The Effect of Ignorance and Fear on Perpetuating Evil
Witch hunts are always born from fear and suspicion (and not, as some have suggested, out of a commitment to democracy and justice). The witch hunt that lays its cover of darkness over Kit Tyler is not just a textbook example of how such a system works, but also reveals how the misunderstanding resulting from suspicion and even have the consequence of transforming acts of goodness and kindness into something carrying the taint of evil and mayhem.
The Geography of Personality
Few things are quite as stressful for any teenager than being uprooted from familiar surroundings and being forced against your will to start over in a strange and unfamiliar place entirely populated by complete strangers who are conditioned to view your arrival with a certain suspicion. Even today that is true when the difference between Barbados and New England is hardly so stark. Kit’s longing for the sunny climes and open beaches of her home are contrasted with the far less hospitable topography of Connecticut and the difference between her view of the world and that of those she meets in Wethersfield cannot be entirely applied to mere cultural differences. A recurring motif in the novel serves to solidify its theme that the effect of geography is not confined merely to the land.
Religious Intolerance in Puritan Settlements
While it is certainly true that the Puritans fled England to the New World to escape organized persecution of their religious beliefs, the great irony is that almost as soon as they had established a simulation of the trappings of civilization they had left behind, they set to persecuting those who did not adhere to their rigid Puritanical beliefs. The central target of Puritan persecution were the Quakers, and the ostracized Quaker Hannah Tupper becomes the embodiment of that almost incomprehensible intolerance and persecution which clearly mirrored their own recent history. Into this conflict arrives Kit, who becomes the symbol of how mercy toward all may be the only hope for overcoming the tyranny of repression.
