Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Escaping Salem, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Women, Witchcraft, and the Subversion of Gender Norms
Fear, Law, and Control
Practical Threats vs. Spiritual Betrayals
Scapegoating and Blame
Summary
Analysis
William Jones, Connecticut’s deputy governor, was a member of the special court assembled to try the accused witches of Stamford and Compo. In the summer of 1692, Jones drafted a memorandum outlining the procedure for prosecuting an accused witch—Jones knew he had to tread carefully presiding over two cases that carried the death penalty, especially cases in which most of the evidence was circumstantial or based in hearsay. Thought magistrates worked hard to ensure that they were considering only concrete evidence, in many witch trials, the public felt that circumstantial stories and anecdotes were more than enough to prove that a woman was a witch.
For a person’s testimony of another’s malevolence to be dismissed was a painful, even unforgivable thing in these small Puritan communities. A neighbor’s word was supposed to be good enough, especially when evil forces were involved. In trials concerning witchcraft, however, legislators were placed in the difficult position of needing to make a decision that would satisfy the community’s fears and grievances without falling into the trap of creating widespread panic and unchecked suspicion.
Themes
Jones’s detailed memorandum, Grounds for Examination of a Witch, offered up instances in which a person could be tried as a witch. These included “notorious defamation by […] common report,” “mischief,” illness, or death following a quarrel or a cursing. Evidence of a person having “the Devil’s mark,” or an extra breast or nipple, was also sufficient. Because Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson were both commonly reported to be witches—and because they had, it seemed, cursed their enemies’ livestock—there were grounds for their examinations.
William Jones sought to temper the flood of allegations he may have perceived as a threat to his community’s sense of camaraderie and mutual trust. If there were not clear grounds for what constituted witchcraft, anything could be perceived as the work of the Devil. Jones insisted upon finding physical evidence of a person’s association with the Devil rather than relying solely on hearsay and circumstantial evidence.
Themes
Both women were also reported to have a “Devil’s mark,” and so the court appointed a group of women to inspect both Goody Clawson and Goody Disborough for extra breasts. Goody Clawson was reported to have no abnormalities after all—but Mercy Disborough was found to have “a teat or something like one in her privy parts, at least an inch long, which is not common in other women.” Further and later examinations by different groups of women revealed conflicting reports about what “marks” the women did or did not have—and whether those marks were natural or supernatural in nature. The court ordered repeated searches of the women’s bodies, determined to find the “hard evidence” that only the presence of the Devil’s mark could provide.
In this passage, Godbeer describes the intense and invasive physical scrutiny that women suspected of witchcraft were subjected to. In the search for physical evidence that could be used against them, women accused of witchcraft were treated like objects to be prodded and experimented on. Their bodies became liabilities—and any physical feature that deviated from the norm of what women’s bodies were meant to look like was literally demonized.
Themes
The second part of Jones’s guide provided methods of “proving” that a person was a witch. Some outdated “proofs” included burning a person with an iron or scalding water to see if they reacted; if they did not, they were a witch. While this method was considered barbaric by the 1690s, “ducking”—or tying a person up and submerging them in water to see if they floated, proving their status as a witch—was still more or less accepted. Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson both enthusiastically agreed to being ducked. Both women were ducked—and both floated. Jones, however, felt that because ducking was not mentioned in the Bible, it was an invention of the Devil. He did not trust the “evidence” that ducking provided.
This passage demonstrates the lengths to which legislators went to find acceptable modes of physical evidence to use in witchcraft cases. Physical evidence was necessary yet hard to come by because of Puritans’ profound belief that the Devil could interfere in their earthly affairs. Anything that seemed to support a person’s use of witchcraft, then, might also be the Devil trying to mislead an entire community.
Themes
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Katherine Branch’s claims of having seen both women appear to her as specters in the night were also suspect. The court perceived these “cunning” apparitions to be unreliable because they were “received only on the Devil’s authority.” Only voluntary confession from the accused witch, or the testimony of two trustworthy witnesses who had observed the accused witch consorting with the Devil, were regarded as sufficient proof of witchcraft.
Just as physical evidence was subject to doubt, individual testimony—especially that of a young woman—was similarly seen as an inscrutable liability. When nothing could be trusted because of the Devil’s potential interference, no one could be believed. This impossible catch-22 no doubt fueled the atmosphere of panic, uncertainty, and constant suspicion that spawned the witch trials in the first place.
Themes
Godbeer writes that the reasoning for such strict parameters for evidence was rooted in the fact that people who accused their neighbors of witchcraft were not primarily concerned with the “spiritual betrayal” of a person consorting with the Devil. Rather, they were concerned with the “practical menace[s]” associated with witchcraft: curses that took the form of illness, famine, or the death of livestock.
This passage gets at the central contradiction of witch trials: witchcraft was just as much a pragmatic threat as it was an existential betrayal. Puritans, Godbeer asserts, were often more interested in protecting their bodies and their property than saving the souls of their neighbors or rooting Satan out of their communities.
Themes
In light of little reliable evidence supporting Katherine Branch’s claims about Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough—and the many layers of suspicion surrounding witchcraft cases—William Jones likely began to worry about whether someone was urging Katherine to make these accusations. The inconsistencies in the findings of marks on the women’s bodies—as well as both Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson’s claims that they themselves were being tormented by the Devil while locked in their cells—further obscured the truth.
When the majority of the available evidence in a case was hearsay—and when even paltry physical proof was suspected to be the work of the Devil himself—nothing and no one could be considered truly trustworthy. The spiritual realm was invisible and impossible to legislate, control, or predict—and thus, every investigation into spiritual matters was complex and uncertain.
Themes
The last bastion of evidence that could be used against the women was proof that they used the Devil’s powers to predict the future or summon ghosts. Fortune-telling and weather prediction were skills attributed to “cunning folk” throughout New England—many of whom were seen as healers and benign predicters of the future by their neighbors, even if their actions raised the suspicions of the local clergy. If evidence could be found of Goody Clawson or Goody Disborough using “cunning” powers, they might be convicted yet—but William Jones was increasingly worried about what the women’s accusers would have to say if their “cunning” could not be proved.
Coincidences were not enough for William Jones, and neither was hearsay or even physical evidence. Only the women’s direct use of supernatural powers seemed to be enough to prove their facility with Satan. Jones was treading extremely carefully as he built cases against Goody Disborough and Goody Clawson—but with such an abundance of caution, it seemed that the community would never get the convictions they craved.
Themes
