44 pages • 1 hour read
BromSlewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Gender and Institutional Power
The opening interaction between Abitha, Edward, and Wallace establishes the dynamics of institutionalized gendered oppression in Colonial America. When Wallace enters Edward’s and Abitha’s home to inform them that he’s selling their property, it is Abitha—not Edward—who initially pushes back. Both men object to Abitha’s assertiveness: Edward says that he is “appalled by her behavior” (16), and Wallace goes further, saying that he will be “placing charges on her tomorrow” (16). Their responses to Abitha not only indicate that women are expected to perform submissive, silenced roles in the household but also that deviation from these norms is punishable through institutional power. The “charges” that Wallace threatens would be lodged with the church which, in this society, also acts as the governing body. In this way, Abitha’s womanhood is policed both by the state and the church.
In this interaction, Wallace is also policing Edward’s masculinity. Edward is more inclined to be the passive member in his marriage, and he accepts Abitha’s more dominant role. By threatening Abitha, Wallace implicitly demands that Edward take on the more assertive role expected of him in order to protect his wife from the charges threatened. Though the institutional power of the religious state punishes women far more harshly for deviating from gender expectations than it does men, both men and women are expected to align with this society’s rigid, damaging norms.
After Edward’s death, Abitha explores multiple ways of circumventing the norms that constrain her. Abitha initially convinces Reverend Carter that, as a widow with a Christian obligation to complete unfulfilled duties, she should take on her husband’s position on the farm. Abitha succeeds and momentarily gains the protections of the church state; when Wallace tries to physically harm her, he’s stopped by Carter because now “[i]t is her place to speak up in all matters to do with Edward’s holdings” (55). By finding loopholes in the logics of the institutions that oppress her, Abitha momentarily gains power. She parlays her position as her husband’s property into becoming the administrator of the property for which her husband can no longer care.
Using the institution’s power against it, though, ultimately isn’t a successful strategy. Abitha finds that the state’s power ultimately protects men even when they violate the institution’s stated laws: Wallace is able to destroy Abitha’s property and get away with the crime. Abitha overcomes the obstacles she faces as a woman in this society by seeking power outside of the governing institutions. Her partnership with Samson positions her outside the realm of the Christian tradition: She treats Samson as a god-like figure, giving him offerings and calling to him in times of need. Abitha initially uses the power she gains from this relationship to try to gain more power within Sutton’s economy: She produces “impossible” amounts of honey, bringing her the wealth that she needs to repay Edward’s debts. Ultimately, though, the state can’t abide Abitha gaining any power whatsoever. Her only recourse by the end of the novel is to use her partnership with Samson to destroy the institutions that oppress her. The violent climax suggests that true power for women in Colonial America can only come from outside of the socio-religious institutions that oppress them.
Self-Knowledge and the Possibility of Self-Definition
At the start of the novel, both Samson and Abitha struggle to understand who they are. For Samson, this struggle is literal—he cannot remember his past, and the wildfolk seem unwilling to tell him the full truth of what he has done. Abitha, though, must discover who she is now that she’s been moved from her home in England and married for the first time; she wrestles with understanding herself as a wife, as a man’s property, and as a subject of an oppressive religious state.
Abitha’s and Samson’s respective quests for self-knowledge parallel their quests for finding more power. Both Abitha and Samson are only able to discover their power through one another. This dynamic is best embodied by the way in which the duo learns to perform spells. As Samson muses on how they might perform magic, he wonders: “Perhaps we summon the spell together. No, that’s not quite right. You summon the spell through me” (135). The method of their magic speaks to the way in which their power is mutually constructed: Abitha is only able to perform magic because Samson is a vessel that enables it, and Samson is only useful as a magic-worker because Abitha gives him purpose. The symbiotic nature of their relationship extends to the ways in which they come to define themselves. Abitha’s eventual chosen identity, “the Witch,” is only possible because of her connection to Samson—it is his blood that enables her transformation and his suggestions that aid in her destruction of Sutton. Similarly, Samson only finds meaning in his dual role as slayer/healer because of Abitha. The wildfolk insist that Samson is the slayer, but they don’t offer him clear reasons for why he should occupy this role; Samson also discovers his own impulse toward healing, but he doesn’t know what to do with this power. Abitha gives Samson clear direction for his dual identity: In the narrative’s climax, he becomes her healer and the slayer of all those who have wronged her.
In spite of Slewfoot’s savage, blood-soaked finale, the final pages of this novel offer what is ultimately a hopeful vision of the possibility of self-definition. Abitha and Samson not only find meaning in each other but also in transforming themselves into self-defined beings.
The Relationship Between Humanity and Nature
One of Slewfoot’s central conflicts can be described as a “man versus nature” plotline. In this case, nature is represented by Samson and the wildfolk, who have an adversary relationship with the colonists and Pequot. The wildfolk maintain that it is impossible for humanity and nature to coexist peacefully; when Forest finally explains the truth of Samson’s history, he complains that “as the people flourished, they wanted more…they always want more. They’re wicked, greedy creatures’” (250). Here, Forest articulates the wildfolks’ belief that humans are fundamentally unable to curb their appetites for land, fuel, and production; therefore, they will always be at odds with the natural world. Many of the characters in Slewfoot support this hypothesis: Wallace grows a tobacco crop that he knows is unsustainable in the North, resulting in a failed farming season, and the colonists and the Pequot both depend on the exploitation of the land in order to survive.
The relationship between Abitha and Samson, though, offers a potential counterexample to Forest’s theory. Abitha is able to make use of the land through Samson. By giving him the proper offerings, he is able to make her crops grow and make her bees more productive; he also gives her access to the magic that allows her to use insects to protect herself. On the surface, Abitha’s friendship with Samson offers a different take on humanity’s relationship with nature. In the early stages of the novel, their fruitful symbiosis suggests that harmony is possible.
Abitha’s friendship with Samson, though, is complicated over the course of the narrative. Her association with Samson, and the powers it gives her, causes the humans around her to reject her. Abitha is not only shunned from Sutton’s society but is literally made less human in the process: In order to survive her torture at the hands of Sutton’s governing bodies, Abitha must drink Samson’s blood and become transformed. Abitha’s chimeric body is a fusion of human and animal: She has the torso of a woman but the legs of a goat, the voice of a human but the appetites of an animal. This metamorphosis suggests that it is possible for humanity to coexist with the natural world—but that coexistence must come at a cost to humanity. Abitha is only able to thrive alongside Samson by becoming more like him and losing a piece of her humanity in the process. Abitha’s transformations speak to the notion that Forest isn’t entirely right in his assessment that humanity and nature must always be at odds; the price for true coexistence, though, might be higher than what most of humanity is willing to take on.
