Cannibalism In The Crucible

In the early morning hours of March 24th 1692; long before the tales of the Brothers Grimm, stood 71 year old Rebecca Nurse. A simple woman from Salem Massachusetts who was accused of witchcraft by the prominent wife of a local official, Ann Putnam While she pleaded her innocence, the courtroom was apparently under her spell, and with every motion of her body the audience rolled on the floor in pain. While in today?s society we would rule this type of behavior ?mass hysteria? or ?mob mentality?, at the time these were tales of evil documented to warn us of the horrors of witchcraft. (Brandt 34-35). On July 19th she was executed with four other women as part of the long running Salem Witch trials. These heinous events sparked the fear society
The term expanded to encompass other groups as they were discovered. There are many forms of cannibalism but the two that are most acknowledged or socially acceptable are survival cannibalism and cannibalism as psychopathology. Survival cannibalism is the most commonly discussed because it takes a person, or persons, who would normally not think about eating a person but they find themselves in such a difficult position of choosing between eating another person or dying themselves (Lindenbaum 476). Survival cannibalism, the consumption of others under conditions of starvation such as shipwreck, military siege, and famine, in which persons normally averse to the idea are driven by the will to live, applies to such well-known cases as that of the Dormer Party. Caught in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1846 during a brutal winter storm, the survivors resorted to eating those who had died, as well as two Indian scouts sent to save the expedition. In a similar case, Alferd Packer confessed to eating members of his small band of fellow travelers caught in a mountain blizzard in Colorado in 1883 (Conklin 87-88). More
In the 1800?s it shows the influence of religion as well as social status (Thompkins 402). Even the food that each character desired was a direct representation of their nature. This notion is explored by Eugene Weber, who explains that ?In fairy stories only the wicked eat meat?or the wicked witch who plans to eat Hansel. As for the children themselves, when the witch serves them what they are told is a good meal, they get ?milk pancakes and sugar apples, and nuts.? (Weber 101). We can see the witch has a need to eat human meat, which is a taboo in society. However, the children seek food that is light and sweet such as candy and cakes. The idea of light and dark is also represented when we look at how the characters view their own survival. In Hansel & Gretel the children care for each other; even when their own lives are at stake. For example, it is Hansel who is being prepped to be eaten not Gretel, yet instead of planning her own escape she works on trying to free her brother despite the risk. When we look at the evil characters in the story like the witch and the stepmother, the reader is shown how both put their own needs above everyone else. The stepmother does not care about the children and comes up with a plan to leave them in the woods so she does not have to share their dwindling food supply. The witch is also focused on self-preservation and her own desire to eat human