Color Imagery
The Witch of Edmonton constantly plays with images of white and black in particular to muddle with the arbitrary moral implications each has. On the one hand Dog is initially characterized as a black creature at first - the traditional color of the devil in Renaissance society. And simultaneously the audience is made to be on the side of Elizabeth Sawyer as she is betrayed by the Dog and shocked by his sudden transformation into white apparel, she goes as far as to state that: "tis the black colour, / Or none, which I fight under". Ultimately Dekker shows that morality transcends the two color tones of black and white.
Animal Imagery
Perhaps the most obvious animal image in the play is the literalized image of Dog. For a Renaissance audience this would have been an uncanny affair - 'Dog' is one of the few characters in any Early Modern drama to actually have a significant talking role. An audience is aware the whole time of Dog's humanoid features (namely that a human is playing an animal) and in some ways this is perfect for the purpose of such animal imagery - within the play world itself Dog is constantly jostling between the domestic and the satanic, he sits at the liminal borderline between both genres and species.
Domestic Imagery
As a Domestic Tragedy the play is pervaded by domestic images and interiors including the houses of Frank and Elizabeth Sawyer. What is interesting about the domestic is how it is perverted into something scary - indeed the use of an animal such as a Dog as the satanic figure is particularly telling. The benign and well loved domestic pet is turned into the embodiment of satan - thus the domestic is defamiliarized and is made part of the tragic onus.
Contractual Imagery
Throughout the imagery of contracts ("seal it with blood"; "equivocations"; "confession") is used to highlight the contractual nature of the relationships in the play at a literal and metaphoric level. Elizabeth Sawyer literally makes a contract with Dog in giving away her blood, but there exists another unspoken social contract between the two of them: Dog as Elizabeth's friend and pet. It is the breaking of this contract which gives birth to the tragic downfall of her life and story.
