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.
Themes
The Vicious Cycle of Evil
The theme of the vicious cycle of evil is central to The Witch of Edmonton. Whether motivated by material gain or revenge, several characters in the play choose to perform immoral actions. These have far-reaching consequences that lead them into further immorality, thereby creating a vicious cycle of deepening evil and moral degradation.
The two major plots in the play are driven by this theme. Frank Thorney finds that a small immoral action—sleeping with Winnifride outside wedlock—begins a chain of events that spirals outside of his control. He secretly marries her to save her from societal censure for having a baby out of wedlock, but this decision lays the ground for his subsequent ill deeds. Having married Winnifride without his father’s permission, he is then pressured into a bigamous marriage of his father’s choice. Frank does not anticipate the depth of his second wife’s affections for him, which makes her reluctant to part from him. He murders her out of frustration, afraid that she will discover his secrets, and this is the climax of his path of moral corruption. Frank feels that he is swept in events that have snowballed beyond his control: He says he has “waded deeper into mischief / Than virtue can avoid. But on [he] must. / Fate leads [him], [he] will follow” (1.2.198-200). These lines embody an idea that was common in tragedies of this period—that characters sow the seed of their own fate, which then spirals out of their control. The same idea appears in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, for example, in which Macbeth’s ambition leads him to commit one murder, but in order to cover that one misdeed, he is forced to kill several others against his will.
While Frank’s crimes are motivated by self-interest, Elizabeth Sawyer’s story arc explores a different variation of this theme: revenge. Elizabeth and the village community prompt each other to commit evil deeds motivated by revenge. Elizabeth is the central example of this, and the play uses the mouthpiece of Dog to explicitly identify her motivations—Dog says that what Elizabeth wants is “just revenge against [her] foes” (2.1.134-36). However, the play makes it clear that revenge is only a source of further destruction even for the person enacting it. Due to her desire for it, Elizabeth enters a contract with the devil, who appears as her familiar in the form of Dog. However, Dog ultimately betrays her; he is uninterested in helping her once she is damned and sentenced to hang. Elizabeth’s narrative ends in tragedy since she has no hope of salvation, and she is bitter until the very end; even on her way to the gallows, the villagers hound her, taunting her for being a witch.
Old Banks and the other countrymen of Edmonton are also implicated in this cycle of revenge. In fact, they are responsible for initiating it by mistreating Elizabeth and blaming her for misfortunes such as ill animals or bad crops. They label her as a witch, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Elizabeth says: “Some call me witch […] they go / About to teach me how to be one” (2.1.8-10), showing that her desire for evil and revenge stem from their cruelty toward her. The villagers’ unfair scapegoating of Elizabeth brings further ills upon them, pushing her to fill the role they created for her.
However, The Witch of Edmonton ends with some optimism—at least for Frank Thorney—by suggesting that though dire consequences cannot be avoided, a cycle of evil can be broken. Frank acknowledges his wrongs and repents before his death, and in turn the villagers forgive him. They offer each other support rather than attributing further blame. Even Old Carter offers Winnifride a place in his household, and he agrees to support Old Thorney despite his son’s actions. Winnifride hopes to see Frank in heaven after her own death, which shows that the characters hope that Frank’s heartfelt repentance will earn him divine redemption. The play closes by showing that through acknowledging wrongs and striving to be good, characters can overcome the vicious cycle of evil.
Free Will Versus External Pressures
The Witch of Edmonton examines how characters struggle to exercise free will in the face of societal and supernatural pressures. Elizabeth Sawyer faces socio-economic pressures: She is poor, old, and a woman of low social standing. When she tries to take some firewood from Old Banks’ land to survive, Old Banks—who is a landowner and a man, and who therefore has more social and economic clout than Elizabeth—beats her and damages her reputation by calling her a witch. The play shows that the entire community ostracizes her. When the group of Morris dancers sees her, they all shout at her and flee from her, afraid that she is a witch. Elizabeth blames the community for pushing her to commit evil actions, suggesting they superseded her free will; she says: “This they enforce upon me” (2.1.14). Similarly, Frank Thorney blames familial and economic pressures for his immoral choices, using the same root word as Elizabeth Sawyer does: “force.” Frank says: “Let my father then make the restitution, / Who forced me to take the bribe” (3.2.22-23). In this way, he, too, blames external pressures for his actions, renouncing his responsibility for his misdeeds by saying that his free will was overpowered by external pressures.
