Plot and Subplot Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill
Plot and Sub-plot – Vinegar Tom Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill, a feminist playwright, is a play about witchcraft and the persecution of women. Caryl Churchill wrote that the play is not like most plays about witchcraft that focus on “evil, hysteria and possession by the devil”, but it is a play with no actual witches in it and is more about “poverty, humiliation and prejudice” and how those women saw themselves. ... Also, Vinegar Tom is mentioned, he is Joan’s cat. ... The play is not based on any particular time in history but Churchill has set it “rather loosely” in the 17th century. ... These songs seem to summarize the action in the previous scenes and also relate the play to the persecution of people in our time, for example in “Something to Burn” Churchill writes, “it’s lunatics, shut them away. ... This technique seems to show how women were not taken seriously and also it seems that Churchill is trying to show why women were persecuted – because the dominant view was that women are defective thus more likely to be “infected” by witchcraft.