From 1993 Halloween classic Hocus Pocus to American Horror Story: Coven, the witch hunts that ensued from such simple origins have captured the imagination of many artistic minds over the past 300 years, making it perhaps one of the most famous events in American history. Weakness, hypocrisy, vindictiveness: only few of the many words that describe the guilty desires and revenge that lingered among the town of Salem. All of them leaning really hard into the idea that younger women arent to be believed or trusted, because theyre unstable. Margaret Atwoods theory that societies under a lot of stress will give in to a person or a group proves a struggle between weak people giving into stronger people. why did the witch-hunts occur? | The Crucible Questions | Q & A Through their reactions to the witch trials, characters in Arthur Millers The Crucible portray two major themes of self-preservation and mass hysteria. For instance Putnam accuses people whose land he covets, while Abigail wants rid of Elizabeth Proctor, her rival for John Proctor's affections. B.A. This was a dissertation that endorsed witch-hunting and is believed to have inspired Shakespeares Macbeth. Historical Context Essay: Arthur Miller and the Red Scare A witch hunt is surprisingly efficient in dealing with all offenders because once the movement gains momentum, people are accused left and right for many reasons, such as protecting . Witch trials continued through the 14th and early 15th centuries, but with great inconsistency according to time and place. Where previously it was believed no mortal could control the weather, European Christians gradually came to believe that witches could. Cotton Mather, a prolific author and well-known preacher, wrote this account in 1693, a year after the trials ended. Clearly, both definitions apply to the title of the play. The witch executions occurred in the early modern period, the time in Western history when capital punishment and torture were most widespread. On February 29, 1692, an arrest warrant was issued for Tituba in Salem Town. Samuel Parris, later to play a central role in the Salem witch trials of 1692 as the village minister, brought three enslaved persons with him when he came to Massachusetts from New SpainBarbadosin the Caribbean. Throughout this article, it mentions the persecution of witches today in communities around the globe, mentioning the flashbacks of similar strategies that were used in the past, doing different types of tortures.In Modern days, recent generations have abandoned wonderful traditions. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller presents a city named Salem, with contradicting people. Indeed, Miller uses witchcraft and the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for situations wherein those who are in power accuse those who challenge them of suspect behavior in order to destroy them. Proctor house. The responsibility for the witch hunts can be distributed among theologians, legal theorists, and the practices of secular and ecclesiastical courts. For example, if something bad happened to John that could not be readily explained, and if John felt that Richard disliked him, John may have suspected Richard of harming him by occult means. In Greco-Roman civilization, Dionysiac worship included meeting underground at night, sacrificing animals, practicing orgies, feasting, and drinking. It would, however, be incorrect to suggest that witch-hunting was something wielded against ones opponents during the many cases of civil unrest ignited by the Reformation. Sometimes this magic was believed to work through simple causation as a form of technology. Arthur Millers play The Crucible, which forms the basis of many Americans knowledge of the trials, takes liberties with the story. Two of the accused women confessed to being witches and were reprievedparadoxically, if you admitted to being a witch, you were freed. A crucible can mean either an instrument of heating or a severe trial. Latest answer posted December 16, 2019 at 7:31:02 AM. The witch trials offer a window into the anxieties and social tensions that accompanied New Englands increasing integration into the Atlantic economy. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they left Britain for the New World to establish a society that, they believed, reflected their religious beliefs. The town of Salem in The Crucible, can relate to our nation today, through the way we target the Muslim religion as terrorist. The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism have an uncanny relation to one another. Heres What We Know, INTERVIEW: Cary Elwes Understands the Assignment of Guy Ritchie Movies for Operation Fortune, Walgreens Caves to Republicans, Limits Sales of Another Reproductive Healthcare Item, Florida Man Fulfills His Destiny as a Netflix Crime Series, The 13 Best Ted Lasso Quotes to Read When the World Has Made You Feel Weary. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. The emphasis on personal piety exacerbated the rigid characterization of people as either good or bad. It also aggravated feelings of guilt and the psychological tendency to project negative intentions onto others. Most of the factors influencing the widespread witch hunts over the course of the early modern period can be summarized under two headings; salvation and scapegoating.. It was also believed that they rode through the air at night to sabbats (secret meetings), where they engaged in sexual orgies and even had sex with Satan; that they changed shapes (from human to animal or from one human form to another); that they often had familiar spirits in the form of animals; and that they kidnapped and murdered children for the purpose of eating them or rendering their fat for magical ointments. English The Crucible Test Flashcards | Quizlet Parris and his wife. Namely, that he was in a marriage he wasnt happy in, and ended up having an affair with the much younger Marilyn Monroe, with whom he then had a troubled relationship and marriage. Already a member? The Salem witch trials of the 1690's portrayed by Millers the Crucible parallel The Red Scare of 1920's, both events revolve around the fear of foreign ideology causing hysteria. Witchcraft - The witch hunts | Britannica In the 11th century attitudes toward witchcraft and sorcery began to change, a process that would radically transform the Western perception of witchcraft and associate it with heresy and the Devil. From the 14th through the 18th century, witches were believed to repudiate Jesus Christ, to worship the Devil and make pacts with him (selling ones soul in exchange for Satans assistance), to employ demons to accomplish magical deeds, and to desecrate the crucifix and the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist (Holy Communion). In the Near Eastin ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and Palestinebelief in the existence of evil spirits was universal, so that both religion and magic were thought to be needed to appease, offer protection from, or manipulate these spirits. In pointing out this paradox, Miller suggests that the witch hunts exposed the failure of the Puritan theocracy. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in several deaths in 1692 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, have never been adequately explained. The playwright sets that story as the catalyst for a larger, quite literal witch hunt, stoked into a frenzy by a mostly unprovoked confession of witchcraft spoken by a fantastically-minded woman of color whos been practicing sexy voodoo in the woods with the girls of Salem. While the European witch hunts had more or less declined by the mid to late 17th century, they increased in the American Colonies, particularly in Puritan societies. This Map Shows the Scale of 16th- and 17th-Century Scottish Witch Hunts Torture was not allowed in witch cases in Italy or Spain, but where used it often led to convictions and the identification of supposed accomplices. She would also have likely been aware of the unrest in the community when raids were launched in New England, starting up again in 1689 (and called King William's War), with New France using both French soldiers and local Native Americans to fight against the English colonists. Accessed 4 Mar. In an article called The Single Greatest Witch Hunt in American History, For real by Stacy Schiff, a small village in Massachusetts is being accused of being involved with witchcraft and they are testing people and most are giving into the stronger people just to get out of trouble. The notorious Spanish Inquisition formed due to the Counter-Reformation focused little on pursuing those accused of witchcraft, having concluded that witches were much less dangerous than their usual targets, namely converted Jews and Muslims. In his telling, witch hunts are perpetrated by the marginalized rather than upon them, since, when sex is involved, women are inclined toward group-malice, sexual irrationality, and wholesale. The Crucible: McCarthyism and a Historical View of Witch Hunts Mather and his fellow New Englanders believed that God directly intervened in the establishment of the colonies and that the New World was formerly the Devils territory. and Quakers; and between American Indians and Englishmen on the frontier. He presents a situation of opposition where some characters are, In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, several innocent citizens were killed or harmed in some way for unjustified reasons. why did the witch-hunts occur? Witchcraft: What Caused the Witch-Hunts in Early Modern Europe All three of the accused were examined the next day at Nathaniel Ingersoll's tavern in Salem Village by local magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. Tituba was accused by the young girls of appearing to them (as a spirit), which amounted to an accusation of witchcraft. The witch hunts provided this outlet. Tituba later testified that she saw visions of the devil and witches swarming. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. Classical authors such as Aeschylus, Horace, and Virgil described sorceresses, ghosts, furies, and harpies with hideous pale faces and crazed hair; clothed in rotting garments, they met at night and sacrificed both animals and humans. However, the general consensus is that the witch hunts spanning the two continents resulted in the deaths of between 40,000 and 60,000 people. In the gloomy courthouse there I read the transcripts of the witchcraft trials of 1692, as taken down in a primitive shorthand by ministers who were spelling each other. As questions of, When witchcraft arose, the state began executing anyone affiliated with witchery. Under the rules of the colony, similar to rules in England, even someone found innocent had to pay for expenses incurred to imprison and feed them before they could be released.
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