Witchcraft Persecution as a Weapon Against Female Difference in Hester

The Thematic Claim: Difference as a Target, Accusation as a Weapon

In Hester, Laurie Lico Albanese argues that witchcraft persecution functions less as a response to actual devilry and more as a mechanism of social control aimed at women whose traits, talents, or circumstances mark them as different. The novel interweaves three temporal strands—the Scottish trials of the 1660s, the Salem trials of 1692, and a fictional 1829 Salem—to show that the accusation of witchcraft has historically been a weapon for disciplining women who see the world differently, who possess unusual skills, who are poor or vulnerable, or who refuse the roles assigned to them.

The novel's central figure, Isobel Gamble, experiences synesthesia, a condition that makes her perceive colors in voices and letters. In the early nineteenth century, this sensory difference has no name or explanation. Her mother's terror is instructive: when young Isobel uses red thread for the letter A in her embroidery sampler, her mother slaps her knuckles and warns that such talk would mark her as a witch. The mother later sews a red A into the hem of a Sunday smock, explaining that their women had always hidden their red letters. This moment establishes the novel's core argument: difference itself is dangerous, and women must learn to conceal what makes them stand out.

Tracing the Theme: Three Movements

Scotland: The Namesake's Fate

The novel grounds its argument in the historical figure of Isobel Gowdie, the seventeenth-century Scottish woman known as the Queen of Witches. Isobel Gamble learns of her namesake from her aunt Aileen, who describes Gowdie as a woman who knew when to be silent and when to raise hell to the heavens. The historical interludes show Gowdie's trial in Auldearn in 1662, where she is dragged into Loch Loy square, stripped, and pricked by the witch-pricker John Dickson.

The trial sequence reveals how persecution targets female difference. Gowdie's accusers include the Reverend Harry Forbes, whom she publicly condemns as not a sacred man after he assaulted her in the fields. Her crime, in part, is having given Forbes's wife a brew to end an unwanted pregnancy—an act of female solidarity that the patriarchal order reads as maleficence. The witch-pricker's method is pure theater: he stabs her repeatedly, then pretends to pull a needle from her ankle, proclaiming that the barb sank and she did not know it. The evidence is manufactured, but the verdict is predetermined.

The village women who gather afterward know the truth. One insists Gowdie is no witch, but another warns her to be silent, saying that if she repeats such words, they may come after her next. The novel shows that persecution depends on the complicity of silence—women police each other's speech because speaking out invites the same accusation.

Salem, 1692: Institutionalized Persecution

The Salem interludes show the same mechanism operating in colonial Massachusetts. John Hathorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne's ancestor, serves as a judge in the 1692 trials and never recants his verdicts. The novel depicts him as a young man reading A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, absorbing its lessons about weak women easily led because they are alone or greedy. He prepares himself to drive Quakers and other demons out of Salem by lash, proclamation, and the strength of God.

The trial of Sarah Good illustrates how persecution targets the vulnerable. Good is described as a beggar much despised for slinking about the village with her young daughter. Her husband testifies against her, citing a wart below her right shoulder as the Devil's mark. The accusers are young girls who shriek and twist in their chairs, and Hathorne demands confessions rather than evidence. When Good is hanged, she shouts that she is no more a witch than he is a warlock—a defiance that echoes Isobel Gowdie's own shouted confession.

The novel also shows the cost of persecution for those who survive. Sarah Carrier, daughter of the executed Martha Carrier, testified against her mother under threat and now lives with unbearable guilt. She keeps a handkerchief embroidered with an eight-pointed flower, a needle tucked into its center—a reminder of her mother's forbidden beauty and her own betrayal. The needle, which in Isobel's hands is a tool of creation, becomes here an instrument of memory and potential revenge.

Salem, 1829: The Living Echo

In the novel's present tense, Isobel Gamble arrives in Salem in 1829 and discovers that the witchcraft delusion still shapes how women are perceived. Nathaniel Hathorne tells her about the trials, describing schoolgirls who accused old widows, new mothers, ministers, and even a young girl. He is writing a story about a red-haired girl during the witchcraft delusion, and he sees in Isobel the very figure he is inventing.

Isobel's red hair is a marker of visibility. Mercy, a free Black woman who becomes Isobel's friend, explains the danger: with that red hair, Isobel is still seen everywhere, and everybody recognizes her. Mercy advises Isobel to hide her hair under a bonnet and wear a plain brown cape when she doesn't want to be noticed. She tells Isobel that sometimes you have to act like you are nothing—so long as you remember that it's a lie, and that you're as strong as you believe you are. This advice is survival strategy born of Mercy's own experience navigating a society that barely sees her at all.

