On February 29, 1692, an arrest warrant was issued for Tituba in Salem Town. Throughout the ages, people repeatedly use witch hunts as a method for dealing with issues that are widespread. The settlers of New England faced innumerable struggles and hardships. The legal use of torture declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, and there was a general retreat from religious intensity following the wars of religion (from the 1560s to 1640s). Aligns with CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.5- Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging. Arthur Miller wrote this play to symbolize 1950s McCarthyism. The term 'witch-hunt' has become entrenched in our vocabulary and our consciousness to mean, metaphorically, any act which purposely seeks out to punish those who hold unpopular views or. The Devil was deeply and widely feared as the greatest enemy of Christ, keenly intent on destroying soul, life, family, community, church, and state. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 and recounts one such witch hunt. John Indian, through the trials, also had a number of fits when present for the examination of accused witches. The hunts were most severe from 1580 to 1630, and the last known execution for witchcraft was in Switzerland in 1782. Four-year-old accused witch Dorcas Good went insane after spending months in prison and watching her baby sister die while in jail with their mother, who was later hanged. Although the lurid trials at Salem (now in Massachusetts) continue to draw much attention from American authors, they were only a swirl in the backwater of the witch hunts. In act 4 of The Crucible, why does John Proctor decide to confess but refuse to sign a written confession? He has wanted his Incarnate Legions to Persecute us, as the People of God have in the other Hemisphere been Persecuted: he has therefore drawn forth his more spiritual ones to make an attacque upon us. . The events in 1692 parallel the witch hunts in 1950s. Soon, people feared, communist ways would come to the United States and would quickly corrupt the government system. They were a wide cultural, social, political phenomenon. Elizabeth Proctor had been the orphaned Abigails mistress, and they had lived together in the same small house until Elizabeth fired the girl. The witch hunts varied enormously in place and in time, but they were united by a common and coherent theological and legal worldview. Christian theologians and academics entwined together the superstitious worries people held about the supernatural with Christian doctrine. Some may say it was just a part of war; however, it's much more than that. Although these figures are alarming, they do not remotely approach the feverishly exaggerated claims of some 20th-century writers. The Black Death: Europes Deadliest Pandemic in Human History. More differences existed among Protestants and among Catholics than between the two religious groups, and regions in which Protestant-Catholic tensions were high did not produce significantly more trials than other regions. When Samuel Parris moved to Boston from New Spain, he brought Tituba,John Indian, and a young boy with him as enslaved persons forced to work in a household. As a result of such ideas, by the late 15th century, witches were considered as followers of the Devil. Ultimately, 19 individuals who had refused to admit guilt were hanged and another was pressed to death. Crude practices such as pricking witches to see whether the Devil had desensitized them to pain; searching for the devils mark, an oddly-shaped mole or wart; or swimming (throwing the accused into a pond; if she sank, she was innocent because the water accepted her) occurred on the local level. My own marriage of twelve years was teetering and I knew more than I wished to know about where the blame lay. Three-fourths of European witch hunts occurred in western Germany, the Low Countries, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland, areas where prosecutions for heresy had been plentiful and charges of diabolism were prominent. She confessed to witchcraft and accused others. A " witchcraft craze " rippled through Europe from the 1300s to the end of the 1600s. The decline of witch hunts, like their origins, was gradual. 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. And we have now with Horror seen the Discovery of such a WITCHCRAFT! This was a time when paranoia, hysteria, and deceit gripped the Puritan towns of New England. Along with this older tradition, attitudes toward witches and the witch hunts of the 14th18th centuries stemmed from a long history of the churchs theological and legal attacks on heretics. Drawing on research on the witch trials he had conducted while an undergraduate, Miller composed The Crucible in the early 1950s. Its origin lies in the establishment of a theocracy by the inhabitants of Salem, which combined state and religious power. One of the most known is The Holocaust that happened during WWII. According to Cotton Mather, what are the immediate and long-term goals of the Devil? [emailprotected], For more info, go here: https://teresajusino.com A few histories mention a daughter, Violet, who remained with the Parris family. The early modern period was a time of calamity, plagues, and wars, while fear and uncertainty were rife. There was bad blood between the two women now. The American and European witch hunts of the early modern era had a significant impact on Western societys history, politics, and culture. These witch hunts warn against collective thought and unjust persecution and even to this day provide a useful and relevant metaphor for all those who believe themselves victims of unjustified outrage. Students put themselves in the place of the playwright to answer: Aligns with CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.3- Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain. Also the fact people would accuse people of witchcraft which would then accuse other people of witchcraft and etc. Among the main effects of the papal judicial institution known as the Inquisition was in fact the restraint and reduction of witch trials that resulted from the strictness of its rules. Salem witch trials, (June 1692-May 1693), in American history, a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 convicted "witches" to be hanged and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts). Miller argues that the fundamental nature of Salem's construction made it a community where the Witch Trials were inevitable. Witches were considered Satans followers, members of an antichurch and an antistate, the sworn enemies of Christian society in the Middle Ages, and a counter-state in the early modern period. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Again, the so-called witches made for the perfect scapegoats. It used to be that women were only madthemselvesbecause of their lusts. I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! For many peopleespecially New Englanders (wicked or not) and fans of Daniel Day-Lewis or Winona Ryder (stars of the 1996 movie version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible)17th-century Salem, Massachusetts, comes to mind when they hear the word witch hunt.The persecution of witches goes back to ancient times, but it was during the 16th and 17th centuries that witch hunts intensified. Countries that were predominantly Catholic such as Spain, did not endure the scourge of witch-hunting to the same extent as those that experienced religious unrest. In France in 1022 a group of heretics in Orlans was accused of orgy, infanticide, invocations of demons, and use of the dead childrens ashes in a blasphemous parody of the Eucharist. The salem witch trials hysteria of 1692 was caused by the Puritans strict religious standards and intolerance of anything not accepted with their scripture. Latest answer posted November 22, 2020 at 10:36:50 AM. The witch trials offer a window into the anxieties and social tensions that accompanied New Englands increasing integration into the Atlantic economy. How can history be dramatic, and how can drama bring history to life? One of the more infuriating things about this #TimesUp moment is that there are far too many men continuing to be more concerned with the hypothetical possibility of false accusations (even though most of the accusations either come from multiple women corroborating stories about the same person, or have been confirmed by the accused themselves in self-serving apologies) than they are with the suffering of victims of sexual harassment, assault, or abuse. Those who did believe saw witchcraft as something to be availed of at best and dismissed at worst. from University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Yet one general explanation is valid: the unique character of the witch hunts was consistent with the prevailing worldview of intelligent, educated, experienced people for more than three centuries. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. Jill Schonebelen wrote a research paper on Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights. Furthermore, people could now freely express their hatreds for neighbors and take vengeance under the the guise of an attempt to identify those who communed with the devil. Why would the church and government authorities continue to credit these wild and unsubstantiated stories as respectable people from all walks of lifelandowners, women of independent means, neighbors, even clergywere arrested and brought to trial? Analysis. Arthur Miller felt as if it were a . We now know that some of the accused were pre-teens. Sarah Good claimed her innocence but implicated Tituba and Osborne. In early 1692, three girls with connections to the Parris household began to exhibit strange behavior. In 20th Century America, it all started when a playwright named Arthur Miller had an affair with a Hollywood actress named Marilyn Monroe. The third girl was Ann Putnam Jr., who was the daughter of a key supporter of Rev. In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the weak people are taunted by the stronger people to give in to admitting to witchcraft. Miller captured the events in a riveting story that is now considered a modern classic in the theater. 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. The play results in a mob mentality and hysteria taking over because people believed a lying girl. However, Spain did witness one of the largest witch trials on record. Secondly, Miller states that 'The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.' Miller sums up his experience with the benefit of hindsight: "I am glad that I managed to write The Crucible, but looking back I have often wished I'd had the temperament to do an absurd comedy, which is what the situation deserved. It drew upon preexisting rivalries and disputes within the rapidly growing Massachusetts port town: between urban and rural residents; between wealthier commercial merchants and subsistence-oriented farmers; between Congregationalists and other religious denominationsAnglicans, Baptists, and Quakers; and between American Indians and Englishmen on the frontier. During the examination of Elizabeth Procter, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam the two were afflicted teen-age accusers, and Abigail was Parriss niece both made offer to strike at said Procter; but when Abigails hand came near, it opened, whereas it was made up, into a fist before, and came down exceeding lightly as it drew near to said Procter, and at length, with open and extended fingers, touched Procters hood very lightly. People demanded one to be hung or burned if the person sinned unless they confessed, turned back around to God, and blamed others for their sin. What happened, we should ask, that enabled such widespread, fallacious, and at times frantic persecution and prosecution to take place? In response to the mass hysteria over this communist infiltration, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible. Local priests and judges, though seldom experts in either theology or law, were nonetheless part of a culture that believed in the reality of witches as much as modern society believes in the reality of molecules. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for every-one so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.'