Reading Group Guide. The. H ERetic s Dau4 hter KATHLEEN KENT

Transcription

1 Reading Group Guide The H ERetic s Dau4 hter A N O V E L B Y KATHLEEN KENT i-xvi r3jd.indd 337 8/19/09 3:46:10 PM

2 Dear Readers, Martha Carrier, my grandmother back nine generations, was hanged as a witch in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. Called the Queen of Hell by Cotton Mather, Martha was unyielding in her refusal to confess to being a witch and went to her death rather than join the accused men and women who did so and were spared. I ve read countless historical sources about the trials, including the transcripts that captured verbatim Martha s defi ance to the court. But it was the stories of my mother and my mater nal grandparents that defi ned more clearly the courage and obstinacy that set the Carriers apart. All the Carrier tales I heard as a child were enthralling. The children made bows and arrows and practiced shooting objects off one another s heads. Their cow was fed pumpkins so she would give golden milk. Martha s husband, Thomas, was, according to local gossip, a soldier for Cromwell and the executioner of King Charles I of England. Sarah is the central character of The Heretic s Daughter, and Martha did have a daughter with that name. She was arrested on suspicion of practicing witchcraft along with her three brothers and spent months in captivity in a crowded cellar prison. It s my hope that weaving my family legends into the fi ctional narrative brings an authenticity to the story of their tremendous bravery and fortitude. Regards, Kathleen Kent i-xvi r3jd.indd 338 8/19/09 3:46:10 PM

3 A brief history of the Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials of 1692 were a unique and tragic part of American history. The trials and executions, which took place in Salem Village, included nearly 150 men and women arrested from many different villages in Massachusetts. The accused came from such towns as Andover, Topsfi eld, Beverly, and as far away as Wells, in what is now the state of Maine. Ultimately nineteen men and women were hanged, and one man was pressed to death with stones because he would not testify either to his guilt or to his innocence. The witch hysteria, and the ensuing legal actions, lasted a little more than a year, from January 1692 to May 1693, and yet the fascination with the Salem witches has never diminished. One of the most terrifying aspects of the trials was the reliance by the court magistrates on Spectral Evidence, said to be the manifestation of Satan s Invisible World seen only by the affl icted, accusing girls. It was the testimony of these young women that was accepted and written into the court transcripts; the original documents are held for posterity in such institutions as the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Many of the accused, to save themselves from death, pled guilty to consorting with the Devil and so were only imprisoned. The men and women who held fast to their innocence were all condemned to be hanged. Martha Carrier, one of the nineteen accused witches who was hanged, not only professed her innocence but harshly admonished her judges i-xvi r3jd.indd 339 8/19/09 3:46:10 PM

4 4 Reading Group Guide for allowing the words of a few hysterical girls to determine such a cruel fate for so many. It is a common misunderstanding that the Salem witches were burned, but no witches in the colonies were ever killed at the stake as they were in Europe, since the British courts considered a burning death too cruel. But to the Puritans who had forsworn their being in league with Satan, this false self- testimony meant eternal damnation. The imprisonment of mostly women and children took place in some of the most appalling conditions ever seen by the colonial judicial system. Upon release from jail, many of the accused were never compensated for their expenditures for provisions such as food and water, as well as for the very shackles and heavy chains that confi ned them. With a few exceptions, such as the grave memorial of Rebecca Nurse, there are no known gravesites for the executed witches, as they were tossed into shallow open pits after being hanged. There have been many different theories as to the cause of such a terrifying outcry by young women, ranging in age from eleven to twenty, accusing their neighbors and friends of witchcraft; among them are ergot poisoning, encephalitis, and, more reasonably, confl ict brought about by land disputes, disagreements over fundamental religious practices, and the dread of attacks and capture by the indigenous native tribes. Whatever the confluence of causes, it is the mystifying social drama of family against family, friend against neighbor, that still haunts us and echoes today through the current events of religious intolerance, superstition, and the fear of the other i-xvi r3jd.indd 340 8/19/09 3:46:10 PM

