Economy and Responsibility in The Witch of Edmonton

Economic problems seem to be to blame in The Witch of Edmonton. The play suggests that it is the poverty of Elizabeth Sawyer that makes people first accuse her of being a witch. I just finished reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and in this book there is an example that I think applies to Elizabeth. A young woman is about to be hanged because she stole a piece of cloth to sell for food. The priest at the execution makes a speech saying that yes the woman is guilty, but that she would not have stolen anything if it hadn't been for her poverty, which was a direct result of the unfair laws. I think that this can apply to Elizabeth because she is living in poverty probably because she is a widow and has no way of making a living for herself. Women were almost completely helpless in this time period if they were not married or still living in their father's household. I can feel sorry for Elizabeth because it seems like she might have been driven into being a witch because of her economic situation. And then there is Frank; he uses his financial situation as an excuse to marry two women. While I can see how Elizabeth might have a case with the economic situation, Frank is not taking responsibility for his actions. He also says that "To please a father I have heaven displeased" (Act 4, scene 2, line 102). This is his way of rationalizing why he killed Susan, but he is just using his father as a scapegoat. Frank did married Susan because he wanted a better relationship with his father, yet his underlying reason was so that he would not be cut-off financially. Frank is a character that gets forgiven even though no one forced him to do anything, while Elizabeth is labeled a witch mostly because of her economic situation.

I know that I titled this entry 'Economy and Responsibility", but I am going to talk about other things now. I find it interesting that there are so many parallels to Dr. Faustus in this play. The dog come to Elizabeth right after she has cursed Old Banks and Metastophilis comes to Faustus while he is also cursing. The belief back then was that the devil had greater access to you because of what you said. This was used as a warning to keep people from speaking badly and because they really did believe the devil could come to them. Another parallel is on the stage directions on page 163; "sucks her arm, thunder and lighting". The dog has just sucked blood from her arm and then there is thunder and lighting, which I think symbolizes that nature is against the union. Nature does not want her to fall into such evil and is trying to warn her against going ahead with the partnership. The same thing happens to Dr. Faustus when he is trying to seal the deal with Metastophilis in his blood. His blood clots, which is a warning from nature that he is making an evil deal and should not go on. Both he and Elizabeth do not listen to nature and end up being damned to hell becuase of it. There is one more similiarity that I find interesting; the dog and Metastophilis both say they are the servants to Faustus and Elizabeth, but they do not do most of the things asked of them. The biggest reason that they cannot do all that is asked of them seems to be that it is out of their power, that the request goes over into what God controls. Even though there evil servants say they have a lot of power, they actually only have limited power. Elizabeth and Faustus cannot see this and so they think that now they have unlimited power, although they have less power than their servants.

One last thing about Elizabeth - the real reason I think she was hanged. On page 187 she gets into an argument with the Justice, who had just been defending her. The Justice said that the men needed to get better proof id they were going to accuse Elizabeth of being a witch, and then she goes and is disrespectful. She calls out all the hiprocracy in the society and acts like she did not need the Justice's help. This highly offended the Justice who then puts her in jail. I think that if she had been more respectful and thanked him for his help things might have turned out differently. It is obvious that the Justice was skepetical of witches because he wanted better proof, but Elizabeth's reaction was what got her hanged.

I really enjoyed this play. There were many different sub-plots and I think that by having more than one story it made the play more interesting. The reader can compare the different stories and see how they relate to each other in the entire context of the play.