The Country: The Heart of It All

It is often difficult to understand the thought process that other people’s might have had many years ago. A college professor and writer, Richard Godbeer attempts to explain the thought process of the people who were involved in witch trials in the year 1692 in his text “How Could They Believe That?”. He often tells students in college and high school that we can relate to how society was in 1692 and how their views on life, and specifically the supernatural forces, are completely justifiable. In this article he explains the social atmosphere, the environment in which the settlers lived in, as well as how thorough the process of persecution was.

In this essay I will talk about two main central ideas. First, some people accuse innocent people for witchery. Secondly, there is a lot of hatred in the town of Salem.

Families from Hispanic religion have either experienced someone in their own family doing witchcraft or someone else. Ashley Farez and her family experienced that her uncle was doing witchcraft after his brother died. John, his brother passed away and Franklin the witch, doing the witchcraft has taken everything that John owned. Since he has passed away no one could stop Franklin from doing that. This all is taking place in the country named after the equator, Ecuador. Franklin has taken everything that John has owned. The problem was Franklin did not know anything about witchcraft if it was his girlfriend who had taught him everything. Franklin was taught by his girlfriend then once he learned it. He started to put witchcraft on Ashley’s family members.

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.

While spring is a time for growth, newlife, and awakening, in the spring of 1692 a rotten presence (both figuratively and literally) swept over Salem Village, Massachusetts when a group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. Not only was this the spark of a religious uproar in the quaint, puritan town; but a spark that lit the match which eventually convicted over a hundred innocent people and claimed 20 lives. While the true pain of these trials cannot be seen in photographs or videos, it can be experienced through the words that have been written. In Marilynne Roach’s novel, “Six Women of Salem”, she tells the untold story of six women who underwent the grueling Salem witchcraft trials, and she evoked a strong sense of empathy for the victims through her use of first person narratives and factual evidence. Through these devices Roach successfully highlighted the twisted, prejudice, and uneducated society that America was, and, in some ways, still is today.

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is a short story told in third person omniscient point of view. The story contains a lot of irony, symbolism, imagery, and many more literary devices. Flannery O’Connor’s purpose was to demonstrate how “good country people” are not so “good.” Instead, they were categorized as “trash” and “good.” The short story interprets how the characters are contradictory and how women are portrayed in 1955 as well as today’s society.

Everyone wants to believe that they are beautiful. For this reason, we tend to seek out that approval from others including our parents, friends, and other loved ones. Flannery O'Connor's story, "Good Country People," focuses on this particular theme. In her narrative, a young girl named Joy Hopewell longs for her mother's approval. When she does not find it, Joy begins to believe that she is unworthy of anyone's admiration. This basic premise allows for Manley Pointer to easily win Joy's trust. Flannery O'Connor includes this string of events in order to show the significant role parents play in developing their children's self-esteem, as well as reveal that even though Joy Hopewell begins to believe that she is not beautiful, she

The purpose of this book was to examine the history and social life of Salem Village to try to figure out what was the cause of the events that occurred there. I believe that the authors achieved their objective at least they did to me. Boyer and Nissenbaum's explanation for the outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Salem hinges on an understanding of the economic,

The Puritan town of Salem is corrupt when it comes to accusing innocent people of witchcraft. The town fears their powerful God and assumes that the Devil is punishing those that sin. Miller writes this play during the Red Scare time period which is also a time of questioning others on beliefs. Miller brings attention that people are questioning others if they don’t understand something and this leads the decision to be made without any background knowledge or ideas. Even if Education is not presented to someone, they should do everything possible to educate themselves on the topic before making a

In 1692, the British colony of Massachusetts endured abnormal accusations of witchcraft against more than 150 people (Prentice Hall Literature, p. 1087). Many factors caused the witchcraft hysteria to come alive during the 1600’s. Two important factors were: Daemonologie, written by England’s King James I, and the bewildering behavior of the accusing teenage girls. While Arthur Miller explains that the accusations could have been made over the lust for land, there are also reasons not explained: how the role of women and children during the 17th century may have affected their behavior and the theory of Ergot fungus poisoning the girls’ minds.

A clear theme in Bless Me, Ultima is Antonio’s struggle to find who he is amidst two sides of himself: the Lunas and the vaqueros. He fears for his future, where he believes he will have to decide between the two parts of himself, and inevitably disappoint one half of the people in his life. He fears what his life will be. He fears the river. This all changes when Ultima arrives. She teaches him to love the presence of the river, and to love his life however it may come. She shows him that the river is the lifeblood of the herbs she uses to heal and save, and that he can use his life to help others as well. But her spirit, in the owl, also shows him that life, and the river, can be very dangerous (Anaya, 14).

When the group of girls were acting strange and got accused of being witches, everyone started pointing fingers. There was the paranoia that any person could be a part of a conspiracy that was created by the devil caused false accusations to be spread around. This paranoia was used to make false accusations on many innocent citizens because people were trying not to take the focus away from themselves. There was research that was done on those that were accused and what it showed was that most of the accusations were against middle-age women who had few or no children and were widowed. The accused witches “were of low social position, and because of some domestic conflicts, they were accused of other crimes and were considered abrasive” (Brinkley, 86). by other people around them. Once a person was accused of being under the influence of the devil, which is a big offence, they would start to be treated differently from the rest. It wasn’t the actual presence of Satan that caused this chaos, but the anxiety and fear of him that did.

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

Bless Me, Ultima is a Chicano novel written by Rudolfo Anaya in 1972, which includes a magical realism plot. Chicano literature is especially significant in this novel because it helps create a cultural identity for the main character and his community. The novel talks about a petite boy named Antonio; throughout the book Antonio makes his best efforts to try and find the path to which he belongs, he wants to find answers about who he is and wants to learn a lot more about his religion which included getting his questions answered about god. The novel talks about the importance in Chicano literature and what impacts it has on the characters. Although Bless Me, Ultima focuses on Chicano literature and the magical

In the article, “A Case of Witchcraft” by G. L. Kittredge, the main issue is that a majority of men and women were accused of witchcraft; which led to an excessive amount of torture and executions. Kittredge argues that with large bulks of documents and recordings of witch trials lost, we are unable to comprehend the prosecutions unless we have a better grasp of the mindset that many people had during that time. George Lyman Kittredge is an outstanding professor and English literature scholar from Harvard University. Additionally, he has experienced a great number of historical commodities, as well as becoming one of the most influential American literary critics of the early 20th century.