5 The men and women hanged by the Court of Oyer & Terminer of 1692 June 10 Bridget Bishop July 19 Sarah Good July 19 Elizabeth Howe July 19 Susannah Martin July 19 Rebecca Nurse July 19 Sarah Wildes August 19 George Burroughs August 19 Martha Carrier August 19 George Jacobs August 19 John Proctor August 19 John Willard September 22 Martha Corey September 22 Mary Easty September 22 Alice Parker September 22 Mary Parker September 22 Ann Pudeator September 22 Margaret Scott September 22 Wilmot Redd September 22 Samuel Wardwell Pressed to death: September 19 Giles Corey i-xvi r3jd.indd 341 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

6 A conversation with the author of The Heretic s Daughter Kathleen Kent talks with literary blogger Maud Newton In The Heretic s Daughter, Martha and her daughter Sarah are forceful, prideful, and far too independent by the standards of their day. Did any of your relatives particularly the women seem destined to continue this legacy by bucking convention and refusing to defer to people in power? I think one of the most remarkable aspects of the family stories about Martha Carrier was how present she seemed to me growing up. There was hardly a family gathering when her name wasn t brought up. My mother s family was very much interested in American history, as well as personal family history, and so there was a great awareness of the events leading up to the Salem witch trials. Even though it was my grandfather who was the Carrier, my grandmother was the repository of all the generational legends, and she was not only fi ercely proud of the courageous stand Martha took against her accusers, but very gleeful about the fact that her outspokenness earned her the moniker the Queen of Hell, the name given to her by one of the most famous theologians of the day, Cotton Mather. There were quite a few ferocious, independent women in the Carrier family, including my grandmother, who smoked at a time when it was considered scandalous, rode wild horses (and a few cows), and was a dead shot with a rifle i-xvi r3jd.indd 342 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

7 Reading Group Guide 7 You chose to tell Martha s story as fi ction, through the eyes of the angry, somewhat estranged Sarah, and the results are remarkably textured and often very moving. Were you drawn to the novel form from the outset? Or did you ever think about writing a more factually limited family history? It was always my intent to write fi ction. In the fi rst draft, the narrative was in the voice of Martha, but as there was so much of the family story left to tell after her death, I decided to shift it to Sarah s point of view. I felt it would give the story greater emotional tension to see the horrors of the witch trials from a child s perspective. I also felt that the struggle for understanding between a mother and daughter is a universal theme. Sarah s character is based, in part, on my grandmother s reckless and unconventional personality. Early in the book, shortly after the family moves to a new town and is, after some debate (and intervention by the town elders), allowed to stay, one of the children is felled by smallpox. Sarah and her baby sister are shipped off in the night to live with their kind aunt and their entertaining, but falsely pious, drunkard uncle. This section of the story is crucial, both structurally and thematically, because it immerses the reader in a more conventional Puritan household where fears of God and disease determine so much of the way days are spent and presents this alternative way of life from the young Sarah s idealized perspective. When the girls are thrust back into their mother s care, the reader feels as uncertain and unsteady as they do. Did you do much research, or mostly rely on instinct, in differentiating these households? What a lot of people are accustomed to imagining about Puritans, I believe, is a result of the idealized and romanticized i-xvi r3jd.indd 343 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

8 8 Reading Group Guide infl uence of the Victorian ideal; the prim and proper settlers of New England, who were industrious, God- fearing, and righteous. And they were these things, but they were also, according to the local records, contentious and libelous, full of superstitious dread and malicious gossip. The biggest surprise for me in doing the research was discovering that the Puritans in character were closer to the Elizabethans than to the Victorians. From this stew of religious repression, fear of the native peoples, and mistrust and intolerance of their own neighbors, I built up the two families, the Carriers and the Toothakers. In contrasting the day- to- day life of these separate and distinct families, I hoped to reveal Sarah s growing understanding of the harsh and diffi cult life into which she was born. At the end of the novel, Sarah learns a secret about her father. I was surprised by this plot twist and am still digesting it. Did you know his background from the beginning? Is it, like Martha s, based in fact? And is this the setup for a sequel? Thomas Carrier, according to family legends, was over seven feet tall, died at 109 years old, and fought for Cromwell s army during the English Civil War. Ben Franklin s paper, Poor Richard s Almanack, reported in 1735 that two coffi ns had to be fi tted together to bury Thomas, as he was so tall. These and other legends about the patriarch were told with as much enthusiasm as the stories of Martha. I am currently at work on the second novel, which is a prequel to The Heretic s Daughter, and it explores the life of Thomas and his involvement in Cromwell s army and the execution of King Charles I of England i-xvi r3jd.indd 344 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

