Rosalyn Schanzer's Witches: The Salem Witch Trials
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
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¨Sarah Osborn, the sick old woman who was among the first three people accused of being a witch, died of the fever in prison, too¨ (Schanzer 128). Sarah Osborn was a sick, bedridden old woman, it wasn't as if she was a cantankerous old woman who went about causing trouble in Salem. She was accused of being a witch because the pious Puritans believed she was in the predicament she was in due to being punished for previous unknown sins. This, along with her feebleness, made her an easy target for accusers. “Even though it later became apparent that the way to survive an accusation was to confess and to point fingers at others, Sarah Osborne repeatedly affirmed her innocence” (“Sarah Osborne”). She dismissed all opportunities to confess and this eventually cost her her life. Another way illness was a plausible cause for the Salem Witch Trials was a fungus called ergot that effects rye grain. Due to the lack of modern science, this possibility went unheeded. “Caporael, now a behavioral psychologist at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, soon noticed a link between the strange symptoms reported by Salem’s accusers, chiefly eight young women, and the hallucinogenic effects of drugs like LSD” (“Clues and Evidence”). The ergot poisoning caused hallucinogenic symptoms which would perfectly explain some of the outlandish sightings made by residents of
¨Sarah Osborn, the sick old woman who was among the first three people accused of being a witch, died of the fever in prison, too¨ (Schanzer 128). Sarah Osborn was a sick, bedridden old woman, it wasn't as if she was a cantankerous old woman who went about causing trouble in Salem. She was accused of being a witch because the pious Puritans believed she was in the predicament she was in due to being punished for previous unknown sins. This, along with her feebleness, made her an easy target for accusers. “Even though it later became apparent that the way to survive an accusation was to confess and to point fingers at others, Sarah Osborne repeatedly affirmed her innocence” (“Sarah Osborne”). She dismissed all opportunities to confess and this eventually cost her her life. Another way illness was a plausible cause for the Salem Witch Trials was a fungus called ergot that effects rye grain. Due to the lack of modern science, this possibility went unheeded. “Caporael, now a behavioral psychologist at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, soon noticed a link between the strange symptoms reported by Salem’s accusers, chiefly eight young women, and the hallucinogenic effects of drugs like LSD” (“Clues and Evidence”). The ergot poisoning caused hallucinogenic symptoms which would perfectly explain some of the outlandish sightings made by residents of