. The ensuing witch hunt would result in the executions of 19 men, women, and children, along with the deaths of at least six others, and the suffering, torment, and calamity of an entire community. Latest answer posted April 17, 2020 at 1:25:04 AM. Have a tip or story idea? In the spring of 1692, two young girls from a seemingly inconsequential village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to display increasingly disturbing behavior, claiming strange visions and experiencing fits. Tituba later testified that she saw visions of the devil and witches swarming. She confessed to witchcraft and accused others. Young women were sometimes accused of infanticide, but midwives and nurses were not particularly at risk. They believe that witches work with the devil and that they can see the devil and his followers. The witch-trials provided release and the outcome was tragically unpleasant. The Rev. The Little Ice Age was a period of climate change characterized by severe weather, famine, sequential epidemics, and chaos. "It would probably never have occurred to me to write a play about the Salem witch trials of 1692 had I not seen some astonishing correspondences with that calamity in the America of the late 40s and early 50s. To fully understand what caused the witch-hunt, one must analyze the triggers behind these feelings. The story of that peripheral village is one that has lodged itself into the cultural mindset of people everywhere as a cautionary tale against the dangers of extremism, groupthink, and false accusations, perhaps calling to mind Arthur Millers The Crucible or Cold War era McCarthyism. In this text, the year is 1692 and the witch trials have diminished and are almost over in Europe. The breakdown in the social order during the various different conflicts of this period added to the atmosphere of fear and led to the inevitable need for scapegoating. There have been many different "witch hunts" that have happened since 1692, that have shaped our world. No wonder the term witch hunt has entered common political parlance to describe such campaigns as that of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his attempt to root out communists in the United States in the 1950s. It was from a report written by the Reverend Samuel Parris, who was one of the chief instigators of the witch-hunt. In Mexico the Franciscan friars linked indigenous religion and magic with the Devil; prosecutions for witchcraft in Mexico began in the 1530s, and by the 1600s indigenous peasants were reporting stereotypical pacts with the Devil. Resentment and fear of the power of the hag, a woman released from the constraints of virginity and then of maternal duties, has been frequently described in Mediterranean cultures. To every guy out there today whose greatest concern is being falsely accused, youve been manipulated by a frustrated playwright into genuinely believing that being callous and abusive with women dont have consequences. These accusations would also be made by the Romans against the Christians, by early Christians against heretics (dissenters from the core Christianity of the period) and Jews, by later Christians against witches, and, as late as the 20th century, by Protestants against Catholics. Prior to the 15th century, the Church did not persecute people for witchcraft. Men who brand women as dakan capitalize on deeply rooted superstitions and systems built on . An additional activity would be to ask students to compare two or more recorded or live productions of Arthur Millers The Crucible to the written text. Fear, hatred, guilt, jealousy, pain, grief, confusion, lust, and hunger are all feelings with one thing in common: They were the driving force that caused a witch-hunt amongst early modern Europeans. Folklore and accounts of trials indicate that a woman who was not protected by a male family member might have been the most likely candidate for an accusation, but the evidence is inconclusive. Its hard to imagine that there was once a time when witches were not seen as cackling women with pointed hats, black cats, and bubbling cauldrons. Miller cites the reason for the witch-hunts to be "a preserve of manifestation of the panic which set among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom" and "a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins." What does the overture imply about human nature? On a more material level, the fact that the land charters to Salem had been revoked helped to create an air of tension about land ownership. Both he and you are wrong. They could now publicly state their own iniquities and were praised for seeking purification. Society was undeniably affected by witch hunts, as people did everything in their power to either free themselves from blame or accuse someone else. The dramatic changes of the characters show how people in late 1600s managed to get through the accusations of witchcraft and moreover how the accusers and or condemners were able to handle the chaotic event. But since the controversy included withholding salary and payment in firewood, and Parris complained about the effect on his family, Tituba probably would also have felt the shortage of firewood and food in the house. The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism have an uncanny relation to one another. Like the Spanish colonies, the English colonies repeated the European stereotype with a few minor differences. In the play "The Crucible," Arthur Miller uses a great trial in the Salem witch trials to describe how he felt during the Red Scare in the 1950's. The Red Scare was a national hunt for Communists, or "Reds" as they were called. *** Beyond Arthur Millers The Crucible, numerous dramatic presentations offer insights into irrational human fear. In pointing out this paradox, Miller suggests that the witch hunts exposed the failure of the Puritan theocracy. Tituba served as a housekeeper. Although some people undoubtedly practiced sorcery with the intent to harm, and some may actually have worshiped the Devil, in reality no one ever fit the concept of the witch. Nonetheless, the witchs crimes were defined in law. For The Crucible, Miller aged Abigail up from her actual age of 11 to a more easily sexualized 17, while aging down John Procter, who was historically 60 at the time the trials went down to 35. Miller presents the idea that vengeance ruins peoples lives or reputation so that you can get what you want and be satisfied. Tituba was among the first three people accused of being a witch during the Salem witch trials of 1692. Maryse Cond, a French Caribbean writer, published "I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem" which argues that Tituba was of Black African heritage. In Arthur Millers play, The Crucible, witch hunts empowered towns and consumed peoples lives with fear. The Crucible shows how fear can inspire hysteria, intolerance, and paranoia and mirrored what was happening in America in the 1950s when a different kind of witch hunt was afoot. Salem was a pressure-cooker ready to explode. 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.
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