DISCUSS THE ROLE GRUDGES AND PERSONAL RIVALRIES PLAY IN THE WITCH TRIAL HYSTERIA. Personal grudges played a huge role in the “crucible” such as the accusers taking revenge and getting back at the people that they do not like because they can take advantage of all the hysteria kind of like mob mentality. There are many instances where people have accused others of witchcraft just because their pig dies or they want to have sex with your husband; you know just ordinary things. It is my personal belief that the witch trials would have happened without personal grudges although they were the main cause of the witch trials. I believe this due to my knowledge of the time (which is extremely vast I might mention). Firstly they lived in a time where they did not have the sciences and all the knowledge we have today about what is real and what is not. I am not saying spirits are not real but there is no scientific proof. While I was deep in thought on a sunny and rainy day I …show more content…
Anyone could be empowered by the salem witch trials if you had no morals and personal grudges which is a topic in itself. Possibly the most clear portrayal of this in the play was when Danforth (the high judge of the court) said “But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victim- and they do testify, the children certainly do testify." so this shows all you needed to make a case you would win was to say someone did witch craft. The first people to understand this where Abigail Williams and her sheep like group of girls. Then soon after abigail started accusing people many others who had certain dislikings for other people began to relentlessly accuse
Witchcraft started in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Superstition started when women were accused of acting strangely. These superstitions turned into trials, and later lead to mounds of hanged people. Most of the people accused were innocent, but the harsh judge rulings left them with nothing to live for. The only options for the tried, no matter if guilty or not, were to claim guilty, living the rest of their life in prison, or to plead not guilty and hang. Due to both consequences being equally as punishable, many people isolated themselves from society. Unfortunately, some people caused the uprising of the salem witch trials more than others did. In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams single handedly attributed to the
In The Crucible many people were judged unfairly. It happens to everyone, but in the time of The Crucible people were falsely accused of being a witch, and of doing other crazy things. In Act 2 Elizabeth Proctor was accused by Cheever of stabbing Abigail. Cheever found a poppet with a needle in the stomach at the Proctor house, and it just so happened that Abigail got hurt by a stabbing feeling she felt in her stomach that night. Cheever accused Elizabeth of this even though he has no proof. Elizabeth was judged unfairly which was wrong. No one has a right to judge someone, or jump to conclusion without having proof, or knowing the full story. Elizabeth Proctor was judged Unfairly in Act 2 of The Crucible.
Many of the characters in Arthur Miller's The Crucible have specific human flaws that cause the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem villagers exhibit failings, including greed, vengeance, and fear, which eventually lead to the downfall of their town. Many villagers, especially Abigail Williams, take advantage of the opportunity to seek vengeance on others through the trials. Greed for power and land often holds precedence when the hysteria takes over. Fear of being arrested or put to death is the key motivation in turning others in as witches. From these three human flaws, the town of Salem falls into chaos with many innocent people paying the price.
Power and fear can affect people´s sense of what's wrong and what's right. In “the Crucible” by Miller, we can see how the trials affected every individual in a negative aspect. people suffered because of such power and unfairness the authority had. The witch trials affected a lot of individuals from an emotional aspect to a psychological trauma.
...in their family to become sick and possibly die. Many people were accused of witchcraft. More than twenty people died all together. One person was flattened to death because he was accused of witchcraft. When people were accused they had to go to jail, which the conditions were terrible. Then, they had to get a trial from the Court of Oyer and Terminer. After an accused witch had their trial, and went to jail, they would be carted off to Gallows Hill. This was the hill where all the witches were hanged. After a witch was hanged, later that night, their family would usually take the body down and give it a proper burial. The Salem Witchcraft Trials were one of the most terrible times in the history of America. As you can see the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.
