Commentaire sur Cotton Mather

1

Fatoumata Sacko - TD5B L1 DRANG n°22001636

30/09/2020

To Madame Sophie Croisy

Word count:872

Commentary of extract from The Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather (1693)

In this excerpt from The Wonders of the Invisible World published in 1693, Mather develops

arguments to justify the Salem Witch Trials orchestrated by the Puritans in 1692.

In the first part, we will analyze Mather’s assessment of the destructive forces at play in New

England from the early days of colonization until now as a way to emphasize the dangers

facing the Puritan community, in an appeal to fear to convince his peers.

Cotton Mather first starts by claiming that New England was a foreign land that belonged to

the Devil at line 1, but was then reclaimed by the Puritans. As soon as the Puritans began

settling, the Devil plotted to destroy them, but his efforts were thwarted by their godliness:

“The New-Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil’s

Territories. “ Mather could be insinuating that America was an untamed land for them

because of the Natives.

But they are soon affected by the Devil’s plots again. They are warned that the devil

is planning to destroy them through witchcraft from lines 20 to 22, “that a Malefactor,

accused of Witchcraft as well as Murder, and Executed in this place more than Forty

Years ago, did then give Notice of, An Horrible PLOT against the Country by

WITCHCRAFT.“ Mather believes the Devil's goal is to destroy Christianity and to

devastate the Puritan settlements.

Cotton Mather then demonstrates the Devil’s presence in the daily lives of the

Puritans. For Mather, the Devil has managed to infiltrate his community and is harming the

Puritans through the intermediary of witches. From line 26 to 28, Mather emphasizes the

gravity of the situation and uses the lexical field of torment to describe the effects of

witchcraft on the Puritans.

2

“An army of devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the center, and

after a sort, the first-born of our English settlements: and the houses of the good people

there are filled with the doleful shrieks of their children and servants, tormented by

invisible hands, with tortures altogether preternatural.”

He then develops his thesis by giving evidence that witches are among them at line

32. He states that the Devil can bend innocent individuals to his will and force them to harm

others: “demons might impose the shapes of innocent persons in their spectral

exhibitions upon the sufferers.” Mather claimed that

...