Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puritan Hypocrisy
Love, Values, and Attraction
Difference, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Home and Belonging
Sexism
Summary
Analysis
One June morning, Matthew tells Judith and Kit to weed one of the fields. Both girls are thrilled to spend the day outside. Judith, who has been kinder to Kit since Rachel and Mercy made Kit a plain dress to work in, leads Kit to the Great Meadows, a grassy stretch of land that each landowner uses for crops.
Judith and Kit’s excitement to go outside illustrates how both girls are confined to the indoors. In 17th-century New England, women usually spent their days completing household chores while the men worked outdoors. Given Judith and Kit’s excitement to work in the fields, it’s clear that both women find the indoor work unfulfilling.
Themes
The Great Meadows take Kit’s breath away. She finds them beautiful and calming, as the Meadows have a “sense of freedom and space and light that sp[eak] to her of home.” Looking back from the future, she had no idea how frequently she would visit the Meadows, nor did she know that they would not always be as peaceful as she first found them.
For the first time since arriving in Connecticut, Kit feels at home. The Great Meadows inspire the same sense of freedom and comfort that Kit felt in Barbados, her home country. In this way, the Great Meadows demonstrate that home is a set of feelings, not just a specific or unchanging place. But the book foreshadows that Kit will not always feel at home the Meadows—something will happen that will challenge her perception of them. Where she feels at home, then, is destined to change over time.
Themes
Impatient with Kit’s awe at the Great Meadows, Judith urges her onward. Kit catches sight of a little house and asks who lives there—don’t the Meadows flood in the spring? Judith tells her that a widow named Hannah Tupper lives there with her cats. She has lived there all alone for years and never comes to Meeting; some people think she’s a witch.
The Wethersfield Puritans assume Hannah is a witch because she is unlike them: she isn’t Puritan, she lives alone, and she has cats, animals that many Puritans associated with the devil. The Puritans of Wethersfield don’t know Hannah personally—they judge her from a distance and, because she behaves differently than they do, they are suspicious of her.
Themes
Kit catches sight of a figure stooped over a kettle in front of the house and immediately feels chilled. Even though she knows that Hannah is likely just making soap, it’s easy to assume that she’s brewing something mysterious.
After hearing that many of the townspeople think Hannah is a witch, Kit finds it tempting to believe the accusation. Even though Kit herself has been a target of the Puritans’ prejudice, it’s easy for her to fall into the same judgmental mindset.
Themes
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As Judith and Kit begin weeding the onions, Kit feels sorry for herself—in Barbados, she thinks, “a high-class slave […] would rebel” at such dirty manual labor. Longingly, she takes comfort knowing that William probably has his own servants, and that once she marries him, she’ll never have to work.
Again, Kit demonstrates her racism: she believes that there is a hierarchy to people based on their skin colors and social positions. In this case, she pities herself because she thinks that she is doing manual labor that some enslaved people would refuse to do, and she sees herself as superior to those people. Meanwhile, she looks forward to marrying William not because she has a genuine connection with him, but because she doesn’t want to work.
Themes
When Kit and Judith return home that afternoon, Mercy surprises them by announcing that the Reverend wants Kit to help Mercy to teach the dame school: Mercy teaches the town’s young children to read and write in the Woods’ kitchen. By teaching, Kit would be earning a small wage, paid for by the children’s families.
Teaching was one of the few jobs that women in 17th-century New England could do. Whether completing domestic chores or teaching, women were expected to take care of children in some capacity.
Themes
Kit is pleased—she hopes that teaching will mean that she won’t have to do manual labor. Later, she confides to Mercy another reason why she looks forward to teaching: now that Kit will be earning wages, maybe the Wood family won’t regret that she’s not a boy.
Kit again demonstrates her prejudice against manual labor, which she still thinks is beneath her. Kit hopes to prove her worth to the Woods by teaching instead, as she will be making money for the family in this role. Although a boy would have brought in more resources for the family—boys in 17th-century New England had many more opportunities for employment—Kit will at least have something to offer the Woods.
Themes
Mercy realizes that Kit must have overheard Judith’s bitter wishing that Kit had been a boy. She quickly tells her that no one meant any malice; rather, Matthew has always needed a boy to help with the work. In fact, Rachel had given birth to two boys, but both died very young. Feeling sorry for bringing it up, Kit lets go of her anger. But she can’t stop thinking of Rachel, and how her grandfather had said she was once such a joyful woman.
As Mercy points out, it is a given that boys are more useful than girls in 17th-century New England, because society permits boys to help with agricultural work. This era’s sexism didn’t just limit women’s opportunities—it also taught them that they were less valuable than men. But nevertheless, when Mercy explains how badly Matthew and Rachel have wanted a boy, and how the couple lost two children, Kit is able to empathize with them.
Themes
