The Ramifications of Female Sexuality: Cultural Uncertainty, Domestic Confinement, and Threatened Patriarchy in Robert Frost’s “Two Witches”

Abstract

During World War I, American women entered the workforce in greater numbers than ever before. However, once their husbands or other family members returned home, women in the workplace were forced out of their jobs in order to support more traditional gender roles. These “New Women” were, for the most part, college-educated, empowered in their sexuality, and had higher aspirations than being a stay-at-home wife and mother. Robert Frost’s 1920 poem “Two Witches” explores what forced domesticity did to New Women mentally, physically, and sexually. The narrative poem is split into two sections, “The Witch of Coös” and “The Pauper Witch of Grafton,” and while progressive in its social politics, the poems still confine their protagonists and reaffirm the tradition of American patriarchy.