53 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas Dekker, John Ford, William RowleyThe Witch of Edmonton
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1621A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act II, Scene 1 Summary
Elizabeth Sawyer is gathering firewood. She rants about how unfair it is that the community scapegoats her for any ill fortune, due to her poverty, poor education, and poor physical condition. When they call her a witch, she wants to get revenge. Old Banks enters, and he verbally abuses her and beats her for gathering firewood on his land; he also calls her a witch. She curses him, wishing physical ailments on him. After he leaves, she wonders how she can truly learn witchcraft and get a familiar—a companion to a witch that often takes the form of an animal.
Old Banks’s son, Young Cuddy Banks, enters with several other young men. They are preparing for a Morris dance, which is a communal English folk dance performed by a troupe who practice together. They banter about what instruments they will need and how many bells they will wear strapped to their legs. They discuss who will be the leader, and who will be the hobby-horse, which is a costumed character that Young Banks wants to play. Slighted that he is not the obvious choice for this role, he consults an almanac (an astrological chart) and dismisses having a hobby-horse at all, predicting bad luck for the dance. The group teasingly apologizes, flatters him, and promises him new additions to his costume. Then they spot Elizabeth, and they express their fear of her and verbally abuse her for being a witch. They leave in a ritualistic manner that is supposed to negate the bad influence of witches and the devil.
Elizabeth laments this cruel ostracization. She again wishes she knew how to get a familiar, so they could help her seek revenge. She says she is willing to give herself up to her fury, abandoning prayer.
Dog appears—he is a familiar who has taken the form of a dog—and introduces himself to Elizabeth as the devil. Despite her fear and distrust, he persuades her to enter a covenant with him. He says he will carry out revenge on those who have wronged her in return for ownership of her body and soul. To seal the arrangement, he sucks her blood. She then commands him to go and kill Old Banks, but he says he can’t. When she threatens to cancel the pact, he laughs at her. He explains that his power is limited: Old Banks is generally good, though not entirely so, so Dog can’t kill him; he can only meddle with his crops and livestock.
Dog teaches Elizabeth a short incantation with which to invoke his powers against someone, using Latin that is reminiscent of the Lord’s Prayer. He leaves and Young Bank re-enters. Elizabeth immediately uses the incantation. Young Banks hides his mistrust and is respectful toward her and apologetic about his father’s behavior. He gives her money and asks her for a favor. He says he is in love with Katherine Carter. He wants Elizabeth to use a spell to either rid him of his love or get Katherine to love him back. Elizabeth agrees, seeing this as an opportunity for revenge. Getting him to turn away, she summons Dog and uses the incantation; Dog leaves soon after. Young Banks is afraid of the strange Latin mumblings he has heard, but Elizabeth promises him that Katherine will be his if he follows her instructions. He must go to a particular stile near his father’s fields after dusk the next day and follow the first living thing he sees there. This will lead him to Katherine, whom he must embrace regardless of her manner toward him. Young Banks agrees.
Act II, Scene 2 Summary
Warbeck sulks to Old Carter and Somerton about Susan’s marriage to Frank, feeling affronted that they have not supported him in his pursuit of Susan. He warns Somerton that he will not be sympathetic if Katherine rejects him for someone else, but Somerton is confident in Katherine’s affection.
Susan and Frank enter. The three men congratulate them—Warbeck is polite at Somerton’s urging—and then leave. Frank seems distracted, and Susan worries that she has done something wrong. Frank insists she hasn’t and praises her. Susan is not convinced by his flattery and keeps questioning him. Finally, Frank reveals that a respected woman fortune teller told him that he would have two wives; he also mentions Winnifride’s affections. Susan takes this to mean that he will outlive her and remarry, and she is not concerned. However, he then says that he must leave for a while, which alarms her. She fears he is going to duel Warbeck and that he told her the prophecy of the two wives to misdirect her. She says she will not leave his side until he and Warbeck have become friends. Frank marvels at her good nature.
Act II Analysis
Act II introduces the theme of The Role of the Witch in the Community with the introduction of Elizabeth Sawyer as a character. The first scene of this act opens with Elizabeth saying, “And why on me?” (2.1.1), creating the sense that she is in the middle of a rant—this is the verbal equivalent of the in medias res opening to Act I. Her words encapsulate the ongoing nature of the tension between her and the community and express her unhappiness at being singled out for the community’s mistreatment. The Morris dancers’ reaction to Elizabeth later in the scene reinforces her isolation and their prejudice—although she doesn’t do anything to them, they insult her and flee. Young Banks treats her more respectfully, even calling her “mother,” but he makes it clear in his asides to the audience that he does not trust her—he is just desperate for her help. Through this interaction, the play explores the archetype of the witch: She is usually an older woman whose powers are both desired by the community but also distrusted.
Elizabeth’s opening soliloquy in this act shows that the community’s mistreatment of her gives her a desire for revenge, creating more ills in The Vicious Cycle of Evil. She says that by calling her a witch, the villagers “go / about to teach me how to be one” (4.1.9-10). Elizabeth desires to be a witch since that would give her more power; at the moment, she has to bear the villagers’ insults but has no means to hurt them back as they hurt her. Her dialogue with Old Banks is loaded with terms that reflect the way her gender, age, and appearance impact her treatment by society: He calls her a “hag” and a “witch,” which are words associated with unattractive older women. He berates her and hits her for gathering firewood on his property, finding even her poverty offensive. Elizabeth’s only crime against her community is that she is a poor, older woman who is unattractive, but their cruelty toward her inspires her desire to hurt them.
Elizabeth’s diction in the play reflects the theme of Free Will Versus External Pressures. When Old Banks scolds her and hits her, Elizabeth responds with curses that encapsulate the Jacobean view of witchcraft as a lowly, violent art: She wishes that bones would stick in Old Banks’s “bowels, […] maw, […] midriff” (4.1.25), using graphic and undignified imagery. However, Elizabeth’s soliloquys offer a stark contrast to the crude way she speaks with the villagers. Her soliloquys, which reflect her thoughts, are in verse, which in Jacobean theatrical convention represented an elevated, poetic mode of speech. In this way, they show Elizabeth’s capability for sophisticated thought and depth of feeling. She also incorporates sophisticated metaphors in her soliloquys, in contrast to the graphic imagery of her cursing. For instance, in one soliloquy, she compares her aged body to a house that she is ready to vacate to make room for her rage. These shifts in Elizabeth’s language show the difference between her public and private self: While she is capable of reflection and beauty, the villagers’ poor treatment of her brings out her anger and meanness. Their prejudice has caused her to occupy the role society puts her in; she does not have the space to be her true self.
The action shifts to Frank Thorney’s growing web of lies in the second scene. He tries using flattery to assuage Susan’s worries about how troubled he seems, telling her, “Thou art all perfection” and referencing Greek gods and myths—Diana, Adonis, and Cupid (2.2.98-103). However, Susan is not persuaded, which reveals both her intelligence and his increasing inability to cover up his sins as the cycle of evil grows. She remains unconcerned even when he mentions the prophecy that he’ll have two wives and identifies Winnifride as the other, merely assuming he’ll outlive her. This shows that Susan trusts him completely, creating a heavy dramatic irony during this scene, as the audience knows the real reason Frank is troubled—he has been married all along. Her faith in him and in human nature juxtaposes sharply with the reality of Frank’s prior actions. This creates a sense of foreboding when set against the other characters’ behavior and the violence typical of revenge genre plays.
