People were being falsely accused of conspiring against God. In Salem the people were very avid about their religion, therefor being accused of witchcraft was as to be conspiring against God. The Nurses were being falsely accused by the Putnams of witchcraft. Goody Putnam we jealous of Goody Nurse. The Putnams had “laid seven babies unbaptized in the earth” and had less land, whereas the Nurses had 11 children and 26…
The book going over in this essay is called Witches! by Rosalyn Schanzer, and is a book about the events that have taken place in the town of Salem. This is a very weird and mysterious subject because so many people died in a very strange and concerning manner. First of which is “attention” this could be a factor in this crisis because some people could have accused people just to get attention from the people around them and be in the center of activity. Second is people just doing it for fun or “sport” if they're bored they could enjoy people being killed or harassed in jail. The last and most probably biggest one, is revenge, people could have hated another and wanted them dead and realizing this was a very efficient and good way to do it or at least get them arrested.The accusations in the Salem Witch Trials were motivated by attention, sport, and revenge.…
Poor single women or teenagers around the ages of 10 thru 20, were accusing rich adults of witchcraft because they were jealous. The accused were averaged out to be under early 20’s thru late 60’s (docB). This proves that younger females were jealous of the rich elders because the females accused them of witchcraft for acting non-normal. good - just needed a citation…
For hundreds of years, the word “witch” has been associated with innumerable negative images. Witches were considered devil worshipers who committed scores of evil deeds toward society. By the 14th Century, a law was passed outlawing any practice of witchcraft or sorcery; anyone in Europe accused of witchcraft was subject to the torture and execution. In the 1450’s there was a breakout of violent persecutions against people accused of being witches. “During this time more than 100,000 people (mostly woman) were killed for allegedly practicing witchcraft” (Kallen 33) . Witches were viewed by the public as dangerous and uncontrollable menaces to society. They were believed to have relationships with the devil, this relationship was developed because of the church demonizing the witches in the 1450’s. During this time, people lacked medical knowledge about sickness and disease. When the witches were healthy during many of these wide spread diseases, the people believed they were the ones that cursed everyone with it. The people believed that witches could curse people that they did not like. In the city, It was common for old beggars to be on the side of the street asking for change but when people refused to give the beggars coins, they would angrily curse at the passersby. If the people that the…
Witches are known to be very dangerous, evil, and made deals with the devil. They were even killed, tortured and jailed, but nowadays we treat them completely differently. We invite them into our house, give them candy, and strike conversations with them, that is at least on halloween. In the late 1600s many older men and women were being caught as being “witches” in Salem, Massachusetts.These witch trials were being caused by young girls who were pretending just to get ergotism, attention, and eventually after one lie they got out control really quickly.…
In Rosalyn Schanzer´s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, extreme disorder in civilization took place due to massive amounts of unjust witch accusations. In early 1692, mass chaos struck Salem Village, Massachusetts. In a ravenous sprint to gain revenge and play a game of kill-or-be-killed, approximately 200 people were accused of witchcraft. 20 of these were executed. Families turned on each other, civilians accused one another of unimaginable things, and all because of two girls. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams who together accused a staggering portion of the innocent so called ´witches´. Many people question the motives of these two. It is hard to imagine two young girls under the care of such a high public figure…
During this time, many Christians believed that certain people were known to have the ability to harm people because the devil gave them powers. This belief became very popular during the 1300s to 1600s. There were thousands of people who were blamed to be involved in witch craft, most of them were women.…
