Ashley Johnson
Dr. Watkins
ENGL N206-Section 003
7 May, 2018
The Witch Archetype and Female Sexuality Women have been referred to as the lesser of the two sexes for generations. Appropriately, from a young age girls are expected to be submissive and effortlessly inferior. This stereotype also speaks to that of women’s sexuality. There are certain things that “women simply must not do.”A woman should not be thought of as powerful, or dress scandalously, or even enjoy sex. Women are taught to hide their sexual desires, as it’s not for enjoyment, only a means of reproduction. Female sexuality and passion were either ignored or attacked as a form of insanity. Throughout history, witches have represented the fear of female sexuality and
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This is where the origin of our usual thoughts of witches- old women with beards, green skin, and pointy hats- comes from. While that may be the common conception of a traditional witch today, it is believed that Shakespeare originally drew his inspiration for the Wayward Sisters from Holinshed’s Chronicles, a collaborative work published in the late sixteenth century. In Holinshed’s Chronicles the witches are associated with nymphs, rather than these dark, and ugly creatures described in Macbeth.
Modern witches, however, have undergone many changes since the days of Macbeth. In fact, most witches that are shown in the media today have a tendency to be almost polar opposites of their archetypical roots. Lacking the common warts and flying broomsticks that history has so often pictured them with. In modern media, there are countless movies, television series, and books that revolve entirely around witchcraft like Harry Potter and Halloweentown. With such abundance of this classic archetype in mass media, the theme continues to remain the same from generation to
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There are many stories of witches being persecuted, like the fate of those “witches” in the Salem witch trials in the seventeenth century. Yet, we also hear these tales of powerful witches who had no limitations but their imagination. The witch archetype is similar to that of the femme fatale, and is an easy way to categorize women who are not simply one thing. It has such a large spectrum that shows the vulnerability and strength women posses. This strays from the usual binary categorization of women into the virgin/whore complex, and shows that women cannot be placed into one of two boxes that lack variation. The witch is a woman warrior, now a symbol of the modern American woman who is aware of her self-worth and in control of her
The Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts can be considered a horrendous period in American history, yet is also viewed as the turning point in what was considered acceptable in a contemporary society. In a documentation of a trial against a woman named Sarah Good, the reader is able to see the way in which such an accusation was treated and how society as a whole reacted to such a claim. Sarah Good fell victim to the witchcraft hysteria because she was different, and that fear of her divergence from the Puritan lifestyle led to her eventual demise.
Karlsen, Carol. "Witchcraft: Prejudice and Intolerance Targeted Gender During the Witch Hunts: Effects on Early Mode." setonhill.edu. n.p., 1998. Web. 18 February. .
Karlsen highlights with an remarkable accuracy, the prejudices connected with areas of the particular portrayal of women along with the linkage of the "lady as-witch" idea inside United states tradition. Many contemporary individuals ended up being perplexed by such hasty action against a force that has no evidence. Karlsen brings a plethora of ideas to the table regarding these prejudices and explains in detail, the injustices performed against entirely innocent individuals.
...ion. The Salem tragedy, which occurred in 1692, makes us feel sympathetic towards the innocent people that died. It almost brings tears to our eyes because these people gave in to death in order to maintain humanity on this Earth. Although the deaths of these people were very tragic, it clearly demonstrates that good deed will always over power evil. The people, who reinforced this statement, were people like John Proctor and Rebecca Nurse. These people uprooted the seeds for evil from the ground, to lay the seeds for goodness. Throughout history citizens have branded people as witches, and warlocks. Maybe, a person act's different than us, or they have strange habits, does this make them a witch? In the Massachusetts Bay Colony in January of 1692, you would be branded a witch for these odd doing's. Being accused of witchcraft had serious consequences (spark notes).
Witchcraft has always fascinated many people and been a very controversial topic in North America during the seventeenth and 17th centuries. Many people believe that witchcraft implies the ability to injure or use supernatural power to harm others. People believed that a witch represented the dark side of female presence and were more likely to embrace witchcraft than men. There are still real witches among us in the Utah who believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion dealing with the occult. However, the popular conception of a witch has not changed at least since the seventeenth century; they still caused panic, fear and a variety of other emotions in people.
