Summary 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 Witchcraft trials was an outrageous event that began in 1692, and ended May of 1693 seeing the execution of many people. Unfortunately most of the victims of this phenomenon were women. For the most part these women were accused for very trivial reasons, such as for being widowed, being of old age and living alone, or for simply collecting herbs and other plants. During this time in history women and men were treated very differently both as they should contribute in the home and in society, this would have presented reasons as to why women were predominantly accused of witchcraft, along with any religious beliefs. The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place at a time of a patriarchal society, the roles of men and women were different, along with how they were treated overall in society. This contributed to the stereotype of women being the ones predominantly associated with witchcraft.

History generally regards the period of Salem witchcraft trials as a radical instatement of religious zeal which favored superstition over reason and targeted a large number of women over a much smaller number of men. Admittedly, the 1692 witchcraft crisis is a very complex historical episode, yet seeing as the majority of the people involved were women, it can be perceived as a gender issue, and illustrative for the definition of the role of women in New England. The present work's aim is to outline the colonial mindset concerning women and present relevant theories by means of analyzing three cases of witchcraft accusation together with delving into the accusers' perspective.

In January 1692, when a group of juvenile girls began to display bizarre behavior, the tight-knit Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t explain the unusual afflictions and came to a conclusion. Witches had invaded Salem. This was the beginning of a period of mass hysteria known as The Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were falsely accused of witchcraft and many paid the ultimate price of death. Nineteen people were hung, one was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen more died in prison. One of the accused Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, a faithful wife and mother, endured her fictitious accusation with honor and integrity.

The conflict of the trials continued for months with no compromise in sight. The people of Salem needed to find more witches, so they used spectral evidence. If someone had a dream or vision of a certain person it was enough, and that person was accused as a witch (Fasting; Mather 74 80). Many people started to oppose these trials, and didn’t believe in spectral evidence, people opposed the witch trials, but they would say nothing because they may be the next one accused (Latson; Brooks). No one wanted to be accused, so they would do things to convince people that they were not witches. For example, people would put on a show at the trials of the witches (Kinchlow). Afflicted girls would have fits, and people would scream and yell at the accused. The trials were very strange, the judge and jury would act strange just like the people of Salem. The jury consisted of 12 men who decided the fate of the “witches” (Magoon 56; Roach 16). The judges were very lenient toward the people and didn’t really care what the accused had to say, if they listened to the accused they themselves may be accused. Five judges would hear the

This is a book broken into chapters with 376 pages. This novel discusses the people and events that occurred during the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. The author, Emerson Baker, does this by taking a large number of primary documents, scholarly interpretation, and speculations from the centuries that surround the trials. Baker examines the trials inside the 1600 time period, he then places the trials into the bigger picture of American history

In January 1692, when a group of juvenile girls began to display bizarre behavior, the tight-knit Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t explain the unusual afflictions and came to a conclusion. Witches had invaded Salem. This was the beginning of a period of mass hysteria known as The Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were falsely accused of witchcraft and many paid the ultimate price of death. Nineteen people were hung, one was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen more died in prison. One of the accused Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, a faithful wife and mother, endured her fictitious accusation with honor and integrity.

The witch trials in this play were based on actual events that happened in Salem in 1692. Arthur Miller’s 1953 The Crucible is a dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials. His reasoning for writing it was because everyone was hysteric about the Soviet Union and communism trying to make its way over to the United States. It was like a modern day witch hunt. In the play, Abigail Williams and a group of girls get caught in the woods. They were dancing and doing other things that puritan’s looked down upon. The girls were caught by Reverend Parris, and soon after his daughter became ‘ill’. The girls then started saying that witches came to them and told them to do bad things. They sent innocent people to hang. After studying Arthur Miller’s

Stacy Schiff’s national bestseller The Witches highlights the suspicions, betrayals and hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials. In 1692, the commonwealth of Massachusetts executed five men, fourteen women, and two dogs for witchcraft. One might wonder how and why this Puritan colony became so caught up in this witch frenzy. In this book she is able to paint a clear picture of the panic that occurred among the people of Salem.

Before I read this book, heard, or even much less understood the history behind the Salem witch trails in my History or English classes, I really didn’t know much about the history of these horrible events that condemned a lot of innocent women to death.

In my opinion, the author’s purpose and goals for writing this book, was to discover the beliefs and historical context that fueled the witch panic of 1692. I believe that the people in town accused others of witchcraft

I chose to read In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 for my book review. I chose this book because I have always been fascinated with the Salem Witch Trials and I wanted to learn more information about the trials. The author of this book was Mary Beth Norton, Norton is a professor at Cornell University and from reading her biography on the Cornell website I could tell that she was well versed in the Salem Witch Trials. Norton wrote In the Devil’s Snare in 2002; in the book’s introduction Norton states that her narrative “builds on the research and interpretations advanced in prior works on Salem; at the same time it disagrees with many aspects of those interpretations.” Norton also goes into detail to explain the

First, we will cover some context of the narrative. This story is based off of the dark time of the Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693). The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings that began when three young girls by the names of Betty Paris, Abigail Williams, and Anne Putnam Jr. were suspected of performing witchcraft, due to their strange mannerisms and behavior (Jerra, Melvin, Piper, Schaef 2012). This series of trials resulted in the death or imprisonment of several young girls in Massachusetts due to suspect behavior (Jerra, Melvin, Piper, Schaef 2012). Nathaniel Hawthorne, now centuries later,

In Summary the witch trials were that of great horror and terror that were marked greatly upon that of women and men. When one is falling asleep in bed, the sounds one hears in a dark room may make any sort of thing from their wildest imaginations appear to materialize out of the shadows and air that manifest throughout the room. Someone’s unconscious fears seem real, but when the light is turned on all of a sudden those dark shadows may vanish and the truth of the fears become visible. The imagination is an incredible tool, and within the witch trials that spread throughout early modern world their fears and beliefs fueled their anger and attacks on many innocent men and women. This was due to their beliefs on motherhood, gender and the lack

The Salem Witch Trials was a very tragic event in history. There is so many questions to This series of unfortunate events that still are unanswered today. This event took place in the village of Salem, Massachusetts between the months of February 1692 and May 1693. What I mean by “series of unfortunate events” is that some of the things that happened to innocent people was crazy. People were hung, and one man even got pressed to death with a bunch of heavy rocks. All of the people of Salem were firm believers of the puritan beliefs and if the any of the puritan laws were broken or had failed to uphold the community values, and were therefore easy targets for the Devil and witchcraft. In the movie , Three Sovereigns For Sarah , they were never possessed , it was all just an awful act and a lot of superstition and paranoia based on their Puritan beliefs .