The Devil Offers No Incentivized Bargain: Hear me out
This past January, I saw Robert Eggers’ The Witch. That same week I saw his Lighthouse. The Jungian archetypal imagery struck me.
I ended up having a debate with a friend who suggested that the devil offered a bargain. I disagree. I don’t think even from an economic or metaphoric sense that the devil offers a bargain.
The following is an extrapolation of the text messages I had with a friend.
I started off by saying I wanted to dive deeper into our discussion about Robert Eggers’ The Witch and the portrayal of Puritan society in the film. I think there are some critical points that need to be clarified, especially regarding the complexity of Puritan communities and the choices available to the protagonist.
Puritan Society and Collectivism
Puritan societies were often organized around the idea of a covenant, a sacred agreement not only with God but also among the members of the community. This concept is epitomized by the Mayflower Compact. In their early settlements, particularly in the New World, the Puritans practiced a form of economic collectivism. For instance, in the Plymouth Colony, land and resources were initially held in common and worked collectively. This approach was partly due to necessity; the harsh conditions and the need for mutual aid in a new environment compelled a more collectivized economic system. The Puritans were collectivized for the first 50–70 years, and the witch trials only emerged due to this intense collectivization.
While it’s true that Puritan communities often had a theocratic governance structure where religious leaders played a significant role in civil affairs, it’s essential to recognize that they were not merely religious zealots. They had a complex, collectivized society that, despite its flaws, offered certain rights and communal protections, even for women.
Religious and Cultural Diversity
You seem to assume a homogeneity within religious and cultural practices that often doesn’t exist in reality. Within any given religion or culture, there are often a multitude of interpretations, practices, and degrees of adherence. For instance, not all Vikings strictly adhered to the stereotypical image of a warrior, just as not all Brahmins strictly followed a life of ascetic study. This diversity within cultures indicates that religions can accommodate a range of behaviors and values, even if certain ideals are more prominently celebrated.
Religions have historically shown a remarkable capacity to adapt to and incorporate different cultural norms and values. This adaptability suggests that while religions may initially emerge within a specific cultural context and promote certain behaviors, they are not rigid. Over time, they can evolve to encompass a broader range of values and practices, often in response to changing social and cultural conditions.
The Devil’s Deception in The Witch
My friend mentioned that the Devil offered the protagonist a better deal, implying that the Puritans were worse. I have to disagree. The Devil in The Witch is a farce and a fraud, offering no real emancipatory collective relief. If I had to choose between the two as a female in that era, I’d pick the Puritans. There is going to be sexual misconduct in that orgy, dictatorial authority, no safety protection, and no collective emancipation under the Devil’s rule. The Devil will lead to sexual misconduct, sexual abuse, physical abuse, dictatorial authority, lack of any democratic values — even the ones that were represented in the Mayflower Compact — and importantly no collective emancipatory relief. Ostensibly, his promise of the girl was collective emancipatory relief, but even if we take the story to be true that the Devil truly did appear in the middle of what is now most certainly a Boston suburb in the 1630s, then he is lying to her on his own terms.
While Puritans may have had their faults, particularly with their religious dogma, they were also collectivized and offered a form of communal protection. The Devil, on the other hand, represents a dictatorial figure with the means of production, exploiting the protagonist under the guise of freedom. Collective emancipatory relief is more likely in a Puritan society, not under a dictator like the Devil.
Historical Context and Misrepresentation
There is often a contrast between the Puritans and the Virginia colonists. In the 1800s, Nathaniel Hawthorne criticized the Puritans, disapproving of the witch hunts, and Massachusetts was embarrassed about its history in the early 1800s.
The protagonist in The Witch suffers from a false consciousness, misled into believing that joining the Devil’s ranks offers liberation. However, she’s merely becoming a proletariat actor for a rich dictator who owns the means of production, with fraudulent legal ownership of her body by making her sign a contract she did not know the terms of effectively making her chattel property of the Devil. Her fate is a tragic one — she’s not gaining autonomy but is instead being exploited. Her fate is doubly tragiv because she’s being exploited by none other than the Devil.
Conclusion
I hope this provides a clearer understanding of the complex dynamics at play in The Witch and the broader historical context of Puritan society. The film’s portrayal of the Devil as a liberator is misleading. The protagonist is, in fact, being drawn into a more oppressive and exploitative situation, one that is far worse than the collectivized, albeit flawed, Puritan society she left behind.
© Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln IV
