Elizabeth Knapp Case Study

Elizabeth Knapp The case of Elizabeth Knapp is one of the most well recorded cases of possession of a young working girl. She was a house maid in the home of Samuel Willard, a revered minister of Groton, Massachusetts, when her fits began. She behaved as though she had pains, could see spirits, and was tempted by someone to attempt “destroying herselfe” in the fire. According to Willard throughout his journaling of these events, the fits Elizabeth experienced were always around others and seemed to be the worst when he was present. As the fits escalate, Elizabeth starts to confess of the Devil’s influence on her; she describes “traveling” with him from Groton to Lancaster, accompanied by a black dog. By “traveling,” Elizabeth is describing the unnatural sort of traveling over long distances in short periods of time, usually by way of flight. These fits and illusions Elizabeth experienced could be a result of the inferiority she felt. She was a young girl, …show more content…
Men held significant power over women. Women were controlled by the standards men put in place for them. These strict standards were then reinforced by the structure in which Puritan women lived. The ideological lines between femininity of the soul and the masculinity of the body reinforces the argument that women were damned from the start. Women could not possibly deny that they are more susceptible to influence from the devil. Gender roles that existed in Puritan New England influenced the ideas about witchcraft in extremely significant ways. A woman who was a witch was a woman who had strayed from Puritan values which were strict and suffocating. Even if they had not truly strayed from God, men could influence them so heavily toward confessing or make them feel guilty for other sins that they would confess