Puritan Hypocrisy Theme Analysis

When Kit arrives in Wethersfield, Connecticut to live with her Aunt Rachel and her Uncle Matthew, who are Puritans, she struggles to adapt to their culture. The Puritans were an English religious group that migrated to the American colonies in the early 1600s because they felt persecuted by the Church of England, which intertwined with the English government. In the colonies, they were able to self-govern because of a charter granted by King Charles II of England—and due to what they experienced in England, Puritans (like those in The Witch of Blackbird Pond) were obsessed with maintaining their religious and civil liberties. While the book illustrates the Puritans as hard-working and passionate, it also captures their hypocrisy, as the Puritan characters in the novel generally aren’t interested in respecting others’ rights or religious freedoms. The Puritans in Wethersfield discriminate against Hannah Tupper because she is a Quaker, not a Puritan. And while the Puritans are very protective of their land ownership, they stole the land they live on from the Native Americans in Connecticut. Similarly, although the Puritans advocate for the “rights of free men” for themselves, they enslave Black people and deprive them of basic liberties. By depicting these inconsistencies, the book suggests that 17th-century Puritanism was hypocritical: Puritans generally only cared about freedom as it pertained to advancing their own interests, not about ensuring that everyone had equal rights.

Given the Puritan characters’ intolerance for other religions, it’s clear that their belief in religious freedom pertains only to themselves. The primary reason for the Puritans’ migration to the American colonies was to escape religious persecution, and the book makes it clear that the colonial Puritans value the ability to practice their religion. Puritan characters like the Wood family go to church multiple times a week, and their religion shapes their values. Kit’s cousin Mercy quotes the Bible passage “the Lord loveth not idleness” to explain why the Woods work so diligently, and Rachel visits the ailing Widow Brown because the Bible teaches people to “car[e] for the poor and the widows.” But many of the Puritan characters don’t believe in being charitable or kind to “heretics” (non-Puritans). When Matthew finds out that Kit has visited and assisted Hannah, who’s a Quaker, he forbids her from seeing Hannah again, telling her that because she is “a heretic […] She has no claim on [Kit’s] charity.” Not only are the Puritan characters discriminatory in how they practice their religious beliefs, but they also are selective in their advocacy for religious freedom. Although they know the horrors of religious persecution, they do not hesitate to persecute non-Puritans like Hannah. Because Hannah is a Quaker, the Puritans ostracize her and relegate her to a swampy part of town. They also require her to pay a fine because she doesn’t attend Meeting (the Puritan religious service), which places an unfair financial burden on her because of her religion.

The Puritans of the book also show their hypocrisy by stripping other people of the very same rights that they pursue for themselves. In the book, most Puritan characters—especially Matthew and, later, William and John—are concerned that King James of England is dismantling the colony’s system of self-governance. To protect their “free government”—and, as Matthew says, the “rights of free men”—a group of Connecticut Puritans consider revolution, although they do not carry it out. But they do manage to hide their charter—the document that enshrines their right to self-governance—thereby keeping it from Governor Andros, who wanted to take back the charter as a symbol of revoking the colony’s local governments. The Puritans’ impassioned speeches and efforts to maintain their sovereignty illustrate how dearly they value their civil rights. Yet while Matthew passionately speaks of “the rights of free men, free and equal under God,” he—and the rest of the Puritans—do not intend to share these rights with everyone. As Nat informs Kit, “there are plenty of […] folk like [Kit] here in New England who’ll pay a fat price for black flesh,” which addresses the fact that the Puritan colonists enslaved Black people, depriving them of the most fundamental human rights and the very same freedom that the Puritans seek for themselves. Another example of the Puritans’ hypocrisy is their relationship with the indigenous people of the land they live on. When they find out that Governor Andros has plans to nullify the Puritans’ land deeds—the implication being that they will have to pay fees to obtain land new grants for the land they already live on—the Puritans are furious. But they have stolen land too; they are living on land that they took from the Native Americans who had lived on it prior to their arrival. In this way, the Puritans aren’t concerned with protecting others’ rights and civil liberties—they only care about advancing their own.

Despite all of this, the book doesn’t only show the Puritans in a negative light. Although many of the Puritan characters are harsh and intolerant, Kit loves Mercy, John, and Rachel for their kindness. She even comes to respect Matthew for his hard work, passion for his community, and dedication to his family. In this way, the book adds a level of nuance to its critique of Puritan culture. It shows that the Puritans, as a group of people, are not all the same—there is variation between individuals. For example, even though Rachel feels pressured by the Puritan’s religious intolerance to not help Hannah, she gives Kit food to deliver to Hannah anyway. In this way, the book suggests that along with their negative characteristics, the Puritans have good ones, too: the Puritans in the novel are depicted as hard-working, determined, and passionate people. But these positive characteristics are often lost in the Puritans’ hypocrisy, as throughout the novel, the Puritans deprive others of the same rights and freedoms that they chase for themselves.