Damned Women By Elizabeth Reis

Throughout Damned Women, Elizabeth Reis explores the framework and central ideas of Puritan theology. She uses this information to examine both Puritanism’s cultural function and the socially constructed gender roles in Salem, Massachusetts. The witch trials of 1692 magnify both of these points. When she reads through the confessions of the accused witches, Reis uses prominent ideas relating to the soul and the covenant to assist her analysis and arguments. In the case of analyzing and comparing the confessions of Ann Foster and William Hobbs, the concepts of the feminine soul and a women’s natural lure towards sin help explain the decision-making of the accused. Reis approaches both testimonies openly yet aims to illustrate how they tie into the larger point of Puritan women being damned by societal expectations.

In order to demonstrate how Puritan theology influenced the Salem witch trials, Reis lays out several key beliefs and ideas that play off gender roles. Puritans regarded the soul of both men and women as feminine. Yet, as Satan sought souls, the vulnerable bodies of women left them more susceptible to the devil’s temptations (93). Likewise, the idea of the covenant, the cornerstone of Puritan theology, used gender

When reading through the quotations of Ann Foster and Williams Hobbs, Reis uses the Puritan context to demonstrate the differences between female and male testimonies. In Ann Foster’s confession, the accused describes the devil appearing to her and promising her prosperity (140). Here Foster reaffirms a common Puritan belief of encounters with Satan’s tactics. She demonstrates how the trials were largely cultural performances that relied upon the accused playing into the Puritan belief system. Reis focuses on this point when she writes, "Foster's perhaps formulaic recitation of such details rendered her performance convincing and her tale culturally useful”