The novel thus shows that persecution doesn't end with the trials. It persists in the way women are taught to conceal their gifts, in the way their ambitions are dismissed (Isobel's father tells her that pattern-making is men's work), and in the way their reading is policed (her schoolmaster warns that reading brings the Devil into a girl's mind too easily). The witchcraft accusation is the extreme form of a broader system that disciplines female difference.

Character and Symbol Connections

The novel connects its characters through the figure of the accused woman. Isobel Gamble, Isobel Gowdie, Sarah Good, and Tituba are all women whose difference—whether sensory, economic, or racial—makes them vulnerable. John Hathorne represents the institutional power that manufactures evidence and demands confession. Nathaniel Hathorne, by contrast, is drawn to Isobel's difference even as he romanticizes the persecution that would have destroyed her in another century.

The hidden red letter A is the novel's most potent symbol. Isobel's mother sews it into the hem of a smock, a secret mark of the family's history of difference. The letter connects Isobel to Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which the epigraph frames as a story about unrecognized burden and release. The red A is both a warning and a legacy—a sign that women in this family have always had to hide what makes them visible.

The needle carries a double meaning. In Isobel's hands, it is a tool of creation, allowing her to put her visions into cloth in a way that no one questioned. But the witch-pricker's needles are instruments of torture, and Sarah Carrier's needle is a potential weapon. The novel suggests that women's tools can be turned against them—or reclaimed as instruments of power.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel resists a simple victim narrative. Isobel Gowdie's confession is ambiguous: extracted under torture, it is also a kind of performance. Aunt Aileen recounts how Gowdie shouted that she had lain with the Devil's forked prick inside her, and that if they killed her, hell would reign on earth—a declaration that is both a forced confession and a defiant curse. The village women who know she is innocent are silenced by fear, showing that persecution relies on communal complicity.

The novel also complicates the role of women in perpetuating persecution. Isobel's mother, terrified of what her daughter's difference might bring, becomes an agent of suppression. She slaps Isobel's knuckles, warns her against strange talk, and insists that even strong women can fall. Her fear is understandable—she has seen what happens to women who are different—but it also shows how the threat of persecution is internalized and passed down.

Nathaniel Hathorne's fascination with Isobel is itself a form of appropriation. He sees her as a character in his story, a red-haired girl during the witchcraft delusion, rather than as a person with her own agency. The novel suggests that even sympathetic men can participate in the objectification that makes persecution possible.

Study Questions

1. How does Isobel's synesthesia function as both a gift and a danger in the novel?

Her synesthesia allows her to perceive the world with unusual richness—colors in voices, shapes in sounds—and fuels her creative work as a needleworker. But it also marks her as different in a society that has no vocabulary for such experiences. Her mother's warning that such talk would bring Satan to her shows how a sensory difference could be read as evidence of witchcraft.

1. What role does the witch-pricker John Dickson play in the trial of Isobel Gowdie, and what does his method reveal about the persecution of women?

Dickson's method is theatrical and manufactured. He stabs Gowdie repeatedly, then pretends to extract a needle from her ankle, proclaiming that the barb sank and she did not know it. The scene reveals that the evidence for witchcraft is fabricated to fit a predetermined conclusion—the persecution of a woman who has already been marked as different.

1. How does the novel connect the Scottish trials of the 1660s to the Salem trials of 1692?

Both sets of trials target women who are vulnerable or different: Isobel Gowdie for her knowledge of herbs and her defiance of the reverend, Sarah Good for her poverty and her slinking behavior. Both trials rely on manufactured evidence and coerced confessions. The novel's structure—interleaving historical interludes with the 1829 narrative—shows that the mechanism of persecution persists across centuries and continents.

1. What does Mercy's advice to Isobel reveal about survival strategies for women who are marked as different?

Mercy advises Isobel to hide her red hair under a bonnet and wear plain clothing to become near invisible. She explains that invisibility can be a form of power: you learn how to move through places so folks don't see you, then you can do things folks don't want you to do. But she also insists that Isobel must remember that acting like nothing is a lie—that her strength comes from knowing who she truly is.

1. How does the hidden red letter A symbolize the novel's theme of concealed difference?

The red A that Isobel's mother sews into the hem of a smock represents the family's history of hiding what makes women different. It connects Isobel to her namesake, Isobel Gowdie, and to Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, where the letter A is a public mark of shame. In Hester, the letter is hidden rather than displayed, suggesting that women's difference must be concealed to survive—but also that concealment is itself a form of resistance.