The Impact Of Prejudice In The Crucible

In 1692, when the Salem Witch Trials thrived, everyone feared a common enemy, witches. Abigail Williams, the niece of the powerful Reverend Parris, begins accusing women of being witches after she herself is accused of conversing with the devil. “...I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”(45) The people of Salem originally had nothing to fear until Abigail William’s wild accusations. These claims led to the majority fearing that anyone was capable was witchcraft. This turned friends and even family members against each other. John Proctor, a seemingly innocent man, had been accused of participating in dark magic. Reverend John Hale is conversing with his wife to convince her to persuade her husband to confess to his sins.

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 Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. These trials began after a group of young girls in Massachusetts claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several other locals of witchcraft. After this broke out a special court convened in Salem to “hear and determine” (Mather 328)

John Proctor was officially indicted on April 11, 1692 on 3 charges of witchcraft against Mary Walcott , Mary Warren and Mercy Lewis. ( Brooks ) He was examined the same day but there's no record of the examination in real life.The girls that were part of the witch hunt had testified that proctors spirit had tortured them and cried out during the they cried out and said they saw his ghost flying around the room. When Proctor and his wife were in jail many of their friends came to defend them and signed a petition asking for their release, the petition did not help and they remained in prison.” We have proof is it sir. They are all deceiving you.” (Miller 864) Many of Proctor's family members were accused of being witches after that. John Proctor wrote a letter to Boston begging them to appoint new judges, he talked about how they torture prisoners and all the bad

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.

By reading the two primary sources we are given a clear account of the Salem Witch Trials. John Hale describes the officials involved in the trial and those being prosecuted. Hale states, “I observed in the prosecution of these affairs, that there was in the Justices, Judges and others concerned, a conscientious endeavor to do the thing that was right.” he then later states “But what chiefly carried on this matter to such an height, was the increasing of confessors til they amounted to near about fifty.” While Governor phips goes into more detail in reference to the actual court proceedings, “When the Court came to sit at Salem in the County of Essex they convicted more than twenty persons of being guilty of witchcraft, some of the convicted were such as confessed their Guilt, the Court as I understand began their proceedings with the accusations of the afflicted and then went upon other humane evidences to strengthen that.” Only together the sources are able to give the reader the information needed, showing a disadvantage to using primary sources to evaluate history. These accounts illustrate comprehensively the picture of a court concerned with doing the right thing for their people and trying the accused in the way they see fit. They explain the use of accusations to testify against the convicted and

In a town called Salem, Massachusetts a group of girls go dancing in the woods performing witchcraft and get caught by Reverend Parris. The girls told lies and started rumors to try and cover up themselves so they wouldn’t get in trouble. The rumor of John Proctor being a witch, the

Additionally, when John states that he believes the trials are nonsense, Hale defends the court and argues that people have already confessed to which John retorts “And why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that?” (Miller 61). John’s argument illustrates the extremity of the court system in Salem. His argument also portrays the guilty till proven innocent system of court which shows how those accused rights were taken away and the reasoning why many of the accused did, in fact, confess. Also, when Francis Nurse brings forth a signed testament of people declaring their good opinions of Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, and Martha Corey, Judge Danforth commands Cheever to “have warrants drawn for all of these- arrest [them] for examination” (Miller 76). This further illustrates the corruption of the courts in that witnesses are to be arrested for going against the courts and defending the accused. Moreover, those accused in Salem were allowed virtually no representation in court and any witnesses to possibly prove their innocence to the biased courts were arrested. The occurrences mentioned demonstrate the true stripping of rights of the accused by the court during the Salem Witch Trials.