“This theory is supported by historical records which indicate that the years preceding the Witch Trials were particularly cold. Also, the notorious witch hunt took place within the period of the so-called Great Witch Craze which in turn coincides with what is known as the Little Ice Age, a period of abnormally cold climate between the mid-14th and mid-19th century show that witch hunts occur more often in cold weather.”(History List) They often happened more in cold weather because farmer’s crops wouldn’t grow and they started to have droughts. They needed someone or something a “scapegoat” to blame the fail of crops on and the lack of water and agricultural goods. That “scapegoat” just happened to be a women or man who would be accused of being a witch. Even if you have done nothing of the sort, anyone higher authority over you or not, could blame you for taking part in
...00s of years apart, and the Crucible wasn’t as harsh and bloody as the Holocaust. Both witch hunts killed off certain people that were discriminated against because of the word of one person. The modern day witch hunt, the Holocaust, was terrifying for the Jews, as well as other people, gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled people. The witch hunt back in the 1600s wasn’t as brutal against the people, and it was against whoever was convicted of being a witch, or committing a terrible crime. The groups of people that were harmed during these two witch hunts, lost everything, nothing in the world could relieve the pain they went through and suffered. The Jews lost 2/3 of their population in Europe, whereas the people in Salem lost their loved ones, and had to endure the torture of the court on their town, making them able to survive life after the witch trials were over
The Salem Witch Trials took place in the summer and into the fall of the year 1692, and during this dark time of American history, over 200 people had been accused of witchcraft and put in jail. Twenty of these accused were executed; nineteen of them were found guilty and were put to death by hanging. One refused to plead guilty, so the villagers tortured him by pressing him with large stones until he died. The Salem Witch Trials was an infamous, scary time period in American history that exhibited the amount of fear people had of the devil and the supernatural; the people of this time period accused, arrested, and executed many innocent people because of this fear, and there are several theories as to why the trials happened (Brooks).
This combination of fears, unholyness, sin, and loss of social status each stemming from the others, created a vicious cloud of anxiety and suspicion within the town. And ultimately, with no other way to lessen the tension that grew from the pressure of religious standards, the witch trials were a much needed, but terribly unfortunate, outlet for the Puritans. If they had not had such strict principles in their
Throughout the witch trials many were accused, both male and females; however, most of the time women were to blame for witchcraft. Individuals could be considered witches if there was an argument between neighbors,
Women started to accuse other women and they also accused a few men. Murrin details that this caused a challenge in the local judical system: “…a number of judicial irregularities, including an unusual heavy dependence by the courts on spectral evidence ( when an accused witch’s spirit or specter, supposedly tormented the victim) and the use of open confessions by the accused to escape punishment” (339). New England had a organized way of doing things when it came it witches, but once accusations arose in Salem they started a new system which led their town into hysteria. “The Salem witch panic stands out, in part, because the judicial execution of twenty people within three months became an event of enormous drama in a region that hanged comparatively few offenders and in a colony that hanged only five people for witchcraft before 1692 and only one before 1656”
Salem 1692, two girls ,Betty Parris, age nine, and her eleven year old cousin Abigail Williams, had a dream. They wanted to be the best actors in the village. They worked very hard to do that and they got twenty people killed. Betty and Abigail were Puritans and they are not supposed to lie or they would end up with the devil in the afterlife, but it seemed like they didn’t care. That’s why we ask, why were people blaming the innocent for being witches in Salem, 1692? The Salem Witch Trials were caused by two poor, young girls who acted possessed. There were also other people who took the risk of lying and accused other people. Most of the accusers were under the age of twenty and woman. The little girls caused the Salem Witch Trials hysteria by pretending to be possessed. Most of the accusers were poor and lived in the western part of the town.
After all of the witch trials in 1692 concluded a total of 20 people were hanged all because of people craving attention and personal gain. There are three people depicted in Arthur Miller's The Crucible that are most responsible for this and they are, Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth, and Thomas Putnam. Abigail Williams is mostly responsible for the Salem witch trials because she was the first person to start accusing innocent people of witchcraft. Judge Danforth is responsible because he is not concerned about justice, all he cares about is being correct about the witch trials. Lastly Thomas Putnam is guilty of causing the witch trials because he was able to have people accuse other people so he could claim their land for himself. The witch trials were a senseless massacre and all because Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth, and Thomas Putnam were only concerned about them selves, not the innocent ones around them.
The fairness of the Salem Witch Trials was anything but what you would think. The trials, held in Salem, Massachusetts, were a tragedy in the 1600s where dozens of innocent people were accused and hung for supposedly using witchcraft. The very young (mostly 9 year old) girls accused witch after witch across the town of Salem. The book, Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, by Rosalyn Schanzer, gives a historical account of the trials and of those accused. The unfairness of the Salem Witch Trials is revealed through the use of spectral evidence, false evidence, and the underlying reasons some were accused.