Nancy is the only poor one
Three of the four girls want something about themselves changed. Nancy wants out of a trailer. The film punishes her hardest.
- mise-en-scene
- character
- setting
- conflict
- spoken-language
- atomic
- class
- close-reading
The school uniforms flatten four very different homes into one frame, which makes the production design the only place the class difference is stated.
- Sarah — a house, a father who worries about her, a history of depression treated as a medical fact.
- Bonnie — burn scars; a comfortable home; her wish is cosmetic.
- Rochelle — racial harassment at school; her wish is to be left alone.
- Nancy — a trailer, a mother, and the mother's boyfriend, who is a standing threat.
Three of the four ask the coven to change something about themselves. Nancy asks to escape a material situation, and she is the only one whose wish requires somebody to die.
The consequence. The film's second half treats all four wishes as equivalent moral errors and reserves its harshest ending for Nancy — the one whose motive was material rather than vain. That is the structural weakness in The Craft turns on its own coven, and it is carried almost entirely by Mise en scène rather than dialogue, which is why it is easy to watch the film twice and not notice the argument it is making.
A case for Character. See The Craft — Nancy's turn.