In addition to socioeconomic pressures, supernatural forces also impact character’s choices. Dog, who is a manifestation of the devil, manipulates Elizabeth Sawyer into signing a contract that gives him her soul. He sympathizes with her and even says he loves her, and Elizabeth immediately turns to him for comfort since she is so lonely and has known only cruelty from the villagers. Also, Dog literally leads Young Banks down the wrong path into a lake, which is a metaphor for being led astray morally. Additionally, the play implies that Dog even influences Frank Thorney—he rubs against him before Frank decides to murder Susan; then, Dog helps Frank execute his plan.
However, the play ultimately argues that despite these external pressures, characters retain their free will and are thus responsible for their actions. In this regard, Winnifride represents a narrative foil to both Elizabeth and Frank. She faces similar societal and economic pressures since she is a woman from a poor background (a servant) who conceived a child out of wedlock. However, from the very start of the play, she acknowledges that she sinned in the past (according to the moral conventions of the period) and determines to live a morally upstanding life going forward. The play rewards her for this by offering a happy ending, as Old Carter takes her into his household. The hopeful epilogue further centers her as the moral heart of the play. In the end, Frank acknowledges his own responsibility for his immoral actions, saying, “There is not one / amongst you whom I have not wronged” (5.3.12-13). Because of this true repentance, Frank and Winnifride believe they will meet again in heaven. Frank’s repentance in the final scene demonstrates a central theological idea of the period: A person can still have free will over their soul, regardless of their material circumstances, including their own past actions.
The subplot featuring Young Banks humorously reinforces the notion that characters ultimately have free will, regardless of their external circumstances. Although Dog tricks Young Banks and leads him into a pond, Young Banks overcomes his initial anger by acknowledging that he was the one who made the choice to follow Dog, stating: “’Twas my own fault” (3.1.116). Despite interacting with Dog and developing affection for the animal, Young Banks’s good intentions protect him from Dog’s evil influence, as he never meant harm to anyone. Dog says that “thy evil purposes / Are ever haunted” (5.1.141-42), explaining that it is a person’s evil intentions that allow the devil to influence them. Young Banks comedically sums up this theme by referencing a well-known proverb as he holds a bowl of beer in front of his wooden hobby horse, saying: “You see, gentlemen, we can but bring our horse to the water; he may choose whether he’ll drink or no” (3.4.34-35). While external pressures can have a huge influence on characters’ actions, their free will and choices are still powerful in the face of external forces.
The Role of the Witch in the Community
Through Elizabeth Sawyer’s story, the play examines beliefs about witchcraft and witches in 16th-century England, and these influence the action of the play. For instance, the character of Dog reflects a popular idea that witches were accompanied by an animal familiar that is a manifestation of the Devil. Dog is supposed to look like a dog but is played by a human actor; he significantly impacts the narrative. For instance, Dog spurs characters on to commit evil acts and tricks them into damning themselves. The play also includes other typical beliefs about witches, such as the ideas that they have a third nipple from which their animal familiars suckle their blood and that they will be forced to appear if someone burns a tiny amount of thatch from the witch’s roof.
However, the play also critiques the popular understanding of witchcraft, and this has an equal impact on the narrative. For instance, the villagers blame Elizabeth for a variety of misfortunes—such as crop failures or sick livestock—and the play shows that she is initially not responsible for any of these. In her first monologue, she expresses her bitterness about her mistreatment at the hands of the villagers and wishes she had the power to carry out the deeds she is accused of. Later in the play, after Dog arrives and Elizabeth uses his help to carry out her revenge on the villagers, the play satirizes the nature of the villagers’ complaints about witchcraft. For example, Old Banks says that Elizabeth’s spells are forcing him to kiss his cow’s rear, while another countryman blames his wife’s infidelity on witchcraft. Also, the Justice calls the villagers’ accusations against Elizabeth “Ridiculous!” and warns them that “unless [their] proofs come better armed […] [they’ll] prove [themselves] stark fools” (4.1.49-51). Without dismissing the idea of witchcraft, the play shows that popular notions about witches and witchcraft are fatuous at best and dangerous and unfair at worst.
Elizabeth points out that old, poor women are often accused of being witches, showing that these accusations are discriminatory and are leveled at those without any social clout. She says: “Now an old woman / Ill-favoured grown with years, if she be poor / Must be called bawd or witch” (4.1.134-37). This line highlights society’s use of the idea of witchcraft to scapegoat this vulnerable demographic. The play also shows the escalation of social tension into violence, justified by the idea that Elizabeth is a witch: A mob gathers, shouting, “Out witch! Beat her, kick her, set fire on her!” (4.2.33). Finally, they are satisfied when she is executed for her crimes. In this way, the crowd’s aggression is portrayed as being as vengeful as Elizabeth’s evil acts.
