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The (Re)imagined Shades of Alice Gray: The Counter-Memory of a Woman-as-Witch in Stacey Halls’ The Familiars (2019)

Received: 11 April 2024     Accepted: 27 April 2024     Published: 23 September 2024
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Abstract

Historical fiction is a way of dealing with painful pasts and traumatic events as counter-memories. Long-forgotten events are (re)created in a safe space in historical fiction. Set in seventeenth-century Lancashire, in her modern historical fiction The Familiars (2019), Stacey Halls narrates Alice Gray’s painful past as a woman-as-witch into existence. Halls achieves it by (re)imagining Alice Gray’s plight within the historical context of the Pendle Hill witch-hunt in 1612 Lancashire. Not only does Halls give Alice her historical voice back, but she sets the historical record straight by counter-memorialising Alice Gray as a woman-as-witch, i.e., a seventeenth-century woman othered and presumed to practise witchcraft, in this instance, merely for being an impoverished unmarried woman and a midwife. In this way, Halls’s narrative invites us to empathise with Alice’s plight, to understand the injustices she faced, and to appreciate her resilience. Besides, (re)creating Alice’s witchcraft story, Halls fleshes out her heart-wrenching emotional turmoil. Moving away from the cold historical recorded facts, Halls interweaves Alice’s troubled personal past as an abused young woman and a grieving and loving stepmother with the unfortunate contemporary events of the Pendle Hill witch hunt. As a result, we are offered a more than plausible (re)imagined rationale for Alice’s witch hunt predicament and acquittal, which cannot be found or is even hinted at in the historical records. Thus, Halls culturally endows Alice’s seventeenth-century marginalised historical counterpart with a contemporary gender-empowered mnemonic (re)imagined counter-memory. Moreover, Hall’s active remembering of Alice Gray politically (re)contextualises and (re)frames this woman-as-witch of the Pendle Hill witch hunt of 1612 previously wanting. Also, the (re)imagined counter-memory of Alice Gray challenges the dominant historical narrative and underscores historical fiction’s power in reshaping our understanding of the past. Ultimately, Halls endears and humanises this woman-as-witch of Pendle Hill and provides us with the many shades of Alice Gray.

Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 9, Issue 4)

This article belongs to the Special Issue Memory and Counter-memory in Postmodern British Fiction

DOI 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15
Page(s) 132-137
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Counter-Memory, Mnemonic (Re)imagination, Historical Fiction, The Woman-as-Witch, The Pendle Hill Witch-Hunt of 1612, Seventeenth-Century English Witchcraft

References
[1] Keightley, Emily and Michael Pickering. The Mnemonic Imagination: Remembering as Creative Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 167, 180.
[2] Miller, Nancy K., and Jason D. Tougaw. Extremities: Trauma, Testimony, and Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002, pp. 71.
[3] Law, Mary J. “Introduction: Cultural Memory, the Past and the Static of the Present.” Acta orientalia vilnensia, vol. 7, no. 1-2, 2006, pp. 8-10.
[4] Erll, Astrid and S. B. Young. Memory in Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 68.
[5] Keightley, Emily and Michael Pickering. The Mnemonic Imagination: Remembering as Creative Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 179.
[6] Erll, Astrid et al. Editors. Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008, pp. 301, 395.
[7] Erll, Astrid and A. Rigney. “Literature and the production of cultural memory: Introduction.” European Journal of English Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2006, pp. 78.
[8] Hagen, Trever, and Anna L. Tota. Editors. Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies. Routledge International Handbooks, 2016, pp. 70, 74.
[9] Southgate, Beverley C. History Meets Fiction. Harlow: Longman, 2009, pp. 8-10. Erll, Astrid et al. Editors. Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008, pp. 389.
[10] De Groot, Jerome. The Historical Novel. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010, pp. 93-97.
[11] Goodier, Christine. 1612 The Lancashire Witch Trials: A New Guide. Lancaster: Palatine Books, 2011, pp. 106-107.
[12] Clayton, John A. The Pendle Witch Fourth Centenary Handbook: History and Archaeology: Fact and Fiction, 1612 - 2012. Barrowford Press, 2012.
[13] Pavlac, Brian A. Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. Westport, Conn.; London: Greenwood, 2009, pp. 1-3.
[14] Lofthouse, Jessica. North-Country Folklore in Lancashire, Cumbria and the Pennine Dales. London: Hale, 1976, pp. 60.
[15] Halls, Stacey. “An absence of presence: domestic records and The Familiars.” Magazine of The Historical Writer’s Association. 6 February 2019.
[16] Potts, Thomas. The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. … London: W. Stansby for J. Barnes, 1613, 1612, Sigs. P4a1, G4b.
[17] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 152.
[18] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 219.
[19] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 221.
[20] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 222.
[21] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 223.
[22] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 223-224.
[23] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 240.
[24] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 283.
[25] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 264.
[26] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 151.
[27] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 284.
[28] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 284-285.
[29] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 285.
[30] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 285-286.
[31] Potts, Thomas. The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. … London: W. Stansby for J. Barnes, 1613, 1612, Sig. Xa.
[32] Halls, Stacey. The Familiars. United Kingdom: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, pp. 393.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Gonçalves, I. T. F. (2024). The (Re)imagined Shades of Alice Gray: The Counter-Memory of a Woman-as-Witch in Stacey Halls’ The Familiars (2019). English Language, Literature & Culture, 9(4), 132-137. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15