9 Reading Group Guide 9 It s amazing that these legends have been handed down intact through the generations. Julie Barer, your agent and a friend of mine, told me that the girls in your family weren t allowed to dress up as witches for Halloween because the awareness of Martha s persecution was ever present. Do I have that right? As my mother made most of my Halloween costumes, she had the fi nal word on what I got to wear. It s not that she forbade me, or was humorless about it, but she actively discouraged it. She felt it trivialized the suffering of innocents and promoted stereotypes of the Salem witches as evil Devil worshippers. Adapted from Maud Newton s conversation with Kathleen Kent, which was originally posted at maudnewton.com on September 13, Reprinted with permission i-xvi r3jd.indd 345 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

10 Questions and topics for discussion 1. How was Sarah Carrier changed by the time she spent living with the family of her cousin Margaret? How was Sarah affected by the return to her own family? 2. At one point Sarah says, Mother had an unsettling ability to foretell the weather (page 91). Do you believe that Martha Carrier possessed special powers of any sort? What was it about Martha s character that seemed to antagonize so many neighbors? 3. In what ways did Martha and Sarah have a typical mother- daughter relationship? If there are aspects of their relationship that you found exceptional, can you attribute those exceptions to the particular time and circumstances in which the Carriers lived? Consider Sarah s statement: Perhaps it was true that I was like my mother, as everyone seemed to think so (page 142). 4. Identify and discuss some of the factors that contributed to the witch hysteria in seventeenth- century New England. 5. Discuss Mercy Williams s role in the tragedy that befalls the Carrier family. What motivates Mercy? 6. Discuss the signifi cance of Martha Carrier s big red leatherbound book. Why does she ask Sarah to keep this one thing a secret, even among your brothers (page 150)? And why does Martha make Sarah promise not to try to read the book until she comes of age (page 178)? i-xvi r3jd.indd 346 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

11 Reading Group Guide Why did Martha choose to take a stand of innocence, knowing that a refusal to confess meant death? 8. Why did Thomas, despite his size and capabilities, not seek to persuade or deter Martha from her course of action? 9. Discuss the assault on Sarah in the burying ground near the meetinghouse (pages ). To what extent does the incident seem a typical case of adolescent bullying? Have you, or has anyone you know, had a similar experience? Put yourself in Sarah s shoes; how would you have responded to the girls taunting? 10. Why do you think the magistrates, and the wider community of Salem, so easily believed in and relied on spectral evidence? 11. Has reading The Heretic s Daughter in any way changed your opinion of the men and women who were hanged as witches in seventeenth- century New England? 12. Do you believe in witchcraft? Have you ever met anyone who claimed to be, or whom you perceived as, a witch? 13. If you have read or seen Arthur Miller s 1953 play The Crucible, discuss the ways that both that play and The Heretic s Daughter draw from the historical record to tell fresh and relevant stories. In what ways are the two works similar? How are they different? 14. Are you aware of any social intolerance in the community in which you live? If so, discuss the nature of that intolerance (for example, religious, ethnic, xenophobic). Do you think this intolerance could ever rise to the toxic level of the Salem witch hunts? Why or why not? 15. Are there any notable or notorious ancestors in your family tree? If so, do you remember your relatives telling stories about them when you were young? If you ve researched your ancestry, discuss what you ve learned about your family and yourself i-xvi r3jd.indd 347 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

