Daylight Gates

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The Daylight Gate: The Ways Women Bear Brunt of Fear and Poverty

Introduction

Winterson uses the settings of Lancashire to depict the obscene repressiveness of the pre-

enlightenment England- a world where poverty is the most harmful and inescapable for females.

The tale is based on the Lancashire witches’ prosecutions which took place in 1612. The main

protagonist, Alice Nutter, is an appealing focal character living luxuriously at a time when most

women are poverty-stricken what upsets Thomas Potts along with Lancashire’s lawmen. On

page 9 of the book “The Daylight Gate”, the author points out that “the character is an imaginary

Alice Nutter and the reason why that kind woman gets persecuted for witchery alongside the

Demdikes remain anonymous” (Winterson and Barber, 9). The novella explores alchemy,

suspicion, magic and impoverished atmosphere of the Pendle locals. Women trapped in great

poverty have become soft target in a society experiencing considerable change which yet has not

fully recovered from the aborted mission to detonate the king and the parliament previously.

According to Hempel and Amy 2012, the zeal of lawmen is motivated by an assortment

suspicion of the ancient practices may it be witchcraft or Catholicism, fear, and craving to prove

loyalty to a protestant king who is particularly interested in Daemonologie(9). Thus, Pendle is a

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marginalized district and alleged home for outcasts who have violated society norms, hence

perceived as deviants and life-threating for societal order.

Claim:

Winterson focuses on the harsh conditions upon which women alleged of witch craft

thrive

Analysis:

The impoverished nature of the Demdikes illustrates the first claim in the novel. The

Demdike family comprises mainly of women. They are viciously hunted by Constable

Hargreaves and his group of law enforcers for accusations of witchcraft on other people. Hence,

they seek Nutter’s help who being of compassionately hosts them in her estate’s ancient tower.

The rest of the Lancashire refer to them as witches because of their impoverished state, save for

Nutter, who defends them saying they deserve to be pitied, and not punished. According to

Church and Episcopal 2014, on page 24, the law enforcers of the newly enthroned King James I

who is a firm Protestant believer are extremely brutal to women suspected of having any sorcery

connections (Church, 24). Women labeled as witches such as Elizabeth Device, Sarah Device,

among others, are sexually assaulted by the cruel law enforcers of the king. On page 16,

Constable Hargreaves in his respond to Alice Nutter says that the proof of the evil practice is

supposed to be determined by the law and the scripture. Constable Hargreaves vividly refers to

the exposition of the book of Exodus Chapter 20 Verse 16 which states that a “witch shall not be

allowed to live” (28). Persecution of the alleged witches was not seen as a murder by the law

enforcers of King James I.

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The sufferings the Demdikes go through in the hands of the law enforcement agency

illustrate the second claim on the way women bear fear and torture in the hands of law enforcers.

They endure great pain which make them harder and learn to fight through without begging for

mercy as it never helps. Since seeking for sympathy is an act of futility, they opt to provoke fear

and dislike (27). For instance, Sarah Device, who has been captured, is being subjected to all

manner of torture including ducking, beating, and being starved. Moreover, she is raped by the

lawmen. Alongside others who escaped, she is accused of having bewitched John Law, a tree

harvester. The law enforcers on page 28 point out that John Law is lying on his deathbed and

has lost his power of speech and legs after having an encounter with Demdikes in the forest. On

page 18, Constable Hargreaves inflicts Sarah Device with fear when he mentions that her

grandmother, together with her sister, is waiting to be maimed in Lancaster Castle for being

alleged of witchery practice. She is stripped and exposed to the young as evident by a young

boy-Tom, forced to check for any cat marks on her body. In an endeavor to fight for her dignity,

Sara Device maims the young man by biting off her tongue when he tries to rape her. She is

almost strangled to death save for Alice Nutter’s appearance who comes to her rescue. Nutter’s

empathy for the oppressed Demdikes makes the witch persecutors, particularly Thomas Potts,

label her as a possessor of supernatural powers and a witch too, as illustrated by the statements of

the law enforcers on page 17.

Hargreaves, one of the lawmen says that “Alice Nutter rides astride like a male,

accompanied by a falcon despite her not being a falconer” (15). The lawmen are suspicious of

how a widowed woman like Nutter could accumulate immense wealth on her own, if not through

evil means. She is also accused of witchery on the account that she looks quite young despite her

advanced age (Eliot). Surprising enough, on page 25, the author observes that even the Demdikes

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taking refuge at her home believe there is something extraordinary about her when they summon

her and plead that she uses her magic to secure the release of their counterparts held in custody at

Lancaster Castle. She is questioned by Demdikes how she gained her richness, youthfulness if

not by magic.

