Hour of the Witch

“How is it I am humiliated when I am alone? Does not humiliation demand an audience?”

Mary’s personal thoughts and introspection, which figure heavily in the narrative and the theme of Predetermination Versus Self-Determination, often examine her feelings and responses to abuse, barrenness, and the men in Boston. This quotation reveals both the secrecy of Thomas’s abuse and Mary’s response to it, as she grapples with what the “humiliation” she feels while victimized means. Her musings also reflect the prevalence of humiliation as a tool of public discipline in 1660s Boston, as evidenced later by the Quaker who is marched through the streets.

“Signs, after all, were everywhere; it was just a question of knowing how to read them.”

Signs of both faith and sin appear throughout Hour of the Witch to guide Mary and her peers to the answers they seek (See: Symbols & Motifs). However, “knowing how to read a sign” depends upon the character and, for Mary, signs become muddled as she tries to determine the difference between her faith and her damnation—or, whether she is a product of the Devil or simply being human.

“She imagined the deserts in Hebrews, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, and she saw her womb now the way she had heard different preachers describe those unfathomably arid, waterless worlds. Barren. A word, it seems, for worlds and for women.”

Mary, who has yet to bear a child with Thomas, carries the guilt and grief of not being able to produce a child—something granted to women by God as their sole duty and very much believed to determine a woman’s worth in 1660 Boston, reflecting the strict gender roles of Puritan society. In this passage, Mary realizes the comparison even the Bible makes to lands unconquerable and unforgiving and, therefore, a detriment to mankind.

“All I want thee to know is this: thou art a woman facing men who would be comfortable to see thee dangling there.”

Constance reminds Mary what she’ll face when she appears before the magistrates. Constance, wise and already the subject of social ridicule and judgment, points out that the scales of justice are already imbalanced and that Mary, like all women, must try harder in the judgment of men—simply because she is a woman. Constance’s warning reflects Gender Roles and Violence Against Women in Puritan society.

“We are mortals, and try as we might, we see through a glass darkly.”

Reverend Norton uses this metaphor, quoting from the Apostle Paul, to temper Mary’s expectations after she claims there will be justice at her divorce hearing. Here, Reverend Norton is alluding to the unfair circumstances against which Mary must present her case; namely that the court will already perceive Mary through lenses of judgment, tradition, and gender. This is ironic, as well, since the court and its attendants are supposed to be arbiters of justice with a commitment to God and their faith.

“She grew self-conscious as she was sworn in, wanting to smile to show that she was pretty and kind, but fearful that smiling would suggest she was frivolous: oblivious to the stakes before her.”

As Mary appears for the first time before the Court of Assistants to present her case for divorce, she feels the impossible expectations placed upon women. In this case, not only is Mary petitioning to escape domestic violence, but she must also perform in such a way that she can also evade public violence if she is condemned as a witch.

“Still, her mind roamed to the mysteries of the Devil’s tines and her barrenness. She thought of her needs in the night. She knew who she was; she knew what she was. Yes, Goody Howland was exaggerating either by delusion or by design. But did it matter? The woman had seen clearly into her soul.”

This passage demonstrates the complicated nature of Predetermination Versus Self-Determination that drives Mary’s conflicts in the novel. Mary does lust after Henry, she explores her own pleasure, and she eventually plans to murder Thomas—all things that trouble her as potentially sinful. Mary thus seeks signs and struggles to determine what is right or wrong, of God or the devil, as she navigates her situation.

“I am…damned. I am a wastrel and a whore, and I have taken my Lord God’s love and treated it like sewage.”

Mary worries that she is an impure soul worth the torture and punishment she receives, both from Thomas and her peers in Boston, at various times in the novel. The paradox, however, is that Mary’s choices and actions are either a direct response to the violence she faces, or human urges and impulses that she should usually have but are viewed as sinful because she is a woman.

“So, let us gathered here focus on the petition and only on the petition, and not lose sight of the wisdom of God’s carefully wrought hierarchy: He rules over man and man rules over animals. Likewise, parents rule over children—and a man rules over his wife.”

The natural hierarchy, as ordained by God and repeated here in Caleb Adams’s final remarks during Mary’s divorce trial, is frequently referenced in the novel as justifying Gender Roles and Violence Against Women. The hierarchy compares man to God and women to animals and children, suggesting that women need to be “ruled” instead of treated as equals.

“There is nothing that frightens a man more than a woman who does not live happily under a man’s thumb.”

Women are ordained by God in the novel to be submissive to their husbands, and to men more broadly. Women are therefore subjected to all kinds of methods and injustices to keep them submissive and docile—including tales of witchcraft, because to oppose this natural order is to defy God.

“There comes a time when resistance is not zealotry, but sanity.”

Constance shows her wisdom here and reveals more of her character: Her defiance of Boston society and refusal to adhere to their norms is not heresy but instead a form of protection. As the narrative goes on, this becomes apparent to Mary, who starts to understand The Dangers of Mass Hysteria and social ostracism in her own plight.

“Men who crave darkness are the objects of a wrath that no mortal mind can imagine. They will see their skin seared from the arms and their bones blackened, they will watch the flames turn their legs to charred logs and their feet to ash.”

