Wickedness Thrust Upon Them

In the opening of the renowned Broadway musical Wicked, Glinda the Good Witch asks “Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” In the musical, audiences watch Elphaba become the Wicked Witch of the West. With green skin, she’s different than her schoolmates, and many dislike her for that very reason. By the end of the show, the Wizard and Madame Morrible use Elphaba as a scapegoat, causing the whole city to hunt her and celebrate her (faked) death. Because of her difference and sometimes-aggressive reactions, Elphaba was easy to frame, and in this, the Wicked Witch is similar to many other witches. 

This past week I presented on The Witch, a story grounded in historical documents from the Salem Witch Trials. It follows a devout Puritan family made up of a patriarch, a mother, and their five children. The eldest child is Thomasin, and it’s not long after her baby brother goes missing before her family begins to think she’s a witch cursing them. Like Elphaba, Thomasin is innocent, but she’s contentious. When her siblings begin to talk about the witch of the wood and Thomasin jokes that she signed the Devil’s book, things begin to spiral for the already scared and confused family. 

Throughout the film, audiences may suspect various family members of evil, including the twins who claim to speak with the goat Black Philip and the mother who suckles a raven. Nevertheless, Thomasin is blamed by her whole family, effectively becoming their scapegoat as they determine that she is the source of their problems. After her twin siblings accuse her of witchcraft, her father asks her to repent, but her mother attempts to kill her. Winning this final struggle, Thomasin is left alone, the rest of her family dead. With seemingly nowhere left to turn, she visits Black Philip in hopes that he will speak to her. The voice of the Devil then leads the vulnerable girl to become a witch, as she walks naked into the wood to accept the role thrust upon her. 

Non-fictional witches, too, felt pushed to accept this role. Though they did not actually become witches as Thomasin did, the accused in Salem confessed themselves as witches (something some might consider an act of wickedness, as it signifies a rejection of God even if the confession is fake). Just like Elphaba, those accused were outsiders. From readings and class discussions, we learned that this was especially true of the first three accused, Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn, as they were of lower social status, impoverished, or defied patriarchal expectations of women. Amidst hysteria and confusion, these women were easy targets, bothered, and used as scapegoats by a community facing what they saw as a crisis.

Turned on by neighbors and their government, the women accused were left with few options. For many, it came down to confession or death. Then, if a confession was made, the women were coerced into another wicked act: naming more witches. Those who confessed and further accused community members did so without much choice, scared for their lives or tortured to excruciating points. Like Elphaba, like Thomasin, and like so many others, their wickedness was thrust upon them.