THE WITCH PROVIDES ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE PURITANS
When uneducated people look for explanations of unexpected and unwelcome events, they may revere a religious document as their only source of wisdom. The Witch, directed by Robert Eggers, demonstrates how the Puritans tried to have witches assigned as causes of unusual events. In the film, a family is banned by leaders of a Puritan community for a heresy and has to relocate to a remote rural area. When deaths occur, the blame is placed on their eldest daughter Tomasin (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) rather than a more scientific explanation with which the family is unfamiliar. What is fascinating about the film is that the dialog uses “thou,” consistent with the era, and the story seeks to reproduce a legend that gained currency in Massachusetts (though filming is in rural Ontario) during the late 17th century. The Witch is definitely not for young children and reproduces the crudeness of life and thought in contrast with Arthur Miller’s more cerebral stage play The Crucible (1953). Whereas Miller was vilifying McCarthyism, The Witch can be interpreted as an explanation of contemporary religious fanaticism. MH