One of my favorite discoveries from last year’s Victober is this short story of the witch hunts that plagued early America. It’s chilling and realistic in the way it treats all the parties concerned. I was impressed that Gaskell knew so much and created such a sad and compelling story.
….there was much to tell upon the imagination in those days, in that place and time. It was prevalently believed that there were manifestations of spiritual influence – of the direct influence both of good and bad spirits – constantly to be perceived in the course of men’s lives.
It is 1691 and Lois Barclay comes to Salem, Massachusetts from Warwickshire, England to live with her mother’s brother, whom she has never met. Her father is dead and the last words of her mother before she joined him was to take a letter of introduction to her brother in America whom she believed would take in her daughter.
Upon arrival Lois is met with an unwelcoming household. Her uncle is on his death bed and doesn’t know who she is, his wife is not happy with this sudden burden and the two daughters are cold and standoffish. While the brother, who at first keeps to his religious reading, begins to accept her, until that takes a nefarious turn….
Lois is thrust into a community of Puritans whose extremist religious lifestyle makes them suspicious of outsiders. Lois’ practice of Christianity and her support for the monarchy back home and here in the colonies is not what she finds in this family. Instead, she discovers they are part of a community steeped in the letter of the law, a code of strict and scrutinized personal conformity enforced by unyielding ministers.
She tries her best to find a place here as her innate kindness guides her to nurse her uncle through his last days even though his confusion as to who she is remains painful, to put up with the dislike of her aunt who doesn’t hide her feelings and ultimately with the increased pressure to marry her cousin Manasseh, who says voices from God insist she must marry him.
Yea! It is preordained. The voice has said it, and the spirit has brought her to me as my bride.
That she, however, has no visions or dreams similarly does not dissuade him. He is firm and tells her she must “listen harder,” never missing an opportunity in passing to ask if she has heard the call, yet?
Gaskell writes in a way that makes you feel the increasing danger as the community begins to deal with accusations of witchcraft. Prayer meetings are held that last for hours as they call to banish the devil and anyone considered “consorting” with him are prayed for. Then accusations against specific people are made, exorcisms are performed, trials are conducted, hangings commence. And this is chilling, because it only takes one person to accuse and whether the people really believe what they are saying, the charges are made and there is no escaping.
Lois is absolutely shocked and bewildered when these accusations are made to her, that clearly stem from her jealous cousin Faith. No matter how upstanding a person is known to be one suggestion that they are a witch is impossible to fight, because then they are looked at differently and every tiny nuance of something not quite “normal” is suspect.
…the accused themselves ministered to the horrible panic. Some, in dread of death, confessed from cowardice to the imaginary crimes of which they were accused, and of which they were promised a pardon on confession. Some, weak and terrified, came honestly to believe in their own guilt, through the diseases of imagination which were sure to be engendered at such a time as this.
Gaskell’s characters are very realistic and her details of this subject matter confirm what we were taught in school: what a scary time to be alive!
Significant Passages
“The Sin of Witchcraft.’ We read about it, we look on it from the outside; but we can hardly realise the terror it induced. Every impulsive or unaccustomed action, every little nervous affection, every ache or pain was noticed, not merely by those around the sufferer, but by the person himself….
[They] felt a desire for some unusual kind of food – some unusual motion or rest – her hand twitched, her foot was asleep, or her leg had the cramp; and the dreadful question immediately suggested itself, “Is anyone possessing an evil power over me; by the help of Satan?”
Moreover, there was a sort of uncertainty as to who might be infected – not unlike the overpowering dread of the plague, which made some shrink from their best-beloved with irrepressible fear….And in such a case it became a duty a sacred duty, to give up the earthly body which had been once been so loved, but which was now the habitation of a soul corrupt and horrible in its evil inclinations.
The evidence might be given truly or falsely, as the person witnessing believed it or not; but everyone must see what immense and terrible power was abroad for revenge.
Classic Laurie 