The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Salem Essay

In New England Puritan ideas of gender dictated acts of gender for women in terms of behavior, demeanor, and speech at home and church, in public and private. Gender roles were clearly defined and categorized women as the weaker, vulnerable sex; physically, emotionally, spiritually and morally, subordinate to men in every instance and venue. Men were the heads of the household and of the church. They ruled what were deemed the important aspects of life. Women's role in society was that of domestic; they owned no property, made no significant wage and were entirely dependent on men for their subsistence. While the primary tenants underlying the American Puritan doctrine of the 17th century stated that women were no more susceptible to

Firstly, the conflicts were caused by the factors of gender, age, and marital status. When looking at the total number of men and women who were hanged, the women far outnumbered the men, 13 women to 7 men (Source A). Of the 24 males who were accused of witchcraft, 15 were married, while of the 110 females accused, 61 were married. This shows that the number of females accused outnumbered the men and the majority of those accused were married. Of the male accusers, all 5 were single, ranging from the ages of 11-20, whereas off the 29 females accusers, 23 were single (the other 6 were married). The ages of the accusers ranged from under 11 to over 21, with the majority being 16-20 years of age. There is a distinct pattern that stands out in the accused and the accusers. The accused were mainly

humanity would have come to an end, but that was not so. In 1692 a

The first women to be accused of witchcraft in Salem were seen as different and as social outcasts: Tituba, a slave; Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, a sickly old woman who married her servant. These women were unpopular and it was easy to point fingers at them. Gossips and rumors were enough to accuse them. Tituba[3] was a dark skinned slave who lived in the household of the Reverend Samuel Parris. She was familiar with the West Indian Voodoo and practicing magic.

In the spring of 1692 , a small town named Salem is located in Salem, Massachusetts is where the witch hunt started(Blumberg). The girls who started they were caught dancing in the woods. Then they started to accused people of being witches(Blumberg). One of the first to be accused was Tituba which she confessed to being a witch(Blumberg). When they started the trails, the governor Phipps called for a special court to deal with the witch problem(Blumberg). Most people didn't even knew about them questions surrounding villages about consorting with the devil(Blumberg). The governor’s wife was even accused of being a witch(Blumberg). The first conviction was Bridget Bishop and she was hanged eight days later(Blumberg).

The infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials began in early 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts. It all began as a childlike game of a fortune teller to discover the future of the young girls. The Salem Witchcraft Trials began January of 1692, when two girls, Betty Paris (nine) and Abigail Williams (seventeen) , began to have fits and convulsions. They were seen by doctor William Griggs, and the only reasonable diagnosis he knew of was bewitchment. By the end of February, two other girls, Ann Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard, became ill. All together, there were 10 girls that were afflicted. Ann Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard accused Sarah Good, Tituba, and Sarah Osborne 's spirits of hurting them. Tituba, Reverend Parris 's slave, had

The Salem Witch Trials has been argued as one of the most important and controversial topics in American history. The Salem Witch Trials concluded the war between faithful people and evil people, and brought the long awaited justice to Salem village. Different historians presented varying opinions about the consequences and effects of the Salem Witch Trials. Reverend Samuel Parris played a pivotal role in preaching Christianity as well as eradicating evil from Salem village at that time. Religion was enforced among the people of Salem village, which created dispute against church-members and the non-church members. Moreover, religion created social segregation and disunity existed between these two groups of people. When it was revealed that witches were diminishing the holiness of Salem village, witch-hunt was initiated, and proved to be very effective, resulting in many witches being brought to justice.

