Hour of the Witch

Mary becomes suspicious of Peregrine’s actions, but Peregrine knows much more than Mary, or the reader, does. When Peregrine says to Mary, “Thou knowest those men, but so do I. I may know them better than thee. There are dangers I doubt thou hast ever contemplated” (195). While Mary interprets this as a threat to stay away from her husband, Peregrine is instead alluding to the abuse she and her mother experienced at the hands of Thomas. Peregrine is attempting to warn Mary, but Mary does not realize Peregrine is, after all, her ally.

Peregrine is not the only person Mary is suspicious of either, and her intuition that her parents are plotting something behind her back is correct: Her parents have planned for her petition to be denied so her name is out of the public eye, and she will be safe from the gallows. When Thomas visits her at home the night before her divorce verdict is reached, her father and Thomas share passing glances which Mary notices as strange. She asks them, “Is there something I need to know? If there is, thou must tell me. ‘Tis my life we are discussing, and it will be my life that the magistrates will be weighing” (199). Though Mary demands an answer, she does not receive it because neither Thomas nor her parents believe her life is hers to control, reflecting their beliefs on Gender Roles and Violence Against Women. Mary notices this and, deep down, knows that everyone else has the power to make decisions for her.

Mary experiences self-doubt through the course of the trial, but eventually regains a renewed sense of agency after her petition is denied, once more invoking the theme of Predetermination Versus Self-Determination. When Henry testifies that he persuaded Mary into the kiss and says she denied his advances, Mary thinks to herself, “This is the price of my sin. I have earned this because I am craven and low, and I have brought this danger upon myself. I earned every bruise and broken bone and merited the wrath of my husband” (229). This moment is significant for two reasons. First, Mary’s spirit is broken by the social judgment placed upon her by the trial and because Henry takes the fall for a decision they both made. Second, this is the only instance in which the narrator does not catalog Mary’s thoughts, as this passage comes from directly inside Mary’s head and is in italics to emphasize its importance. The oppressive language and cruel interviews alongside this revelation of her desire as sin is too much for Mary in this instance.

When, however, her petition is denied, Mary realizes how badly the odds were stacked against her all along, particularly after Wilder—who seemed to support Mary before—delivers a sermon that ignores Mary’s evidence and renders her nothing more than a woman meant to be with her husband regardless of her claims. The verdict, with its unjust endorsement of Gender Roles and Violence Against Women, reawakens Mary’s sense of grievance, which will eventually enable her to free herself, by her own means, from the situation she is in.