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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puritan Hypocrisy
Love, Values, and Attraction
Difference, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Home and Belonging
Sexism
Summary
Analysis
As soon as Matthew goes to work in the meadow, Rachel leaves to drop off food for a Widow Brown. After she leaves, Judith bitterly notes that her mother is always overworking herself to help others in addition to the household chores, even though she doubts that anyone would come to Rachel’s aid if she needed it. Mercy gently scolds Judith for her harshness, adding that Rachel is following the Scriptures by helping others.
The Puritan religion shapes the Woods’ way of life. As Mercy reminds Judith, they strive to live according to the rules set out in the Bible (the Scriptures), which include helping those in need. Mercy’s piousness is clear in this passage; she believes it is extremely important to follow the Bible’s teachings. Judith, on the other hand, comes off as more cynical. She knows the Bible’s teachings, but she realizes that not everyone will live by them like her mother does, which means that Rachel will overwork herself and may not receive aid from the other Puritans if she needs it. The implication is that the Puritans may be hypocritical in their beliefs: they may eagerly accept help but be unwilling to help in return.
Themes
Judith then asks Kit if she will open her trunks—neither she nor Mercy have ever owned fancy dresses or accessories. Mercy is torn; she wants to have fun with Kit, but she also is aware of all the work they need to do. Thrilled by her cousins’ excitement, Kit opens her trunks.
Judith is very interested by Kit’s fine possessions, whereas Mercy is more interested in getting to know Kit. Mercy is also clearly a diligent person—she wants to have fun, but she also wants to start on the work she needs to do.
Themes
Judith tries on a bright blue dress. It looks beautiful on her, and she wishes that someone named William could see her in it. Kit tells her that the dress is for her. Then, Kit and Judith choose a soft shawl for Mercy, who is delighted in spite of herself.
Judith is clearly interested in William, although neither the reader nor Kit know who this is. Kit generously gifts Judith the dress, which suggests that she enjoys sharing what she has with the people she cares about. Unlike Judith, Mercy isn’t as interested in Kit’s beautiful clothes, but she does enjoy the comfort that the shawl provides. With this, the book implies that Mercy isn’t as materialistic as Judith is.
Themes
Rachel comes into the room and is surprised to see her daughters all dressed up. Kit, noting the “half fear and half hunger in [Rachel’s] eyes,” instructs her aunt to try on a pretty bonnet. Rachel does so, and for a moment she looks happy. But suddenly she goes pale—Matthew has reentered the room.
The “half fear and half hunger in [Rachel’s] eyes” suggest that Rachel misses the joyous playfulness of dressing up, yet she’s also afraid of what will happen if she indulges in the fun. What she fears becomes clear when Matthew enters the room: her reaction implies that Matthew does not allow Rachel to indulge in frivolous yet harmless activities like dressing up.
Themes
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Matthew is furious to see his daughters and his wife engaging in “vanity.” He commands Judith to give back the dress and silences Kit when she tries to explain that the dress is a gift. He orders them to get going on their work.
Matthew’s fury suggests that “vanity” is considered sinful in the Puritan community, and that he considers Kit is sinful for having so many fancy dresses. Although Kit isn’t Puritan herself, Matthew judges her based on their cultural codes.
Themes
Judith is defiant, but Matthew is stern. Rachel, however, asks Matthew if Mercy can at least keep the shawl. After a moment, he gives in, and Kit realizes that Mercy is his one weakness. He coldly thanks Kit for the gift before leaving the house once more.
Matthew is unrelenting in his demands and inflexible in his beliefs; he does not accommodate difference in his household. Rachel, on the other hand, is more sympathetic, again showing how dissimilar she and Matthew are. But Kit does discover that he has a weakness—Mercy—which suggests that he isn’t entirely unfeeling.
Themes
Kit asks whether they have servants to help with the work. Rachel tells her no; they do all the work themselves. Kit is shocked, but then she asks to be put to work as well. Judith sharply comments on Kit’s fancy dress and suggests that she work on carding with Mercy—that chore won’t get Kit’s dress dirty.
Kit’s surprise at hearing that the Woods don’t have servants hints that her social circle in Barbados likely only included people wealthy enough to hire servants or buy enslaved people to do their work. Again, the book depicts Kit as a sheltered young woman who has only known a luxurious way of life. Nonetheless, she asks to work as well, probably to show the Woods that she’s willing to earn her place in their home. Judith is sharp with Kit, and her focus on Kit’s dress suggests that Judith is still jealous of Kit’s elegant dresses.
Themes
Kit regrets her offer to help. Carding—the process of untangling wool—is long, tedious work. After seeing how easily Mercy accomplishes the task, Kit gets frustrated, not least at her own impatience. While carding, she confides to Mercy another reason why she had to leave Barbados: one of her grandfather’s old friends wanted to marry Kit instead of collecting the debt that Kit’s grandfather owed him. Kit didn’t want to marry the old man and is certain that she can’t return to Barbados now. Mercy assures her that Matthew will let Kit stay, so long as she proves that she can help the family thrive.
Notably, Kit doesn’t spare a thought for how privileged she has been to have never had to work before, nor does she think of the people whom her grandfather enslaved to labor for him. Instead, Kit only expresses self-centered frustration at having to work now. But, as Kit tells Mercy, Kit needs to stay with the Wood family—she fears that she will have to marry an old man if she returns to Barbados. This old man tried to take advantage of Kit’s financial insecurity to pressure her into marriage, knowing that as a young woman, Kit doesn’t have the option of working to support herself. Because she doesn’t have economic freedom, she has very little control over the direction she wants her life to take; living with the Woods is seemingly her only option aside from marrying a man she finds repulsive. According to Mercy, helping the family is how Kit will eventually belong with the family, which suggests that mutual support is important in developing relationships.
Themes
All the household chores take “skill and patience, qualities Kit [does] not seem to possess.” In the evening, Kit manages to ruin the easiest chore of all: making corn pudding for dinner. In her impatience, Kit messes up the recipe, and the corn pudding ends up a lumpy blob that the family nonetheless eats—there isn’t any other food.
Because Kit has never had to work before, she doesn’t have any practical skills, which means that she isn’t useful to the Wood family. Additionally, the book has indicated that she’s prejudiced against people who labor and thinks she is too important to work, so people like the Woods have far more skills to offer than she does. In fact, Kit only makes things worse: she ruins the only food they have for dinner by letting her impatience get the best of her. This fiasco shows that Kit has a lot of learning and growing to do before she will belong with the Woods, all of whom do their part in helping the family sustain itself.
Themes
After dinner, Matthew reads from the Bible. Kit finds it boring and is relieved when she can at last go to bed. On her way up to the bedchamber that she will share with Judith, she overhears Judith complaining about her, specifically saying that she wishes Kit were a boy. To Kit’s dismay, Rachel agrees that having a boy “would have been different.” Kit runs up the stairs in tears.
Judith isn’t happy that Kit is staying with them, specifically because Kit is useless at chores and isn’t helping the family thrive. Because the Woods must rely on one another to survive, Kit is more of a burden than anything else—she’s another mouth to feed, but she doesn’t bring any value to the family without doing her part in sharing the family labor. In fact, both Judith and Rachel wish that Kit were a boy. At this time, boys were often considered more useful than girls. This is because boys could help their fathers with agricultural work and other forms of labor, whereas society expected women to do domestic chores. Kit is unable to even do the latter, so her presence isn’t helpful to the Woods.
Themes
