Significance Of Witchcraft Hysteria In The Crucible

I am writing this report today to explain the major reasons behind the horrific witchcraft trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in the years 1692 and 1693. For years this event has been ignored. However, after analyzing the evidence in this case, I have some startling news to share. First, I will share with you the various theories that make the most sense. Then I will explain what I believe caused the Salem community to respond in such a cruel and violent way.

The Salem Witch Trials was an uncanny and eerie event of hearings and prosecutions of people being accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. Although it lasted from 1691 to 1692, it lead to more than 200 people, including men and women, being accused and arrested of witchcraft and 20 of those people executed. The hysteria began with two young girls: Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams claiming to be possessed by the devil, causing the “witch-fever” among the Salem village. In this essay the circumstances behind poor harvest, sickness and the conjecture of witches and witchcraft being highly considered as a cause in this era will be described. The Salem Witch Trials were caused by environmental factors because the Salem community had limited understanding of natural causes such as poor harvest, sickness and diseases.

Hysteria is an exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people. This can lead to lie being spread that people will believe due to hysteria. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, Arthur use the red scare of post war america as his inspiration for his novel. During the red scare people were accusing any person of being a communist and people believed because due to hysteria. Arthur miller uses hysteria to show that it leads to Damaged reputations,lies ,and hurting people's lives.

When considering possible explanations for the Salem witch trials, it is important to consider and reference other historical accounts of witchcraft. Although Salem presents its own unique case, and therefore is a result of things specific singularly to Salem, there may yet be a link to other cases of witchcraft. Cases may differ in religion, denomination, or other spiritual beliefs, and social setting. Additionally, a study of horticulture in the Salem area shows that hallucinogenic mushrooms may have contributed to the visions of witches. However, I have discovered in my studies that in most cases, there seems to be growing discontentment in each community before and during accusations of witchcraft. This is the clearest link between all cases. In my opinion, witchcraft is a result of suppressed feelings caused by human suffering. This is displayed as accusers in a community using witchcraft as an excuse to release tension, or rid themselves of enemies.

Frances Hill, a specialist in the Salem witch trails, once described the event as “providing an astonishingly clear and instructive model of the universal and timeless processes by which groups of human beings instigate, justify, and escalate persecution…the steps are easy to trace, by which a few deranged, destructive human beings led ordinary mortals down the dark paths of fear, hatred, and envy to demonize and destroy innocent victims.” These trials will most likely be an occasion where historians will always wonder how and why. How did the people of Salem begin to be affected by witchcraft? Why were they so willing to accuse each other, ultimately ending in twenty deaths? By looking into the history of the village and its’ social conditions, this paper will explore the possibility that Reverend Samuel Parris, in fear of losing his position within the community, used the Bible, his supporters, and the villagers’ beliefs to scare Salem into believing witchcraft was alive in their village.

During the 17th century, people were hung even if the did not deserve it. The trials started when little girls acted like they had been bewitched. The trials took place on a famous site called Salem Village, Massachusetts in the summer of 1692, killing more than 20 people. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody truly knows, entirely, what caused the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Clearly, there were a few possible causes of the hysteria; however, these three stand out as the main causes envious, young, single woman; sexism; and lying little girls.

Salem Village was a small settlement under the control of Salem Town in Massachusetts. The village was notorious for its witchcraft hysteria that broke out in 1692, and the execution of twenty accused of being witches and wizards. The incident became an interesting topic for both historians and playwrights. However, the bizarre witch trial and the girls’ mysterious symptoms disguised the social and political movement which subtly influenced the small village for half a century. Only recently have historians started to dig out the complete history of the witch trials, and (have) tried to integrate the isolated incident of witchcraft hysteria with the normal life in Salem Village. Therefore, a new interpretation of the Salem Witch Trials emerges, where the events in Salem Village actually represent an early form of urban and rural division. The newly found evidence suggests that witchcraft hysteria is a direct product of social instability, which was triggered by the rapid commercialization of 17th century New England, the division between urban town and rural village, and the rise of the new merchant class.

Within Arthur Miller’s award-winning play, The Crucible, there is a constant trend that flows through time. As the tale persists, Salem, Massachusetts gets wound up in the witch hunt of 1692, creating an infectious hysteria on all the villagers. City-wide fear overtakes individual thought and reasoning as well as it can today in America’s “trivial” matters.

As the somber wind blew, the victims of injustice swayed eternally from the tree of insanity. New England was supposed to be a land of opportunity for the Puritans. During the summer of 1692, Salem Village proved to be a wretched example of this; twenty people were falsely accused of witchcraft and were accordingly jailed and executed. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody knows in entirety what caused the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The answers as to how the trials came to be are still shrouded in an ever-growing cloak. Although most hypotheses as to what happened have yet to be confirmed, there are three major factors that may have played a part in this disaster:

How do the characters respond to the accusation of witchcraft? Why do you think they act this way? Does their religion have anything to do with their reaction?

The Salem Witch Trials were a controversial part of history as many innocent people lost their lives for many reasons, one mostly that the girls pretended to be bewitched so they can get rid of their enemies. The consequences of these events were long lasting as many mysteries of the Trials were uncovered long after. The important topics are on how the girls quite possibly faked being “sick”, which led to the executions in Salem, the mass hysteria and many repercussions after a certain crisis in Colonial America nearly three-hundred and fifteen years ago.

In the 1690s “The “afflicted” girls [whom] made the accusations were some of the most powerless members of their society” (“Part II: The Witches of Salem”). Salem Witch Trials quickly became famous and researchers began exploring the multiple possibilities behind the trials. Although many theories were considered, none could explain why so many were accused and hanged.

In the play the crucible miller writes about these girls and how they are in the woods dancing and summoning the devil, but they also somewhat commit witchcraft but once they got caught in the woods and committing witchcraft they blame it on other innocent people saying that they were the one's who were committing witchcraft. That same day in court when the people who were blamed for committing witchcraft were trying to tell the court that it wasn't them and they would never do that the court didn't believe them so they hung each and everyone of them that were blamed for it. This relates to our modern day because it's kinda happening now were the law is believing children over the adults because they think that the children is always right,

Feeling cursed by Satan, the inhabitants of the town are clearly uneasy, especially the children of the town. Focusing mostly on Annie Putnam, the movie shows young girls slowly acting more and more crazy, leading up to accusations of witches being the cause of their fits. Surprisingly, the girls even accused Reverend Paris’ maid Tituba, who pled guilty to being a witch, and said there were more witches

In my opinion i believe that The Crucible is based on hysterical. The reason being because they don’t really have any prove or anything that shows that witchcraft existed. I feel like the girls just wanted attention brought to themselves. So that's why i think they started to admit or say that they talked to the devil, demands and associated with witchcraft. Clearly the trials are begun by the wagging of tongues after the girls are found in the woods, but gossip certainly has a more enduring role. Hysterica supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighborhoods, whom they have always considered upstanding people, are committing absurving unbelievable crimes, communicating with the devil, killing babies, and so on. Abigail and the other girls falsely testify that certain individuals are involved in witchcraft and have begun a community members. She is accusing people of having connections with the devil and she is influencing the other girls to join in and accuse innocent townspeople. In the play, this is the first example of assumptions being made by Abigail.During the trials every girls fake illness and gets caught up.