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    ACS Style

    Gonçalves, I. T. F. The (Re)imagined Shades of Alice Gray: The Counter-Memory of a Woman-as-Witch in Stacey Halls’ The Familiars (2019). Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2024, 9(4), 132-137. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15

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    AMA Style

    Gonçalves ITF. The (Re)imagined Shades of Alice Gray: The Counter-Memory of a Woman-as-Witch in Stacey Halls’ The Familiars (2019). Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2024;9(4):132-137. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15,
      author = {Inês Tadeu Freitas Gonçalves},
      title = {The (Re)imagined Shades of Alice Gray: The Counter-Memory of a Woman-as-Witch in Stacey Halls’ The Familiars (2019)
    },
      journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
      volume = {9},
      number = {4},
      pages = {132-137},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.15},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20240904.15},
      abstract = {Historical fiction is a way of dealing with painful pasts and traumatic events as counter-memories. Long-forgotten events are (re)created in a safe space in historical fiction. Set in seventeenth-century Lancashire, in her modern historical fiction The Familiars (2019), Stacey Halls narrates Alice Gray’s painful past as a woman-as-witch into existence. Halls achieves it by (re)imagining Alice Gray’s plight within the historical context of the Pendle Hill witch-hunt in 1612 Lancashire. Not only does Halls give Alice her historical voice back, but she sets the historical record straight by counter-memorialising Alice Gray as a woman-as-witch, i.e., a seventeenth-century woman othered and presumed to practise witchcraft, in this instance, merely for being an impoverished unmarried woman and a midwife. In this way, Halls’s narrative invites us to empathise with Alice’s plight, to understand the injustices she faced, and to appreciate her resilience. Besides, (re)creating Alice’s witchcraft story, Halls fleshes out her heart-wrenching emotional turmoil. Moving away from the cold historical recorded facts, Halls interweaves Alice’s troubled personal past as an abused young woman and a grieving and loving stepmother with the unfortunate contemporary events of the Pendle Hill witch hunt. As a result, we are offered a more than plausible (re)imagined rationale for Alice’s witch hunt predicament and acquittal, which cannot be found or is even hinted at in the historical records. Thus, Halls culturally endows Alice’s seventeenth-century marginalised historical counterpart with a contemporary gender-empowered mnemonic (re)imagined counter-memory. Moreover, Hall’s active remembering of Alice Gray politically (re)contextualises and (re)frames this woman-as-witch of the Pendle Hill witch hunt of 1612 previously wanting. Also, the (re)imagined counter-memory of Alice Gray challenges the dominant historical narrative and underscores historical fiction’s power in reshaping our understanding of the past. Ultimately, Halls endears and humanises this woman-as-witch of Pendle Hill and provides us with the many shades of Alice Gray.
    },
     year = {2024}
    }
    

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    AB  - Historical fiction is a way of dealing with painful pasts and traumatic events as counter-memories. Long-forgotten events are (re)created in a safe space in historical fiction. Set in seventeenth-century Lancashire, in her modern historical fiction The Familiars (2019), Stacey Halls narrates Alice Gray’s painful past as a woman-as-witch into existence. Halls achieves it by (re)imagining Alice Gray’s plight within the historical context of the Pendle Hill witch-hunt in 1612 Lancashire. Not only does Halls give Alice her historical voice back, but she sets the historical record straight by counter-memorialising Alice Gray as a woman-as-witch, i.e., a seventeenth-century woman othered and presumed to practise witchcraft, in this instance, merely for being an impoverished unmarried woman and a midwife. In this way, Halls’s narrative invites us to empathise with Alice’s plight, to understand the injustices she faced, and to appreciate her resilience. Besides, (re)creating Alice’s witchcraft story, Halls fleshes out her heart-wrenching emotional turmoil. Moving away from the cold historical recorded facts, Halls interweaves Alice’s troubled personal past as an abused young woman and a grieving and loving stepmother with the unfortunate contemporary events of the Pendle Hill witch hunt. As a result, we are offered a more than plausible (re)imagined rationale for Alice’s witch hunt predicament and acquittal, which cannot be found or is even hinted at in the historical records. Thus, Halls culturally endows Alice’s seventeenth-century marginalised historical counterpart with a contemporary gender-empowered mnemonic (re)imagined counter-memory. Moreover, Hall’s active remembering of Alice Gray politically (re)contextualises and (re)frames this woman-as-witch of the Pendle Hill witch hunt of 1612 previously wanting. Also, the (re)imagined counter-memory of Alice Gray challenges the dominant historical narrative and underscores historical fiction’s power in reshaping our understanding of the past. Ultimately, Halls endears and humanises this woman-as-witch of Pendle Hill and provides us with the many shades of Alice Gray.
    
    VL  - 9
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