Analysis Of ' The Salem Witch Trials '

The Salem witch trials was a story of envy, lies, and the danger of the people. Others wouldn’t defend those accused, and if they did, they themselves were eventually charged as witches. In many ways, defending others was condemning yourself. Such was the case for John Proctor in “The Crucible”. John Proctor was someone who had made mistakes, but through his own crucible made peace with himself and defended the honor of himself and the others that would not admit to witchcraft.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a series of prosecutions of people who were accused of acts of witchcraft or of being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts through the time period of February 1692 through May 1693. This was a dark time in history as more than 200 prosecutions took place and at least 20 people were killed during this time of fear and hysteria. The accusations began as three girls Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne were accused of witchcraft from other young girls in the community. During this time period, fear of the Devil was common as people in Salem were very devoted to their religion and religious practices. As one of the accused girls, Tituba, confessed to working for the Devil and admitting to being a witch, this caused panic and hysteria as a massive witch hunt took place to find more of these witches. This confession was the main reason behind months and months of fear and mass panic as it triggered more accusations.

The Salem Witch Trials officially began in February 1692 when the “afflicted girls” accused Tituba, Ms. Good and Ms. Osborne of witchcraft. Tituba confessed to witchcraft. Not only did she confess, she also said there were many others who were working for Satan. This triggered the beginning and that is when the fears of the Salem colonists were realized.

The first women to be accused of witchcraft in Salem were seen as different and as social outcasts: Tituba, a slave; Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, a sickly old woman who married her servant. These women were unpopular and it was easy to point fingers at them. Gossips and rumors were enough to accuse them. Tituba[3] was a dark skinned slave who lived in the household of the Reverend Samuel Parris. She was familiar with the West Indian Voodoo and practicing magic.

To conclude this testimony, Tituba is most at fault for the Salem hangings. It was a simple process to see who was consciously at fault the most: Tituba performed the witchcraft, confessed to it, and accused others of it. After reading this, be sure not to pull a Tituba and start another mess of conspiracies and

The Salem Witch Trials were a dark spot in America’s early history. During a time where acts of the unknown were simply considered spiritual signs or supernatural forces with meanings; the early American settlers in Salem, Massachusetts were plagued with what they claimed were acts of the Devil putting witches in their town to disrupt Puritan beliefs and actions. One of the earliest accused witches was the village pastor’s slave Tituba Indian. Tituba was especially vulnerable to accusations to due to her extreme double minority status as well as the fact that she was owned by the village pastor.

During the phase of witchcraft accusations, it was observed that generally women were both the accusers and the suspects of witchcraft. An Indian slave named Tituba was the first perpetrator of witchcraft, who used to work in Samuel Parris’ house (Ray, “Satan’s War against the Covenant” 82). She was severely tortured and interrogated during her capture. At one stage of interrogation, Samuel Parris brutally assaulted her, which resulted her to confess about her involvement in

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he writes, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 77). This partially fictionalized tale of the Salem Witch Trials points to one of the causes of the trials, vengeance, but the over dramatized tale 's early stages were quiet. The Salem Witch Episode had humble beginnings in the town of Salem Village, Massachusetts, but evolved into one of the most widely known witch trials in American History. The gallows in Salem claimed the lives of nineteen men and woman during the spring and summer of 1692 due to the accusations of witchcraft with over a hundred people who were accused. After all the terror and the uproar of the trials occurred, everything came to a screeching halt (Linder 1). Due to the unique circumstances of this particular set of witch trials, from the rampant accusations to the discontinuation of the trials mass hysteria does not seem to be fault as with other witch trials, but a variety of factors. The Salem witch trials were not just a simple case of mass hysteria, but a combination of factors ranging from poisons to superstitions to scapegoats, resulting in the outbreak of the Salem Witch episode.

On January 20th, before the three women were accused, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris began to have fits, and complained that they were in pain (Source 2). In February, a doctor first examined the girls, ruled out that it was witchcraft, and then examined Tituba, who confessed to him that she was a witch (Source 2). As other girls began to show signs of affliction, the citizens of Salem began to fill with fear, and went to the court to get help. The court began the official trials, and worked alongside the afflicted girls to rule out who was evil, and who was good.

The witch trials began when nine girls, known as the afflicted girls, experienced strange symptoms. In the beginning, there were only five afflicted girls: Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam Jr., Mary Walcott, and Mercy Lewis. Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, Mary Warren, and Elizabeth Booth later began experiencing the symptoms, which involved strange fits, irregular body contortions, and fevers. Although the symptoms seem phenomenal, modern theories suggest that the children were merely bored, abused, or had epilepsy, a mental illness, or a disease that was obtained from eating rye bread infected with a fungus. Reverend Samuel Parris, Betty Parris’ father, asked Dr. William Griggs to deduce the problem, and Dr. Griggs concluded that they were bewitched. The group of girls accused three women of causing their unnatural behaviors: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, a slave owned by Samuel Parris. The women were easy targets for the girls because they were outcasts (Brooks). Sarah Good was a beggar, Sarah

The  accusations did not stop with these women, however. A few of the “bewitched” girls continued to name other men and women in the community as witches. Many cases of witchcraft were presented, and in May 1692, William Phips arrived in Salem and became the new governor (Woods 37). Phips created the Court of Oyer and Terminer, a special court to try these cases and

After the accused the women, the city of Salem went crazy. First, it did not help that the doctor could not explain why these things were happening to the girls. Also since Salem was very religious, when someone even thinks the devil can be a cause, they go crazy. As Salem kept tearing itself apart the children were at the head of it. After accusing the first three women the kept accusing more and more, until the court had done hundreds of trials. Also this led to innocent women being killed, because people were paranoid about the devil being in the town. Now if Tituba had not confessed to being a witch, I believe the same events would have happened. The doctor still would have not known what was happening to the girls. Also the devil's

In the article, “The Devil’s Tongue,” Stacy Schiff examines the life of an individual by the name of Tituba and how immense a role she had in the Salem Witch Trials. Schiff uses ethos, logos, and pathos to inform the reader of her opinions concerning the Salem Witch Trials. Schiff begins the article by examining how disastrous the Salem Witch Trials were, transitioning into a story of the trials. The trials began in 1692 when a group of youth began faking contortions, outbursts of gibberish, and aversion towards anything Biblical.

This occasion fit into the story in light of the fact that it set off the witchcraft madness that tailed it. Numerous individuals abruptly got to be charged after the young ladies got to be connected with Tituba and witchcraft. This occasion gave a decent delineation of life in the late seventeenth century by demonstrating how neurotic individuals were about the vicinity of witchcraft in their general public. They were prepared to accept that individuals were witches suddenly, and as a result of this, they unreasonably blamed and killed hundreds for individuals. This can be seen as the beginning stage of the witchcraft madness in Salem that executed such a large number of

Next was Tituba, she played the victim card, she stated that is was Osborne and Good who made her do these evil acts and had no choice, but to comply. She talked about how a man kept following her around and telling her to join him and do what he says, so she did it because she was scared. In the trial of John Proctor, like we talked about in the class, The Salem villagers mainly accused the Salem town of being witches. He was very well- liked in the town, but not so much in the village which left him an easy target of such accusations. He spoke out against the trials which made people think he was on the witch confederacy. This lead to him being put on trial, although he had neighbors stand up for him and sign a petition, it was not enough. Next, for Bishop and Hoar they were arrested because of their traits of being confident and cunning, which was not thought highly of back in the day. There was also a doll having a pin through its neck which led people to believe that bishop was a witch. Hoar was reprieved because she confessed and wanted to find salvation. Bishop one the other hand was