Comprised of a theocratic justice system, The Crucible highlights Salem’s prodigious tendency to believe ‘that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world’, ‘for they were united from top to bottom by a commonly held ideology whose perpetuation was the reason and justification for all their sufferings’. However, ironically it was this common ideology that lead to the corrupt legal system which eliminated the goodness and integrity of the common man. Justifying even the smallest of circumstances with phrases from the Bible, the Puritans of Salem turned to holy book hoping for an explanation for the girls’ odd and “extremely” sexual behaviour in the forest. ‘Thou shall not suffer a witch to live’ arose when Mr Hale an ‘eager-eyed intellectual’ with a knowledgable outlook in witchcraft—the ‘most precise science’—journeyed to Salem to observe the strange conduct of the girls. Nevertheless, as bravely put in Wendy Schissel’s Feminist Reading of The Crucible, the girls were ‘caught in scandalous behaviour in a society that provides no outlet for exuberance, much less sexual exploration’ it might be worth considering ‘whether eating disorders today, or other related dysfunctions, could be similar last-ditch for girls facing dilemmas to which they see no healthy solutions.’
The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be women and most of those who were accused and executed for being witches were women. Why were women there so many women accused of witchcraft compared to men? Were woman accused of witchcraft because men thought it was a way to control these women? It all happened in 1692, in an era where women were expected to behave a certain way, and women were punished if they threatened what was considered the right way of life. The emphasis of this paper is the explanation of Salem proceedings in view of the role and the position of women in Colonial America.
In today’s times, witches are the green complexed, big nosed ladies who ride around on broomsticks at Halloween. Back in the 1600’s, witches looked like average people, but they worked alongside the devil. Salem, Massachusetts, was a religious town of Puritans. They were strong believers in God, and had believed that witches were the devils workers. Everything was usual in Salem in 1692, until, 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigale Williams had sudden outbursts of screaming, contortions and convulsions, the doctor came and diagnosed witchcraft (Blumberg, Jess) And from this time on, the people of Salem believed there were witches all around them.
Although witch trials were not uncommon in Puritanical New England, none had reached such epidemic proportions as Salem. In 1691 the mass hysteria began when several young girls dabbled in witchcraft and began acting strange. When villagers took notice the girls were seriously questioned and so they began naming people, mainly woman, who had supposedly bewitched them (Boyer, p66). Several other who had been accused were woman displayed ‘unfeminine’ behavior and those who
“The Devil in the Shape of a Woman” was an excellent book that focuses on the unjusts that have been done to women in the name of witchcraft in Salem, and many other areas as well. It goes over statistical data surrounding gender, property inherence, and the perceptions of women in colonial New England. Unlike the other studies of colonial witchcraft, this book examines it as a whole, other then the usual Salem outbreaks in the late 17th century.
The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria was a product of women’s search for power. This claim is supported by Lyle Koehler, from A Search for Power: The “weaker sex” in seventeenth-century New England (University of Illinois, 1980), explained and argues why this is true. Koehler mentions that the women were in search for more power and respect and power equality. She mentioned that the men were afraid of witches because they felt they were superior to them which brought in the question of who really was the superior gender. But really, the women accused others as being witches so as to gain more power from men. Basically, this showed that the women were not afraid of controlling or taking the power from men. In the seventeenth century, the men had power; so therefore, women did anything and would do anything to gain more power than the men. In puritan society, the only women with any significant power were mothers. They had powers not only in their homes but also in the public as long as they accused people of being witches. They also implicated others to achieve this power. An example that Koehler gave would be sociologist Dodd Bogart’s conclusion that “demon or witch charges are attempt to restore “self-worth, social recognition, social acceptance, social status and other related social rewards” is pertinent to the Salem village situation.
I Married a Witch (1942) conveys the tale of how Jennifer, a powerful witch, which no mere mortal man could ever control ends up falling in love with Wallace Wooley, a man whose descendants angered her in which she cursed them for centuries. She fights over a series of unfortunate events: going against her father, destroying Wallace Wooley’s wedding, running away with him, marrying, and losing her powers; in the end Jennifer is successfully able to lead a happy domestic life. This film reflects society’s norms, limitations, and standards for women during the 1940s-1960s era. These ideologies of women being obedient, having no real power, and the expectations to get married really was an outcry to the so-called privileges women had.
...ches and witchcraft have been passed down through generations to generations. From way back to the 1200’s to today in the present times, that is how long witches have been around. As of the history of witches and witchcraft, stories were used to keep the history alive inside the stories written in ancient mythology to Walt Disney’s movies. Check your family history. What and who were they. Were they witch hunters or were they a witch? There’s more to the story of Halloween or All Hallows Eve than meets the eye. What story or legend will come next?
In examining the "evil" female characters we have encountered in Shakespeare's tragedies -- Regan, Goneril, and Lady Macbeth, the primary corrupting factor that links these women is their desire for or exercise of power. When comparing these women with Desdemona and Cordelia, who relinquish their power to men, the concept of "good" and "bad" women in Shakespeare's tragedies becomes overly simplified.
The witch is both vulnerable and a powerful figure. The resulting tension between power and powerlessness as a response to laws created by those in power, rather institutionalised power: men, can be seen as expressed through such binary metaphors as that of physical strength and beauty versus weakness and ugliness, kn...