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In the colonial era in Salem, Massachusetts the idea of witches became present in this time, this caused the Salem Witch Trials which killed and falsely accused many people from 1692-1693. Those accused of being a witch or part of the witch trials usually had some strange oddity to them, or they were different than the average person. People with any abnormality from the regular society of 1692-1693 would have been accused of being a part of the Salem Witch Trials and was the cause of this horrific event that happened from around 1692-1693. The largest “abnormality” group was the females at the time, most females in this area and time period would be accused of being a witch which would lead to the idea of sexism. People who wouldn't attend church like the rest society would be thought as outcasts or abnormal, and people who always had to depend on others and were less than average society, would most likely be accused of witchcraft.

From the time of the 1690’s the entirety of Salem, Massachusetts were Puritans. “The Puritan lifestyle was restrained and rigid: People were expected to work hard and repress their emotions or opinions. Individual differences were frowned upon.” (Salem Witch Trials, The World Behind the Hysteria). These people believed that doing anything sinful would result in punishment from God. Just as much as they believed in God, they also believed in the Devil. Keeping up with the Puritan code, it led to the first women being accused of witchcraft. They were viewed as pariahs, and seen differently. Had the Puritan government let the afflicted defend themselves, not be so dependent on religion, not investigating the facts or scrutinize the trials the killing of many could have been prevented. The hangings from the trials would ultimately be the last in America.

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

While reading the crucible and analyzing other documents, Scapegoating became a relevant occurrence in communities. Societies will turn to scapegoating a group of people to place blame for a problem or event; there is evidence shown regarding scapegoating in “ The Crucible” / Salem witch trials, “The Holocaust”, and in politics. These three examples all relate to scapegoating because they all discriminate and place blame of something the community cannot control on a specific group of people.

Relationships between people and families seemed to crumble in the light of hysteria as children accused parents and friends pointed out friends (Boyer, p67). Some confessed to witchcraft and saved their own lives, others refused to tarnish their names and proclaimed innocence to their grave. The fact that these people did not have freedom of speech and were proven guilty without any tangible evidence caused even more hysteria throughout New England. People realized that at anytime anyone of them could be pointed out and so the society fell even more.

Moreover, the chosen victims that were condemned during the Salem Witch Trials also served to convert the public’s good faith in witches. Of the girls that had fallen ill in Salem, one of them named at least sixty-two names of possible witches (Kreiser). Although, a list of people was given the majority were unknown to the citizens of Salem which eludes to the concept that these were simply a delusion of a girl under the influence of hallucinations. Furthermore, even with this list being only sixty-two names long accusations continued to gather about the people in and around Salem, “Accusers and accusations multiplied. Of some 130 to 150 who were fingered as witches, 114 were charged; 50 confessed; and 19 hanged” (Conlin 2014: 68). The church used the few who were hanged (depicted in figure three) as an example to the people of Salem on what would happen to them should they decide to stray from God’s path and partake in witchcraft. This convinced the people that witches were heavily punished for their supernatural powers and for them to be punished so heavily then magic would have to be a sin. To continue, the previous reputation of the supposed ‘witches’ not only made them easy targets but it became associated with the persona of witches, “The acsusers’ targets could not have been better chosen for vulnerability by a department of sociology. Most of the putative witches were women… some of the victims were

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he writes, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 77). This partially fictionalized tale of the Salem Witch Trials points to one of the causes of the trials, vengeance, but the over dramatized tale 's early stages were quiet. The Salem Witch Episode had humble beginnings in the town of Salem Village, Massachusetts, but evolved into one of the most widely known witch trials in American History. The gallows in Salem claimed the lives of nineteen men and woman during the spring and summer of 1692 due to the accusations of witchcraft with over a hundred people who were accused. After all the terror and the uproar of the trials occurred, everything came to a screeching halt (Linder 1). Due to the unique circumstances of this particular set of witch trials, from the rampant accusations to the discontinuation of the trials mass hysteria does not seem to be fault as with other witch trials, but a variety of factors. The Salem witch trials were not just a simple case of mass hysteria, but a combination of factors ranging from poisons to superstitions to scapegoats, resulting in the outbreak of the Salem Witch episode.

During World War II, Hitler used his power to persuade the government to make him the chancellor, which gave him more control over Germany. This lets him manipulate the people so they would think that same way as he did. The people believed this because they did not understand what Hitler was going to do with the Jews, during this time they used the Jews as a scapegoat to blame for their problems. Many situations have a scapegoat that people need to blame to help them deal with their problems. In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller the town used witches as their scapegoat. In the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed the people in Tanzania used witchcraft as their scapegoat. Finally in the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government Makes Americans More Likely to Reach for a Gun the government is creating scapegoats out of the certain people and events. Some people need to find a scapegoat to blame for example, in The Crucible, the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed, and the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government makes Americans more likely to Reach for a Gun the people had to find a scapegoat for the problems that they faced.

When we are younger we used to get our brother or sister and pick on another sibling. When mom or dad comes to yell at the person who started it we tend to pin it on someone else or you are the person who gets left with all the punishment. At one point in our lives we were blamed for something we didn't do or we were the person that pushed it onto someone else. Arthur Miller expresses a lot of scapegoating or being the scapegoat in The Crucible.

In 1692 a troubling time began in Salem, Massachusetts. It ended a year after that in 1693. It was called the Salem Witch Trials. The trials are known as a prime source of scapegoating. If you mix fear with something traumatic and stressful then the outcome will be scapegoating. Salem was a place full of fear of the devil and the witches he chose to harm others. Christians during this time had an idea that the devil chose certain people to have some wicked power to hurt and potentially kill someone. They were very afraid the devil would try to find a way to kill the Christians and all of the Christian communities.(Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice) When it was all said and done a few of the town officials publically declared that it was much overreacted and that it was a pretty big mistake. They compensated all the families of the ones who got convicted afterwards.(A Brief History)

Sometimes people get blamed for wrongdoings that they did not participate in. This was shown in Salem, Massachusetts, during the salem witch trials in the play The Crucible. The play was based in 1692, when a community of Puritans started accusing each other of of being witches and wizards. Innocent people that did not practice witchcraft were getting hanged and accused of being witches. Scapegoats have also been used in modern day with McCarthyism, which was a campaign against communist. Many people were blacklisted and lost their jobs even though many of these people did not belong to the communist party. This took place in 1950-1954 carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Using scapegoats blames innocent people for wrongdoings, and accuses people of wrong doings.

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.

The act of blaming others for problems is a common phenomena that occurs not only in our society, but also in literature. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl Prynne represents the scapegoat. Throughout the novel, the townspeople put the blame of Hester Prynne 's sin on Pearl and Hester grows as a person. Pearl gives Hester a daily reminder of her sin and Hester grows to becomes a happier, better person in response. In addition, another example of a scapegoat is Leonce Pontellier and the children, from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Edna Pontellier blames her husband and children for holding her back from reaching happiness and independence. All things considered, the

Society mistreated most women in Salem 1692. Being a female means she is automatically open to abuse by men and even other women who saw themselves as being above you.

I believe the person at fault mostly for the trials is Abigail Williams, who's intentions from the start were never honesty. Of all the girls affiliated with the witchcraft trials, Abigail Williams purposefully faultily accused many citizens when she saw the impact of her confessions in the community. In court, she realized how easy it was to get away with her false confessions given after every one the courts were quick to interrogate that person and push them to confess. The amount of attention given to her by the townsmen made her feel powerful and gave her a sense of superiority when she realized the fear she struck into people. The rest of the girls' voices were hushed by Abigail's dominant personality and relentlessness to accuse multiple