The Witch of Blackbird Pond | Essays and Criticism

  • Witchy Girls and Witchy Women: Training for Domesticity in Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond

    Deborah Moreland received her doctorate in Literary Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, writing her dissertation on the connection between high culture and low culture in early twentieth-century British literature. She now teaches and chairs the English department at a private school in Dallas. In this essay, she demonstrates that, part fairy tale and part frontier myth, The Witch of Blackbird Pond celebrates traditional notions of womanhood by depicting it as both transgressive and domestic.

  • Puritan Parallels: The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Late-1950s America

    Scott Malia received his PhD in drama from Tufts University, and he currently works in theater and education. In the following essay, Dr. Malia discusses the intersection of American Puritanism and 1950s values in the Witch of Blackbird Pond.