Through using a combination of pica, an extremely strong matrilineal line, casual horror, and the use of multiple narrators, Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching explores and exploits what we know about mental illness, as the text itself mimics a descent into madness. I assert that Oyeyemi’s use of mental illness serves as not only reinforcement of the stereotypes of mental illness but is also employed as a metaphor. Her casual but pointed use of metaphorical mental illness is pervasive throughout the book, as nearly every female character suffers from some form of mental illness and is rarely acknowledged as a problem or serious illness. Mental illness being used as a narrative prosthesis allows the “disabled body [to surface] as any body capable of being narrated as “outside the norm” and I assert this is the reason for Oyeyemi’s choice to give Miranda pica. I will show that the use of mental illness in conjunction with female characters in the novel marks those characters for more intense scrutiny while the male characters fade into the background of the story. The difference between male and female Silvers is clearly shown in the juxtaposition of the twins, Miranda and Eliot Silver, as Miranda suffers from pica and Eliot does not. Oyeyemi uses the narrative differences between the siblings as a way to further complicate the otherness that marks the Silver women, and in particular Miranda, as a way of elevating the horror within the story. The character of Eliot is, in many ways, an outlier that serves to draw attention to the differences of the female characters and bolsters their connection to not only each other but to the shared mental illness in the Silver matrilineal line. Oyeyemi has marked the Silver matrilineal line as “Other” by connecting generations of Silver women with the disability of pica. Further, the use of pica cements the strange connection between the Silver family home and the Silver women. 
The eating disorder pica is categorized by Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia as an ”eating disorder marked by a compulsion to ingest substances not usually regarded as food” that is “most often a temporary condition, but it may be a persisting problem in persons with developmental disabilities or certain psychiatric disorders”. Aspasia Stephanou points out that “the house’s desire to consume Miranda is associated with her consuming body and disease”. By using this particular disorder, Oyeyemi is able to blur the lines between what could be considered a mental illness and what could be a temporary situation that could eventually resolve itself. It also gives a narrative connection between the act of becoming a woman in the Silver family and madness. Coming into puberty for a Silver woman allows 29 Barton Road to lay a claim to not only the Silver woman’s body but her mind as well. The house consumes the life of the Silver woman by making them dependent on non-food items that are derived directly from the house itself. The disorder of pica is regularly linked to pregnancy and according to Pat Carmoney, M.D., the practice of ingesting non-food items during pregnancy is “popularly considered commonplace”. I assert that it is precisely this link between femaleness and pica is the reason Oyeyemi chose this particular affliction. This immediately separates the Silver women from other characters and denotes that something about them is “other”. 