Support:

Additionally, Winterson is indirectly noting the disadvantaged in her civilization. She

was adopted by poor working-class guardians who should have been jailed for child negligence -

her mother caned and locked her out of the house at night. In her diary, why should one be happy

when one could be normal, Winterson depicts her mother as an actual phantom who fought with

the devil for her life.

Claim:

The the novella captures is the beliefs and superstitions of the early seventeenth century

and makes the reader get immersed in such world that parallels that of Hammer horror films.

Analysis:

For instance, the magistrate is under a spell, Nutter’s youthfulness is associated with an

elixir she got from Queen Elizabeth’s fortune-teller, John Dee. There are also cases of creepy

rooms and phantoms with no substance such as the ones Alice witnesses lifting the letter that

almost gets set on fire (29). Additionally, more enlightened characters seem to hold

contemporary contradictions regarding their beliefs in supernatural powers. For instance,

superstition seemed not to bother Robert Nowell, the local magistrate, until later, when he almost

dies from sorceress’s spell. He begins to have a change of perspective. Another example is that

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of Alice Nutter, on page 45, where she tells the Demdikes that witchery is mystical. Ironically,

she had been recruited by John Dee as a partner who firmly believed in magic.

In March 1612, two old local sorcerers namely Demdike and Chattox are among the

wizards locked up in the dungeon waiting to be persecuted. The grand- daughter of Demdike

alongside Alizon, the daughter of Chattox, are also set for trial after Alizon cursed a peddler for

refusing to lend her pins (Church, 24). As a result of the confrontation, the peddler immediately

suffers from a strange disease which is considered to be the effect of witchery. Mother Chattox,

who happens to be a witness in the case against the Old Demdike, is cunningly turned to a witch

by the crafty judge Roger Nowell, accusing her of being a witch from birth. Each family accuses

the other of witchcraft making all the four women be put behind bars waiting for the August

hearings. It is the fear of witches that drives Chattox and her daughter to be part of the outlawed

group of Demdikes. Alice holds the view that the witches are victims of an unfair society

seeking some influence in the form of reparation. Brought up in dire poverty and misery, they

mislead themselves into reasoning that they possess power through the practice of sorcery.

As Alice speaks to Robert Nowell, she makes reference to such women as being destitute

and full of ignorance. She says they lack the power in his world. Therefore, they are agitated to

gain all the power they have. Winterson has portrayed the witches as people of the lowest class

in the society seeking for ways out of destitution and punishment from their beliefs. For instance,

one sued witch by the name Mouldheeds had chunks of flesh that hang from her body; one

would think she was a junk of cooked meat. Her feet ponged of dead tissue. In the jail, the

woman appeared wrapped in rags. It is evidently clear that the society placed little worth on

such individuals, smaller than the animals killed for the meat provision. Such indirect remarks by

the author on injustices of the seventeenth-century English civilization concurrently draw on

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Hammer films’ traditional demonstrations of nasty nobles’ disregard for the destitute and

frightened villagers.

Witches are supposedly thought to have struck pacts with the devil to gain their

supernatural powers. There are those who believe that they indeed expelled mystical powers

while others operated on the local’s fears that they had such powers. Being a county of

lawlessness, Lancashire was the most targeted place for enchantresses and Catholic recusants.

Besides the Old Demdike, who succumbed to death in the jail, the rest ten accused witchery

victims, including Alice Nutter, get arraigned in court, found culpable, and are eventually hanged

in August 1612 (107).

The above discussion has clearly depicted the pre-enlightenment atrocities women pass

through during the reign of a protestant regime. The trials are based on a real life scenario that

occurred in 1612, a period when religion and politics were closely entangled. After the

attempted assassination of the King by the Gunpowder plot of 1605, making all catholic

accomplice flee to a desolate and untamed Pendle region far from the reach of the ruthless

London law. The victims are denied their human rights to a fair judicial hearing since there is no

substantial evidence linking them to the sorcery crimes they are alleged to have committed.

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Works Cited

Church, Episcopal. The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. New

York: Church Pension Fund, 2014.

Eliot, George. Mill on the Floss, the: Webster's Bulgarian Thesaurus Edition. New York: ICON Group,

2013.

Hempel, Amy. The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel. New York: Scribner, 2012.

Stay, Jesse and Thomas Stay. Minecraft Recipes for Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley, 2015.

Winterson, Jeanette and Nicola Barber. The Daylight Gate. Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio, 2014.

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