Arguably, what we do not understand is how could the community believe every single word the young girls uttered in the first place? Surely, children are known for their imagination, so what was the reasoning behind trusting the girls and many other accusers and the deaths of many? It is peculiar how no one stood up and questioned whether the children should or should not be trusted. So many deaths may have originally been caused by children's...imagination. Document A is a chart of those who were killed on the trials. This shows how the community permitted the witchcraft trials go out of hand. Many lives could have been saved, if only the community had been more wary of the children. It was nothing but the ignorance of the community that led to the hanged deaths. Furthermore in Document C, the examination of Bridget Bishop, subjective words were used to exaggerate actions. This proves that the community, including Samuel Parris, trusted the accusers enough to kill the accused victims without much solid evidence. Worse yet, Document D, a piece of Charles' writing, reveals that they community was blind enough to believe the accusers. "Once or twice they were caught in their own snare; and nothing but the blindness of the community saved the most...from well deserved punishment." This quote determines the populations wrong…
Based in the New England town of Salem, Massachusetts. A group of girls were caught dancing around a fire in the forest screaming. It appeared that they had been conjuring witchcraft. The problem is that they were caught by a man named Reverend Parris. Unlucky for him his daughter Betty was apart of the group who was in the forest. The next day she appears to have fallen into a coma, and rumors about Witchcraft start to spread all throughout the town. With rumors spreading around the girls start to blame others so that they are not tried with witchcraft.…
The citizens of Salem spread many preposterous lies and rumors out of fear and even for their own personal gain. Naturally, blaming someone else for wrongdoing is an immediate and instinctive reaction. For example, the fear of getting in trouble can drive one to put the blame on someone else in order to avoid the consequences. The characters in The Crucible rely on blame to get out of hard situations, motivated by this aspect of fear. Towards the very beginning of the novel, Betty and Abigail have many suspicions surrounding them, and they need to direct the townspeople’s wrath away from themselves. Abigail claims that “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil” (Miller 48)! Abigail and Betty therefore avoid their initial fate. As the book progressed, the lies piled on top of each other, and soon everyone wanted in on the action. Blame turned into a use of getting back at one another. For instance, Ann Putnam claims Rebecca Nurse “murdered seven babies by sending out her spirit on them” (Miller 56). Rebecca Nurse is falsely accused, arrested and later executed. In turn, the natural inclination to blame other leads to false accusations and overall mass hysteria.…
Nowadays people will look for reliable evidences before they accuse someone. However, the Salem Witch Trials show that people are mindless when something is about witchcraft. Many people do not believe that there’s witchcraft in the world today, but in the Salem Village in the 17th Century, people believe that witchcraft exists and they are scared of the witchcraft, they are scared that other will use witchcraft to harm them, so people just use this opportunity to eradicate other people that might harm them or people that they dislike when the trials are going on. The Salem Witch Trials show that women have low social status in the society in the 17th Century, most likely women were executed from the trials since witches are most likely are…
Tempel Anneke was accused of witchcraft in 1663, not because of what she did for her community but because she was an elderly female in a man’s world that was set on freeing society of witches. The Christian church which was run by men viewed witchcraft loosely as a way to lump together all practices that could not be explained through the church. It was also demonized by the Church who had no good response to give its people. The Church believed it wasn’t coming from God, so it must be evil. This led to insecurities throughout towns and villages that feared a group of non-believers or witches wanted to destroy them.…
In novella of The Crucible by Arthur Miller the implications can be inferred regarding the scapegoat phenomenon in America today in how we perceive people getting accused of things they are not doing. For instance Muslims are considered bad people only because they had a few terrorist people in their population. The key lessons from the period of time during The Crucible reflects how we could have learned differently. Several people were accused of witchcraft most times they had never practiced witchcraft before. “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller 50). This quote is proving the reasoning against how the girls would accuse people of doing witchcraft.…
specific girl Abigail Williams began to accuse people of witch craft. Abigail’s main goal was to accuse…
The Puritans of 17th century New England believed in witches and witchcraft. They were a group of people who had left England to escape religious persecution, yet their beliefs centered on an intolerant and rigid code. They shared many of the same beliefs as the Church of England but felt that neither the church nor the country was up to snuff. They believed that all sins should be punished and that God would be the one to do so. Any misfortune that was suffered was seen as God’s will or as the work of the Devil against that will.…