The Devil In The Shape Of A Woman Summary

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

Bryce Cross

Ivy Tech Community College

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

I think the thesis of this book is to consider the different factors that contributes to a person being named a witch. These factors include sex, marital status, wealth, community standings, and relationships with others through out the community. These all played a major role in determining who was named a witch.

The author, Carol F. Karlsen, stated many of her reasons throughout her book. This book contains a lot of information about the Salem Witch Trials. Karlsen used court document, journal entries, and other many other sources to examine

these women in this Puritan society. For example, the book has the nineteen tables that show vast amounts of demographic data and facts that are supporting the author’s thesis, just as many of these accounts were tried and condemned of being a witch. But Witchcraft not only took place in New England but also in the United States. It took the place among the educated to dismiss it as mere “superstition” (Karlsen 1989 10).
The Devil in the shape of a Woman gives us a closer look at how females in the Colonial New England being indicted for witchcraft.

Although it was mostly women, there were also some men being executed during this time of witch hunting. There wasn’t a lot of younger women being convicted. "Women under forty were unlikely witches in Puritan society" (Karlsen 1989 65). Women that were forty or older were more than likely to be convicted than someone under the age. “Almost 40 percent of older women accused and brought into trial and were convicted” (Karlsen 1989 66). The book encounters many different ideas about women and how they were thought of during this period. Most of the book is filled with the trials that Karlsen is telling of the people who were accused. The witch trials were also taking place here in the united states as some of the women were being executed

here.
In fact, the very first person to be accused and executed as a witch in America was Margaret Jones in 1648.

It all started when the minister noticed her acting strange when he was a little boy that she was suspected partly because of her bitter words passing between neighbors. But the minister had also thought some of her misconduct was caused by her medical history (Karlsen 1989 20-22). She was then accused of having a “Malignant touch” and was later hung to death in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Wikipedia). Although there are only nineteen trials published in this book, there were about eighty people throughout New England that were accused of practicing witchcraft during that period. Thirteen women and two men were executed.

Some of the strengths I found while reading this book was that Karlsen goes into great depth when talking about the reasons why people were accused of witchcraft, the place where women of stand in society, and the religious intensity of the times. Although the book has more of a chain of interest in why women and men were being accused as witches and others were not, it was mostly based on their overall behavior changes. A strong example I liked was how she used stories of specific individuals to feature these

matters.
Some weaknesses I discovered while reading this book was that it was kind of slow at first to read. To me, it didn’t really have a smooth transition from each topic/ chapter. Although I did enjoy reading about the witch trials and how they acted upon each trial, I felt like they drug them out in detail which made it flat to read. Although I would not want to read this book just for fun, it was a great read for this report.
After reading this book, I would definitely recommend it to a friend for that is taking this course. I thought this book had great detail about each trial while giving me a better understanding of the times and the changes of the social order that was occurring, which in fact parallels to today’s society. For example, the book had an excellent examination of the factors affecting the social views of women which some are still very relevant today. The author even goes on to talk about the possessed women after talking about the witches.

Works Cited

Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998. 66.
—. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.
Wikipedia. 17 November 2017. 1 May 2018.