Wicked Girls
Accessed October 8th, 2013
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6970101-wicked-girls
Hemphill, Stephanie. 2010. Wicked Girls. New York, NY: Harper Collins. ISBN 9780061852389
Summary
Wicked Girls is a
novel in verse that tells the story of the Salem witchcraft trials and the
events that led to them from the perspective of three of the young accusers;
Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis and Margaret Walcott.
Critical Analysis
In the Salem Village meeting hall, where the Puritan
services are held, there is a strict seating order. The men of rank; the
landowners and those who sit on the town council are seated on the first row.
Behind the men of consequence sit the men of lower stature, behind them sit the
good sons. After the row of good sons sit the Gospel women, after that, the
lesser women – and in the last row at the back of the room sit the girls. In
the poem “The Way We are Seated” the seeds of the Salem witchcraft trials are
sewn and readers understand that the girls of Salem have no voice when they are
seen as mere girls – and that for a girl to have any semblance of power, she
must be seen as an instrument of God.
The strict, austere life in Salem is reflected in the sparse
voice Hemphill gives to her protagonists. Education was not wasted on women, so
do not expect to find flowery language within Wicked Girls pages. Passion was not encouraged, so the protagonists
attempt to describe their feelings comes across as stunted and fumbling. The
language used by Mercy, Ann and Margaret is historically accurate – antiquated
yet earnest, and while the girls do not access educated vocabulary or lyrical
turns of phrase, their words ring out in spite of their restrictive life and
upbringing. Each girl’s desire to be more than their Puritan destiny shines
through the severe, strict expectations of their “betters”.
The imagery of Hemphill’s Salem is one of hopelessness and
helplessness punctuated by moments of brilliant strength and hellish gore that
comes at a devastating cost. For a girl, you have no say in the outcome of your
life and Hemphill paints the pages of her novel with this feeling of despair.
The tones of grey and sadness are at sharp odds with the color and backbone
that appear when the girls take up the mantle of village “Seer” and begin to
accuse their fellow townsmen and women of witchcraft. The imagery changes as the
girls move from the back of the meetinghouse, to sit on the front row and
become the most important figures in the village. No longer is their life
bleak, filled with toil and rough treatment, but rather they transcend their
role as “servant” or “daughter” and trade their to-big shoes and threadbare
shawls for gleaming dresses and chocolates and rest. Coupled with the new
imagery of domestic peace and freedom, Hemphill presents the goulish images
that the girls shout out as they “see” the witches of the town tormenting them.
Witches “roasting men on spits” (Hemphill, Pg. 105), men jumping “upon the
belly of his grandfather” (Hemphill, pg. 193), of being “jabbed” and “strangled”
(Hemphill, pg. 105) all paint a grisly portrait of the cost the girl’s new status.
Hemphill places importance on gaze, in this novel. In the beginning the girls
are invisible, looked through or seen as objects of possession. When the girls
become “Seers” they are looked up with fear, respect and awe. Hemphill repeats
the importance of the gaze throughout her novel and as the girls role in Salem
changes, the gaze of the villages evolves as well. The sounds of Salem volley
between the quiet, reserved murmuring of women at their work to the loud,
cacophonous screams of the “Seers” that rip into the steady, reserved Puritan
exterior of Salem.
The emotion behind Wicked Girls is intense, volatile and
all-encompassing. These girls are changing their lives and the result is
murder. By choosing to rise above their fate of being born a girl and choosing
to be “instruments of God” the three protagonists get caught up in a struggle
of deceit and destruction on the gamble that they will be seen, accepted and
loved. The drama and conflict between the “Seers” is just as intense as the
drama they create in the village, and the consequence of their actions is death
for the accused or their own death if their deceit is discovered. Guilt, exaltation,
jealousy and hope course through the three protagonist until they begin to be
controlled by their own self-created roles and they descend back into the role
their society has assigned them.
