Half Hanged Mary

Questions
1. What types of people were vulnerable to these kinds of charges during this period?
· Any person that was different in any was accused of practicing witchcraft during this time period. Even the simplest thing as a women living alone was accused of practicing witchcraft.
2. Define Trussed
· trussed- to be bound or secured closely
3. How is she similar to a flag being raised?
· This woman is like a flag being raised because she is representing something; she is representing what happens to people after being accused of witchcraft, as the flag represents a certain area.
4. Who are "the bonnets"? Why are they afraid?
· The bonnets are spectators, and common people, who likewise do not want to be accused of the same crime that this woman was accused of.
5. What favors had she done for these women?
· This woman helped these women by causing them to have miscarriages so they would not be accused and killed for practicing witchcraft.
6. What could happen if they try to help her? What would "rub off"?
· If they tried to help her down then they would also be accused of witchcraft, because the sin would “rub off” on them causing them to be witches too.
7. What are her feelings toward God right now? How do you know?
· She has a feeling of disgust towards God because she is wonder why she is being killed, and also wondering why if he controls everything what the reason behind letting her be killed for no reason was.
8. How is Death like a crow? A judge? A dark angel?
· These three things work to represent death because just like them it is waiting, or anticipating taking her away and adding her to the billions of others whose spirits have left them. A crow waits anticipating a meal, a judge waits to use his authority for a nasty conviction, and a dark angel waits for one more poor soul to take away. Likewise, death waits for another lost soul to walk it’s hapless halls.
9. What is she trying to convince herself to do?
· She is trying to convince herself to finally let go and to die.
10. What two different kinds of prayers is she talking about? What is HER prayer?
· The first prayer she is talking about is the kind that we all use asking God to give us what we want in life while the other, one she is saying, is asking God not to end her life.
11. Why is the wording here so deliberately awkward here? What is the poet trying to show us?
· This wording is awkward because it shows that it is becoming night, and Mary is coming to the end of her struggle for life, and as she dangles there in the gathering darkness, her faith in God is also waning.
12. What does she see as her only crime? What is the significance of the repetition of the word "born/borne"?
· She is saying that she will not commit the crime of giving into death and letting it overtake her. She repeats the words born and borne because they represent life and she plans to come through this and be reborn instead of hanging to death.
13. How long has she been hanging?
· 11 hours
14. Why is the sun no longer a simile for God?
· The sun is no longer a simile for God because before this experience God would be seen as a savior and a giver of life, like the sun, but now after Mary lives through this experience her last glimpse of God faded with the fading light of the day before. All God is to her now is the blackest night.
15. How might the townsfolk have felt when they found her still alive?
· The townsfolk would have probably been very surprised to find her still alive, or else believe in her affiliation with witches even more, because she had lived passed being hanged.
16. Why does she say this?
· She is saying the before this experience she was a Christian and a firm believer in God and what she stood for. She believed in her community and her church, but now after she survived that night, all of her previous faith in God has diminished so she could very well be considered a witch though she wasn’t to begin with.
17. How do the townsfolk feel about her now? Why?
· They are all scared of her, if she ever comes near they get out of her way as quick as possible, diving into bushes because they now truly see her as a witch for she survived a hanging.
18. How have things changed since her hanging? How has she changed? What is her mental state?
· Since her hanging she has been shunned from most of the society. They are afraid of the women who survived her immanent death. She has now been granted the freedom to say any blasphemous or “with-like: thing she ccan think of because she cant be convicted twice for witchcraft. She feels liberated and reborn.