During the sermon from Reverend John Norton where Mary discovers the passage, she’s been seeking, he also delivers this foreboding message to his church population. The ideology of the time—that sinners deserve to burn in Hell and experience unimaginable torture—dictates much of the rhetoric for the same fate that accused witches eventually meet. The biblical undertones of both justice and sin inform human relations in the Puritan community and, in particular, their violence.

“She imagined crouching inside her, rather like an infant in her womb, a monstrous imp—a shrunken gargoyle at the beck and call of the Devil—its talons ready to gouge out her flesh. This would be the beast she would birth, and the only one ever.”

Mary is not immune to the ideologies of her time; in this passage she envisions her barrenness as a sign of her innate evil and as a just cause for her to make a pact with the Devil. The horrific imagery, too, is in line with the monstrous imaginings that fueled The Dangers of Mass Hysteria in the period. Though Mary doesn’t believe this completely, she cannot escape the thoughts as they enter her mind.

“If this was a sign she was damned, so be it. But her Lord God was a mystery and had placed monsters before her. And so it was just as possible that she was merely a pilgrim doing her best to navigate the evils in a path that would eventually lead to paradise.”

This passage demonstrates Mary’s quest for self-determination in a society, which consistently tells her she is defined by her role as a wife and servant of God. It’s also significant to note the use of the word “pilgrim,” since Pilgrims were, unlike Puritans, separatists from the Church of England who believed the path to salvation would come only by a complete break from the Church and its ideologies. Mary thus stages her own rebellion in choosing her agency in the conflict between Predetermination Versus Self-Determination.

“Cruelty by definition is needless.”

Though the definition of cruelty is given in court, and while Thomas’s violence against Mary is “needless,” this definition bears little weight on the evidence in the trial. In fact, Caleb and Thomas both think that if the violence was administered as a lesson in discipline, then it is a necessity. This definition, however, is a larger commentary on the needless cruelty that defines Gender Roles and Violence Against Women in Mary’s society.

“Thy barren wife—thy stinking, filthy, dullard of a wife—has a body designed once more to repulse me.”

Thomas’s malevolence and disgust for Mary, almost always unprovoked, in this instance is representative of a larger misogynistic ideology that women are to blame for their bodily functions. Barrenness, menstruation, and pleasure or desire are all seen as marks of uncleanliness, sin, or unworthiness. Thomas voices such beliefs in this passage.

“She waited with a peace and contentment that she supposed was felt usually by the elect.”

As Mary plots her murder of Thomas, she feels a kind of peace and, maybe more accurately, a sensation of power. Her reflection that such “contentment” is possibly “felt […] by the elect” is an ironic subversion of Puritan religious ideology, suggesting that Mary is achieving “peace” not through being one of God’s “elect” destined for heaven, but through vengeance on earth.

“Does the Devil discriminate? I had no idea.”

Mary asks this of her scrivener when she tells Benjamin it could just as likely be Thomas who is a witch. When he responds that Thomas is a man, Mary sarcastically questions that misogynistic line of reasoning—the idea that only a woman can be a witch reflects Gender Roles and Violence Against Women in Puritan society.

“The proceedings had just begun, and already they were expecting that soon their winter tedium would be broken by a most satisfying diversion: watching her life being choked from her by a rope.”

This passage reflects the desire for society to publicly witness a violent and gruesome death regardless of whether the evidence indicates the sentence is deserving, reflecting The Dangers of Mass Hysteria. The passage also suggests that much of the community’s cruelty is arbitrary instead of the result of genuinely-held beliefs.

“I have no desire to meet [the Devil]. Not ever. I have seen too much of his likeness here in Boston, even among the saints.”

Constance accuses the people of Boston of the same evil present in the Devil himself; she, like Mary, calls out the Court of Assistants and the people of Boston for their hypocrisy.

“Am I a harlot or a witch?”

Mary’s question to Beth names two archetypes women were fitted into in the time period if they did not meet the misogynistic expectations of the period. Either women were lustful and impure (“ a harlot”) or in league with the devil (“a witch”). Mary calls Beth out by wondering whether she is evil or an adulteress—knowing she is neither.

“Yes, if thou hast a mark, it would suggest thou art a witch; but just because thy body is clean, it does not mean thou are not one.”

Caleb’s response conveys the very real danger Mary is in. Regardless of the evidence she might present to show she is not a witch, if the people will it, she will be hanged for witchcraft anyway. This comment shows the reality of the time—that often, despite evidence and reality, women were accused, and some killed, based on The Dangers of Mass Hysteria alone.

“Christ died at the hands of the unseeing, too […] He was crucified because he demanded that the poor and the sinful and the children and the women be […] respected. Respected. The lowly for whom, just like Him, there was neither esteem nor hope.”

Mary’s comparison to herself as Christ, particularly in Puritan society, labels her treatment, and the treatment of women more broadly, as hypocritical. She also calls the Court “unseeing,” indicating her ability to see more clearly their actions than they themselves could. Impacted by their judgment and The Dangers of Mass Hysteria, Mary can see their failings—and calls them out for acting on them.