Awards
Los
Angeles Times Book Prize finalist
Reviews
School Library Journal (08/01/2010):
Gr 9 Up—"Wicked
Girls" weaves a fresh interpretation of the events put forth in Arthur
Miller's "The Crucible" and revisited more recently by Katherine Howe
in "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane" (Voice, 2009). Mercy Lewis,
Ann Putnam, and Mary Walcott (in this story, called "Margaret") point
their fingers, lift their eyes, and cry "witch" once again. Elderly
Goody Nurse appears, Mary Warren (here called "Ruth") recants her
accusations, John Proctor is accused and hanged, and Giles Corey is pressed to
death. The verse format is fresh and engaging, distilling the actions of the
seven accusing girls into riveting narrative. In Hemphill's village of Salem,
Mercy Lewis (age 17) and Ann Putnam, Jr. (age 12) vie for control of the group
of girls who quickly become swept up by their celebrity. Their accusations
become self-serving: the merest look or shudder from one of the
"afflicted" means the offender (an inattentive lover; someone who has
done a parent wrong) risks being branded a witch or wizard. Eventually, the
group fractures and the girls turn on each other, leading to cruelty and death.
In the author's note, Hemphill outlines the historical background, with source
notes for further reading. As in "Your Own, Sylvia" (Knopf, 2007),
she bases her book in fact, but acknowledges that "certain names and
accounts have been changed, amended and altered" in the construction of
her novel. Teens may need some encouragement to pick up this book, but it
deserves a place in most high school collections.
Booklist (06/01/2010):
Grades 7-12 *Starred Review*
Hemphill follows her Printz Honor Book Your Own, Sylvia (2007) with another
bold verse novel based on historical figures. Here, her voices belong to the
afflicted girls of Salem, whose accusations of witchcraft led to the hangings
of 19 townspeople in 1692. Once again, Hemphills raw, intimate poetry probes
behind the abstract facts and creates characters that pulse with complex
emotion. According to an appended authors note, unresolved theories about the
causes of the girls behavior range from bread-mold-induced hallucinations to
bird flu. In Hemphills story, the girls fake their afflictions, and the books
great strength lies in its masterful unveiling of the girls wholly believable
motivations: romantic jealousy; boredom; a yearning for friendship, affection,
and attention; and most of all, empowerment in a highly constricting and
stratified society that left few opportunities for women. Layering the girls
voices in interspersed, lyrical poems that slowly build the psychological
drama, Hemphill requires patience from her readers. What emerge are richly
developed portraits of Puritanical mean girls, and teens will easily recognize
the contemporary parallels in the authentic clique dynamics. An excellent
supplementary choice for curricular studies of Arthur Millers The Crucible,
this will also find readers outside the classroom, who will savor the
accessible, unsettling, piercing lines that connect past and present with
timeless conflicts and truths.
Kirkus Reviews (06/01/2010):
In
this superbly wrought fictionalized account of the Salem Witch Trials, Printz
Honor winner Hemphill offers a fresh perspective on an oft-told tale by
providing lesser-known Salem accusers with a variety of compelling motivations
that will resonate deeply with contemporary teens. Twelve-year-old Ann Putnam
is starved for her brusque mother's love. Her older cousin Margaret is jealous
of anyone her betrothed Isaac's wandering eye falls upon. And 17-year-old
pretty, blond servant Mercy Lewis is tired of the surreptitious touches of
pious Puritan men. When two other girls in their village fall prey to fits,
Ann, Margaret and Mercy recognize the opportunity to be seen in a society that
brands them invisible. But as their confidence grows, so does their guilt. They
know exactly what they're doing, but the rewards are too sweet to stop:
"...our elders shrivel and shrink, / and we girls / grow spine tall."
In subtle, spare first-person free-verse poems, the author skillfully
demonstrates how ordinary people may come to commit monstrous acts. Haunting
and still frighteningly relevant.
Connections
Sold by Patricia McCormick is
a novel written verse about a girl who is sold into prostitution by her stepfather
after the family’s rice crop is washed away during the Himalayan monsoon
season. Reflective of Wicked Girls, Sold tells the story of another girl
trying to rise out of the situation that her birth and family have placed her
in. Clinging to her mother’s ethos that “to simply endure is to triumph”,
protagonist Lakshmi learns to make friends in the hell that is the brothel, and
to make choices to get herself out.
References
Booklist 06/01/2010 pg. 70 (EAN 9780061853289, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
Hemphill, Stephanie. 2010. Wicked Girls. New York, NY: Harper
Collins. ISBN 9780061852389
Kirkus
Reviews 06/01/2010
(EAN 9780061853289, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
McCormick,
Patricia. 2006. Sold. New York, NY:
Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 0786851716
School
Library Journal 08/01/2010 pg. 102 (EAN 9780061853289, Hardcover) - *Starred
Review
No comments:
Post a Comment