Real and Becoming

When my boyfriend inquired into my reading earlier today, and I informed him that I was reading The Witch of Edmonton, the first thing he asked was, "So is it a real witch?" Good question. I had just begun Act II, and I could not tell him. A familiar included in the character list seems to imply "real" supernatural action, but at the beginning of the second act, Mother Sawyer appears to be no more than a weary old woman. If our studies this semester have taught me anything, it is that the line between being and seeming is questionable, and I could not pass judgment.

I know now that Elizabeth Sawyer is indeed a witch, but my hesitation in bestowing the title was well-founded: she was not at the time Clayton asked. In her first entrance, she bemoans her undeserved reputation, claiming that her fellow citizens "go about to teach" her how to be a witch by goading her to curses with their constant accusations. To be fair, she is not exactly the spirit of courtesy and longsuffering, but she may have been once; we enter her story too late to tell. At the point we meet her, she is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Years of distrust have made her untrustworthy.

We are given only a couple of pages in which to pity Mother Sawyer, but it is enough. She is unfairly judged, and dangerously so, for her time. It is her cursing that brings the devil upon her, but it is persecution that brings the cursing. "Tis all one To be a witch as to be counted one," as she puts it. People will believe what they want to believe. For a woman accused of witchcraft, however, those beliefs could be deadly. Endangered by her fellow people, it is small wonder Sawyer should turn to the devil for "protection."

This suggests an interesting third element to the being/seeming issue. We must also deal with "becoming." A thing which holds power in our minds holds power; it does not matter whether it warrants the power we give it. Part of the draw of the supernatural is that it does not have to be real to be kinetic. In Mother Sawyer's case, she becomes what she seems to be. That is, seeming leads to being. I find her occult powers to be as much a punishment on her accusers for their persecution as on herself for her cursing. A misplaced belief can be a dangerous thing. Now, more so than in earlier works we read, we glimpse something that is not fate, but a terrifying human power to create what it will.