Assertion Analysis #10

"Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,

Your Maker's praises spout;

Up from the sands ye codlings peep,

And wag your tails about."

-Cotton Mather 

Cotton Mather is a Puritan minister and leader in America. He strongly hated and opposed witches. He wrote a whole book dedicated to witches. He wrote about an experiment he made with witches and ways in which people can take action if they stat sensing certain things and are under attack by a witch. Mather believed that witches were associated with the devil and that is how they got their powers to curse others. He saw witches as monsters beside the devil. For one to be saved from such witchery, Cotton strongly believed that going to God and the Bible would save one. In Mather's eyes witches were terrible creatures that take the mask of humans and do terrible witch craft, making people lives miserable. In this post Mather is speaking ill of witches and expressing his hate to them. 

Cotton Mather uses irony in this quote. He uses language as though he is casting a spell. He is using the language of the people he hates the most to criticize them. This causes confusion to the audience because he is using the language that he hates, but why? People during his time might even think that he might have been possessed. In addition to the way in which the poem/assertion sounds, the way it's structured is also very suspicious, and makes it look like a spell or incantation. Instead of being as straightforward, Cotton Mather uses "Ye Monsters of the bubbling deep"to represent the evil witches from hell, hence the bubbling deep referring to the deep dark depths of the ocean.