Modern Day Witch Hunts Research Paper

Witch hunts blazed across Europe over the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries not just killing innumerable innocent people, but stripping women of much of the power they had once held, and changing society's perceptions of women all together. The economic hardships, religious rivalries, and troubled politics of the time made accusing your neighbors of witchcraft convenient. Where there was war and poverty, or merely bad luck, peasants would assume witchcraft and rush to blame an old, defenseless woman in trials which involved unbelievable cruelty and horrible sadism. As religion and the Catholic Church began to complement and perpetuate the increasing hysteria, European society as a whole could do nothing but

The Salem Witch Trials started on February 29, 1692. Two young girls accused their slave woman, named Tituba, of putting a curse upon them when getting their fortune told to by her. They reported strange behaviors, ridiculous speeches and muttering, creeping under chairs, and getting into holes. Three women were accused of this crime, but only Tituba admitted to practicing witchcraft which saved her life. This spiraled into the hysteria of witchcraft. Three things that might have caused the hysteria of 1692 were land disputes, power of suggestion, and acting.

The Salem Witch Trials were a constant and consistent occurrence in 1691 Massachusetts; hangings became consistent, but the fear of the unknown became the true evil unleashed amongst the dark times that reigned upon Salem. Such atrocities were caused by a development of preposterous dispositions created by desperation and fear. The colony ran into hardship after exposure to illness, misfortune, and power struggles. Due to their religious ideology, they believed that an evil force was responsible for their hardship, and was responsible for wreaking havoc within their civilization.

The search for commies and witches happened at different points in time but had many similarities with very few differences. George Santayana said that, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." this quote I feel directly goes along with McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials.

In spite of the fact that it is hard to tell with sureness what happened in the year 1692 in Salem, many authentic sources propose that everything began when a gathering of young females from The village of Salem started having odd fits along with insane responses, unjustifiable crying and laughing, mixed up jabbering, endeavors to fly, and in a few occurrences an entrancing like stupor. What went before these strange fits clearly were mystery captivating sessions with an Indian slave from the Caribbean named Tituba, amid which she and a few young females from the village of Salem utilized people enchantment to foresee who their spouses would be (Aronson, 2003).

Imagine being accused of something you never did just because someone had something against you. That is exactly what the characters in “The Crucible” were going through. The author, Arthur Miller, used the play as an allegory. He wanted to compare the Salem witch trials to the McCarthyism. McCarthyism, created by Joseph P. McCarthy, was popular during the cold war and it falsely accused people of being a communist with no evidence to support the accusation. It became popular because of the spread of communism in China and Europe. In the United States, anyone could accuse someone of being a communist and could ruin their lives. That is exactly what Miller was trying to portray in “The Crucible.” If someone accused another person of witchcraft their whole lives could be turned upside down. They could even possibly be hanged. Throughout the story there are an abundance of arguments. Most of the arguments come from Act III in the courthouse. The arguments are all different, but they all end up being the same in the sense that people are being falsely accused. The arguments that are like that include Giles accusing Putnam, Proctor accusing Abigail, and Parris accusing Proctor.

The Salem witch trials began in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. Over 200 people were accused of practicing the devil’s magic, twenty of which were executed. Suspicions of witchcraft started when a group of young girls began acting bizarre, as they became ill, suffering from epileptic fits, their bodies contorted involuntary to odd positions as well as causing them to utter unusual sounds. Only when they went to a doctor did the man declare it was a matter of the supernatural. This caused an epidemic among the area in which numerous people were accused of the craft. Previously, in 1689 the English rulers William and Mary began a war with France among the American colonies. Spreading through the regions of upstate New York, Nova

The Mathers: The Father and Son Stand on Spectral Evidence during the Salem Witch Trials

“The Crucible” has many relation with the narrative we read in class.From the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, he explains how he went from a frail little boy to a strong independent man. The modern day “witch hunt” might be referring to the modern slavery issue we have today. Between the “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” and “The Crucible”, they have parallels of human determination, perversion of power by individuals, and inhumane nature of treatment.

The Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials began in Salem Massachusetts during the spring of 1692. The first “witch” convicted was Bridget Bishop, she was publicly hanged the June. Under British Law people thought to have been consulting with the devil or other spirits where considered felons. There where two different forms of confrontation, the afflicted and the accused. The afflicted where those supposedly possessed whom cried out the names of those possessing them.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a famous play which was written in the early 1950’s. The Crucible is a play based upon the events in 1692, which led to the ‘Salem Witch Trials’, a series of hearings before local magistrates to prosecute over 150 people accused of witchcraft. This was due to the hysteria caused by a group of girls accusing innocent people of witch craft. The play was set in Salem, Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. Salem was a very isolated and puritanical community, so their biggest fear was the devil and witchcraft. A person being accused of witchcraft was the worst thing possible in this society.

History has proven that it is easy to accuse and eliminate someone or something that is the source of your fear. For the people in Salem, they accused people of being witches and hanged them, even if they were innocent, just to make themselves feel more secure. During post 9/11 America people associated being muslim with being a terrorist, which lead to many innocent deaths of muslim people, again, just like in Salem, to make ourselves feel more secure.

The Crucible is a complex and intriguing novel with events, characters and themes comparable to almost every period of human history. It is common for humans to fear change and what is unknown, in the play The Crucible this is witchcraft and the devil, in more recent times it can be seen in post World War Two and Cold War United States, through McCarthyism. The themes in the crucible are as important to people in the 21st century as in Salem in 1692. These include justice, reputation, hysteria, intolerance and empowerment. All of these are common themes throughout human history. The characters in The Crucible are also important to people of the 21st century as they can teach us a little bit about people around us and their reactions when

Through a historical standpoint, humanity can be seen as a cyclic development in which old inclinations are further manifested to suit new social orders. As a result, issues that caused mass hysteria in an earlier era are often repeated again and we, just as the people of the old eras, are unable to recognize the flaws in our logic until it is too late. The witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries are perfect example, in that looking back today they seem like a stain on the history of mankind, but at the time being not many people stopped to think about the horrific acts they were committing As time progressed, and people no longer felt the need to ruin entire villages in order to fulfill their own philological desires, witch hunts, like many other trends, also came to an end. As of now, this end in mass witch-hunts can often be symbolized by the story of Anna Göldi, who not only signifies the change in how people thought, but also signifies the occurrence of excessive accusations in times of fear and ignorance.

In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the characterization of Abigail Williams, Thomas Putnam, and Governor Danforth, to show how people protect themselves during times of hysteria, which helps to continue the chaos that broke throughout Salem. Miller shows the importance of maintaining values and principles in order help end the chaos. Miller connects The Crucible with the events of the witch hunts from the 1690s where citizens were accused of using witchcraft, and the McCarthy trials of the 1950s. It leads to the significance of hysteria of manipulation, power, and personal gains in which leads to a downfall in the society in Salem.