same. The historical example of the Apothecarian tribe provides a template for this resolution. Their story is one of complete, unhesitating commitment, a model that the mother ultimately embraces. The mid-17th century, therefore, is not merely a historical footnote but a conceptual landmark on the map of the mother's transformation, a place she must reach to fully become Nightbitch. It is the point in time where the novel's most extreme vision of motherhood is located, and it is toward this point that the entire narrative arc ultimately travels.