Living as we do in the 20th century, the charges imposed on people throughout New England during the 1680s and 1690s seem preposterous. Any behavior regarded as strange by fellow citizens was sufficient to hold a trial with a sentence of death. Though such scenarios seem unfathomable in our modern culture, it was a reality for hundreds of New England settlers. The causes of the famous outbreak of witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts are rooted in social, economic, and political aspects of the late 17th century Salem community.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 caused hysteria throughout the town rapidly. Fear and paranoia were major causes of why this incident blew out of proportion and became such an intense historical event. When terror struck in the small town of Salem, the society went berserk. The fear of being hanged for witchcraft overcame the women of the community. The constant fright to be accused of trafficking with spirits, even if one knew they were not guilty, created this accusation frenzy. All the girls who had originally claimed they were “possessed by the devil” started blaming others for being witches and conjuring these spirits upon them, especially Abigail Williams. The court of Salem had said that all who did not confess were to be hanged because they were paranoid that if the women were to lie, there still would be witches lingering in their town. Some women decided to confess, even if they were innocent, because of the fear of death. Others did not confess because they were afraid of their reputation being ruined. Rebecca Nurse, a sweet, frail old woman in the town, exclaims, “Why, it is a lie, it is a lie; how may I damn myself? I cannot, I cannot” when the court tries to convince her to follow John Proctor’s lead and confess her sins. She will not confess because she knows she truly is innocent; she would rather be hanged over creating a lying confession and ruining her name. Fear and paranoia was the root cause of the Salem Witch Trials.

The events which took place in Salem in 1692 could be described as awful and unjust. 19 innocent people were hanged, another person pressed to death and 4 others died in jail. Witches or Wizards are what they called these people, people who made pacts with the devil. The idea of witches provoked fear into the puritan fundamentalist society. Further more, two young girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, were said to have been acting strangely.

During early 1692, in Essex, Massachusetts, a group of girls began to practice “conjuration with sieves and keys, and peas, and nails, and horseshoes”. By February, the adults tried to put into words what was happening to their children: “odd postures,” “foolish, ridiculous speeches”. Local physician William Griggs warned Reverend Samuel Parris, father of two of these girls, that he suspected the “Evil Hand” or more specifically, “malefic witchcraft”. As a result of this bizarre occurrence, rumors and assumptions spread rapidly across the area of Salem Village. The legal system was unkempt and clearly unprepared for something so baffling. As a result, the trials were conducted aimlessly and disorderly, without consideration of the persecuted. Throughout countless records, evidence was slim and weak. This was just the beginning of what is known as the Salem Witch Trials. Due to an unorganized legal system, The Salem Witch Trials exposed Puritan society as unprepared, unlawful, and unethical.

There was a time when the Salem Witch Trials were going on. Which seems pretty crazy. The whole reason the Salem Witch Trials were going on was because these girls were dancing in the forest and they got nervous after they had been caught. So they thought it was in their best interest to lie about everything. All they did was lie, and everyone around them instantly believed them. All of the people accused of witchcraft were only trying to tell the truth, which was they were all innocent. Even though they all told the truth they all paid for their actions. John Proctor paid for not only his actions, but his wife Elizabeth Proctor’s actions as well.

Many people know of the Salem witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in the year 1692 spilling over into the year 1693. But for those who do not know, the Salem witch trials were a series of trials against men, women, and children accused of being a witch and or practicing witchcraft. In “The Devils Snare: The Salem Witch Trials of 1692” by Mary Beth Norton, the author recollects the stories of real life accounts of those accusers and the accused in Salem during that time. Mary Beth Norton explains the Salem witch trials differently than other books and articles by giving wide-ranging background on incidents leading toward the trials and how events in history were related to the trials.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible was written as a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for Communist sympathizers among the Hollywood elite of 1950s America. It made sense at the time for the Hollywood elite to become the targets of these accusations as they seemed to have the largest amount of influence over the people. Accordingly, when deciding upon how to approach the topic of the witch trials, Arthur Miller needed to target a specific group within the chosen society that would have the influence necessary to cause a commotion but could also seem believably involved in the events. Consequently, he chose to exploit the long-standing gender stereotype that women are more emotional than men and could, therefore, easily find themselves