1. What is the aim of your study? What are the objectives for your study?
In the early stages of development, I intend to discuss and analyse the representation of witchcraft, and the figure of the ‘hysterical woman’, throughout nineteenth and twentieth-century literature. In the essay I will address the issue of how the image of witchcraft serves multiple purposes in literature throughout, both, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I will also discuss how the terms witchcraft and madness and the way in which the discursive construction of these terms serve the purposes of, and perpetuate, the dominant patriarchal power structure during these centuries.
2. Explain the rationale for this study (refer to relevant research literature in your response).
The witchcraft trials of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries are a dominant feature of European history, often appearing in mediums such as literature, film, and theatre. Throughout history, women have been continuously ‘othered’ and condemned under patriarchal societies and the witchcraft trials proved to be a useful tool during this period, as it encompassed religion, culture, and superstition; Often being based on the linked concepts of fear and evil. Women were particularly targeted: as they were suppressed by the men in their lives and under the patriarchal society women were ‘othered’, and if they did not conform to their role as the subservient gender, they would be accused of being ‘evil’ or ‘mad’. In The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Reginald Scot states: “… [T]he cause why women are oftener found to be witches than men; they have such an unbridled force of fury and concupiscence naturally that by no means is it possible for them to temper or to moderate the same.” (p.159) The belief in witchcraft enabled mass hysteria, in which an individual could manipulate others beliefs into incarcerating another being/thing; due to this, many of the accused ranged from simply being outcasts, who may have deviated away from societal norms in some way, to merely just being someone’s ‘enemy’. It can be said, that by operating in this way, witchcraft and the witch trails regulated the conduct of society through fear. This, for example, is evident in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in which Abigail Williams falsely confesses: “I want to open myself!…I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss his hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Brigdet Bishop with the Devil!” As an orphaned, unmarried girl, Abigail occupies a low position in Puritan Salem’s society. Her involvement in the witch trials offers her a position in which she can manipulate the high-ranking ministers and male adults of the town, thus, allowing her to elevate her position, of which she takes full advantage of, by accusing whoever and whomever she pleases.
As I am still in the early stages, I am intending to look into the way in which how stories of witchcraft and ‘madness’ reflect power structures of the period, but also how madness may function as a subversive discourse in some literary texts, including the analysis of relevant theories. E.g. The Crucible serves as an allegory in reference to McCarthyism in the 1950s.
3. Provide an outline of study design and methods.
Introduction – introduction and outline as to the aim of the essay. History of the representation of witchcraft and the witchcraft trials from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. I will also introduce the theorists I will be analysing, such as Freud, Foucault and various feminist theories.
The first chapter will engage with the theory that will be utilised throughout the study, focusing on Freudian, Foucauldian and feminist theories. Additionally, I will also engage with theories surrounding witchcraft and madness, which will also be utilised throughout the study.
I anticipate that the second chapter will look into the gendering of witchcraft and will begin to bring in various texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that will attest to and contrast against the stereotypical representations of witchcraft.
In chapter three, I hope to be able to apply and deconstruct theory found in my chosen texts. Particularly in order to determine whether these representations were used to marginalise women, and then use feminist theory to further deconstruct the texts.