Hour of the Witch

Mary endures yet another trial laced with misogyny and The Dangers of Mass Hysteria, now at a fever pitch and working in perfect tandem to perpetuate each other and result in Mary’s sentencing to the gallows. Mary protests that Thomas could just as easily be the witch, but he isn’t even brought to the courthouse during her trial, reinforcing the idea that a woman’s word is never as weighty as a man’s. The evidence stacked against Mary, including the poison and the Bible passage, is persuasive, but it’s used to justify Catherine’s claim she is a witch and not interpreted as Mary’s last resort to escape a violent marriage. Caleb’s line of questioning, too, already condemns Mary to the gallows. He says to Beth Howland, “Tell us, prithee what thou knowest of Mary Deerfield and her penchant for evil” (437, emphasis added). Though Wilder corrects Caleb, his opinion is indicative of the broader desire to believe Mary is evil and let her take the blame for the presence of witchcraft—particularly since her petition was already denied and, during her divorce trial, was already being accused of witchcraft.

Mary finally defies the courthouse by decrying the injustices she’s experienced at their hands, but the hysteria and ignorance present in her peers condemn her to death regardless of her protests—a final demonstration of Gender Roles and Violence Against Women as well as The Dangers of Mass Hysteria. Even Reverend John Norton is dismissed; he tells both Caleb and the magistrates that he doesn’t believe the tines are an indication of the Devil, and yet they remain a primary piece of evidence to convict Mary. Once Mary admits that, had her divorce been granted she would have liked very much to be with Henry, the response from the crowd suggests they finally have sufficient evidence to condemn her as both an adulteress and a witch.

The public hunger to blame Mary is not an isolated event, as both trials Mary has faced worked toward Mary’s downfall, just as previous trials did for other women like her. Mary notes this inherent bias and The Dangers of Mass Hysteria in her final speech. She tells the magistrates and the crowd, “We separated and came here to this wilderness, and so far we have shown only that we are as flawed and mortal here as we were across the ocean. There is no act of horror or violence of which man is not capable” (455, emphasis added). Mary thus points out the “horror and violence” rampant in the community to expose the hypocrisy of Puritan culture, arguing that the evil that does exist is not the result of the Devil, but of human nature. Mary has come to witness the ignorance and violence apparent in the community she lives in and makes sure that, with her final words, they know she can see them for what they are, even if they choose not to see the truth themselves.

Peregrine’s revelation that Thomas abused her mother and her allusions to possible incestual rape reveal that Peregrine has been engaging in “witchcraft” all along, except Peregrine, like Mary, uses the resources at her disposal to escape the violence she suffers at the hands of men, and hopes to help Mary do the same. Mary does murder Thomas after all, but it is in this instance that Mary owns her will in the conflict of Predetermination Versus Self-Determination. She becomes “a winged Fury” and tells Thomas to “meet the Devil’s tines” (470). Mary embodies all that’s been used against her to own her actions and confront—and defeat—Thomas, showing her total transformation of self. As the narrator reflects, “There were people in the world who were good and people who were evil, but most of them were some mixture of both and did what they did simply because they were mortal” (472, emphasis added). This passage suggests that humans are neither inherently saintly nor evil, but simply human, and that their choices—whether good or bad—are acts of agency and not divine dictation.

In the Epilogue, it is revealed that, with Mary gone, people in Boston begin to believe the murder was committed by an Indigenous tribe. It is thus clear that their ignorance and judgment are still active, and no lessons have been learned within the community. They doubted “one woman could leave such a trial of blood in her path, not even a barren one who had had the temerity to accuse her husband of such inexplicable violence” (476). Mary’s life is in direct contrast to the continued hypocrisy and fear of the Americas. The novel, however, never explicitly states that God rewards Mary and punishes the wicked, because Mary now lives a life free from wondering over the state of her soul and whether she is wicked. Instead, she is free to enjoy motherhood, marriage, and forks away from the confines of fear, danger, and violence.