The article is devoted to the analysis of the story “Bewitched”, written by the American writer Edith Wharton in 1925. The story refers to the category of “gothic” or so-called “ghost stories”. But at the same time it is a realistic narrative about the hard life of farmers in the northeast of America. The author reveals the peculiarities of the Puritan consciousness, studies the traditions and customs typical of the provincial society of New England at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, as well as their influence on human life.