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Theme Of The Witch Of Blackbird Pond

715 Words3 Pages

Elias Har
Miss Horton
8th ELA
16 December 2022
The Power of Judgement
People often judge but are slow to correct themselves. In the Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, the character Katherine Tyler goes on a ship to colonial Massachusetts from Barbados, where she travels to her aunt and stays with her family in a colony called Wethersfield. She then meets an old lady named Hannah and they become judged by the people around them based on their misinterpreted actions. Don’t judge someone at first glance is the most powerful theme in this novel because it is essential to know the person before making wrong assumptions.
Kit is a character that reflects this theme because the people of Wethersfield disagree with her actions after …show more content…

For example, the people of Wethersfield harm Hannah because she is a Quaker and they assume she is a witch. The citizens treat Hannah unfairly because she is alone and has a bad background in the past. They don’t judge her fairly and no one in the town got to know her for half her life until Kit went to her house. In addition, the people then blame Hannah for the sickness around town stating “She’s been a curse on this town for years with her witchcraft” (Speare 182)! And because of those false beliefs, they burn down her house. Burning someone’s house down is a very hateful crime and the townspeople can’t stand up for themselves as they cave into peer pressure extremely easily. They decided to take out all their anger on Hannah, who was an old, helpless lady who couldn’t defend herself. Furthermore, Kit goes to Hannah’s house and she realizes that she is a “poor, helpless old woman” (Speare 184). Kit is the only person in Wethersfield that decides to take a chance on Hannah and once she does, she realizes that Hannah is the nicest person in the town. Even though the citizens of Wethersfield don’t like that Kit went over to Hannah’s house, she keeps her courage and decides to not get rid of her most important friendships even if she was going to be judged for it. The townspeople of Wethersfield all judge Hannah based on her reputation and judge her unfairly without knowing Hannah at

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