Stop Make Forfeit

This artwork is crammed with symbolism.
Addams has cooked up a thoughtful and deeply conceptual work.
Quid pro quo. Man gets passage. Witch gets lover.
"Forfeit” It could the biggest forfeit the man will ever make.
The "Lovesick Lonely Witch" has her mouth open, while the cottage door right behind her is open as well.
She shoots bedroom eyes to the man. The wife's identity is hidden.
Addams is suggesting that it’s the Witch’s desire for the man to throw his wife overboard and then join the Witch for some private time.
It's a fair sacrifice for passage for a Witch. And in perfect keeping with Addam's sensibility, where life is seen from the point of view of his macabre characters.

His carefully crafted composition has the wife right next to a perilous precipice for convenient disposal.
A single lane road gives them no options for turning around.

The chimney on top of the Witch's cottage is clearly phallic in shape.
There is a direct line of sight from the man's eyes to the Witch's love gaze and then to the chimney.

A classic reference of intercourse is typically symbolized by a train going into a tunnel.
In this case, it's a car going into a covered bridge.
The phallic hood ornament points the way.
In prudishly conservative 1956 America, sexuality had to be handled in subtle ways.
This may be one of the only works by Addams where he deals with sex, even if it's sex with a Witch.

Work is not framed