The seventeenth century was full of challenges; political, social, and economical. Across the board individuals struggled to live, although the conditions had much improved from the beginning of the colonies. Women in particular had a difficult time fitting into this patriarchal this society. Women were defined by men and were seen as an accessory to men. In the colony of New England women were learning how to have a silent voice, while still maintaining the proper role of time. The way women were seen by men, who ran the colony, and the way men thought, not only about women, but also about the world would sculpt the society and the

A good example was with Adam and Eve being punished for the sin of pride,

The first Puritans to settle in New England arrived with their resolute beliefs and principles of religion. They also brought over the belief in magic from the Old World. However, maleficium was not the only type of magic used in the seventeenth century. As stated in the following "The belief in witchcraft was only one part of a worldview filled with magic and wonders-magic that could be manipulated by someone with proper knowledge"(The Invisible Salem, After the fact,58) implying it was just a section of the entirety of magic used. Many believed in the effectiveness and reality of this occult act for benefit. Those that possessed the knowledge were "called upon in times of trouble to heal the illness of a sick villager, cast horoscopes for a merchant worried about a ship's upcoming voyage or discover what sort of children a woman might bear"(The Invisible Salem,ATF,58) as well as for fortune telling. As the new settlers became busy in their day-to-day tasks and directing their efforts into profitability to

Witchcraft accusations and trials in 1692 rocked the colony of Salem Massachusetts. There are some different views that are offered concerning why neighbors decided to condemn the people around them as witches and why they did what they did to one another. Carol Karlsen in her book The Devil in the Shape of a Woman and Bernard Rosenthal in Salem Story give several factors, ranging from woman hunting to shear malice, that help explain why the Salem trials took place and why they reached the magnitude that they did. The theories put fourth by Karlsen of a society that accusations against women as witches explain the trail, and Rosenthals ideas of discourse in the community are supported or partially disproved by

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible (1953), the town of Salem, Massachusetts is established as a place where their own religion ranks higher than truth and justice. Within this town, the authorities are the supreme rulers; they do all the governing and rely merely on their Puritan beliefs in order to help them draw a conclusion to fundamental decisions. These authorities began to develop the belief that these young girls, one of them who goes by the name of Abigail Williams, are being provided with information that they are unobservant of. As a result, they accustom themselves to the girls’ thoughts, as well as actions in order to help prosecute obscure crimes. Meanwhile, the whole court system gets turned upside-down simply off of the assumption that these girls are being sincere. People that were accused of witchcraft were to be executed unless they declared themselves as a witch. Rather than acknowledge the fact that they couldn’t comprehend all the events that took place, more and more people began confessing to witchcraft in order to spare their own lives; one of them being a young lady named Mary Warren. Should the testimony of witnesses be taken as the whole, indisputable truth? Can a death sentence be justly based on a decision made only by affirmations? Righteous individuals are being blamed for obscure events that took place during the Salem witch trials. Injustice is taking place in

I do not believe the town of Salem or the county is as safe as it was when I was growing up. Everyone seems to know everyone in each town in the county. I grew up in a little town called Hardinsburg and at Halloween, I love to tell the story that we walked down each street in the town and received homemade cookies, fruit, and candy. The best part of this story no one was afraid that we would be hurt or anything we were given would be harmful to us. As kids we knew we could not do, anything wrong or our parents would know about it before we got home. My parent’s biggest worry when I was at school, was why the bus was late. They did not worried about the pickup trucks with guns in the gun racks in the school parking lot or at the drive-in movies. I grew in a house with guns, I was taught guns were not toys and if you kept your finger off of the trigger, they did not just go off. Now it is not

Dating back to the bible and the development of structured religion anything pertaining to the devil and witchcraft was condemned. Witchcraft is known as the practice of magic and the utilization of spells and spirits. It was believed in the early times of societies that if you performed witchcraft you worked with the devil and were considered evil. England had ruled in 1641 that witchcraft was a crime, around this time in England and its surrounding countries in Europe there was an abundance of witch hunts and trials taking place. Witch hunting had become a phenomenon. In 1626, European Puritans migrated to the United States and established Salem. These same Puritans had the same ideals as when they were in Europe and were still very religious.

This coming Halloween Season, Salem Season 3 slated to invade America’s television sets with the witches’ successful summon of the devil back to the Earth to establish a New World. However, things go wrong when they failed to recognize his true motive towards human destruction.