12 Kathleen Kent s suggestions for further reading My favorite books about witchcraft: nonfiction In the Devil s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton A comprehensive, insightful look at the causes of the Salem witch trials. The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village by Thomas Robisheaux Fascinating re-creation of a witch trial in seventeenth- century Germany using original court documents. The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch- hunting in the Western World by John Demos The psychology behind the belief in witchcraft in western culture for 2,000 years. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum The defi nitive compilation and commentary of court records from the Salem witch trials. On Witchcraft by Cotton Mather A harrowing look inside the mind of the driving force behind the witch trials i-xvi r3jd.indd 348 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

13 Reading Group Guide 13 A History of Witchcraft by Jeffrey B. Russell The history of western witchery contrasted with sorcery in different cultures, as well as the reemergence of a new paganism. Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England by Elizabeth Reis Exploration of the Puritans views of women in society and religion that contributed to the persecution of suspected witches. The Salem Witch Trials Reader by Francis Hill Interesting commentary on a comprehensive collection of trial records, letters, essays, and fi ction inspired by the Salem witch trials. My favorite books about magical occurrences: fiction Winter s Tale by Mark Helprin A gorgeously written novel about love, faith, and progress set in a mythical place called New York City, a village of endless possibilities. The Stand by Stephen King The mother of all apocalyptic tales in contemporary fi ction, where good is good and bad is very, very bad. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger A heroic, heartbreaking story of a boy on a quest to fi nd an older brother gone outlaw; where belief in family can defy even gravity i-xvi r3jd.indd 349 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

14 14 Reading Group Guide Harry Potter and the Sorcerer s Stone by J. K. Rowling One of the few books of magic that enchants both children and adults. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Whether or not you believe that this gothic tale of a reanimated monster exposes a repressed society s underlying fear of science or its anxiety over unfettered sexuality, it s still just plain scary. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The ultimate ghost story in a grand, romantic English setting. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice Rice s fi rst book of vampires, up close and personal, is richly imagined, with provocative and seductive characters. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold A gripping and original story of the spirit of a murdered girl watching over the family and friends who lost her. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters Set in a grand but crumbling English estate after World War II, the novel is a suspenseful, atmospheric story of poltergeists, especially on a cold night in front of the fi re. My favorite books about New England: fiction The Maytrees by Annie Dillard A simple story, really, about a couple living on Cape Cod and the life that happens to them; but told in the spare, profound, and i-xvi r3jd.indd 350 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

15 Reading Group Guide 15 illuminating way that is the hallmark of Dillard; often more like poetry than prose. Ahab s Wife, or, the Star- Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund The imagined life of Captain Ahab s wife living in a lighthouse; a novel that pays homage to Melville but also reveals in rich, authentic language the fascinating story of a strong, adventurous woman. Sophie s Choice by William Styron The devastating story of a woman, a Holocaust survivor, during and after World War II, who has to live with a choice no human being should ever have to make. The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve Based on the true events of a murder on a small island off the coast of Maine in the 1800s, the novel is also a complex contemporary story of lies, betrayal, and the devastating effects of isolation, both physical and emotional, combined with unrealized love. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane A masterful and suspenseful story set in Boston about murder and pedophilia; yet at its heart it s a story about the bonds of friendship and family and how one seemingly harmless decision, like getting into a car, can scar us for life. My favorite books about New England: nonfiction John Adams by David McCullough A fascinating, detailed, and passionate portrait of a founding patriot i-xvi r3jd.indd 351 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM

16 16 Reading Group Guide The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger Terrifying and true, it follows the devastating effects of one of the biggest storms in New England s history. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick Authoritative and illuminating, the book helps to dispel the clichés and simplistic stereotypes of the Europeans landing at Plymouth Rock. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson A hilarious, lively, and often profound personal commentary on a journey through the wilds and back roads of New England. The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams An autobiography that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1918, the book today may seem archaic, but at its publication it was studied by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Henry James, and Henry Cabot Lodge as an invaluable history of the towering changes in the Northeast, in policy, ideology, and governance, from the seventeenth century into the twentieth i-xvi r3jd.indd 352 8/19/09 3:46:11 PM