During this time, the city was governed by the church and a massive witch hunt took where people were condemned for being pawns of the Devil. Officials in Salem authorized many of the witch trials and sent dozens of accused witches to die. Deputy Governor Danforth was one of them. He showed no signs of backing down from his cause. “[D]o you know that near to four hundred are in jails . . . upon my signature? . . . And seventy-two condemned to hang by that signature” (Miller, 91)? This was not because he was evil, but because he believed he was righteous. His intentions were good because he truly believed he was saving Salem, but his actions, as seen today, were evil. Another authority figure who believes they are doing good and perpetuates the Salem Witch Trials is Judge Hathorne. “Why at every execution I have seen naught but high satisfaction in the town” (Miller, 133). Hathorne, like Danforth, believes he is on a Holy Crusade that will move Salem out of the Devil’s hands, and into God’s grace. These authority figures in The Crucible illustrate how values change over time. The society they lived in had different values than society does today. Because of this, they acted accordingly with their ideas of good and evil and cannot be judged by people…
The individuals of Salem all have the need to belong and this leads to the problem of manipulation which is used to earn the characters status and increase their reputation. In Salem reputation is important and many of the characters will go to extremes to protect their reputation epically those members of the theocracy. The theocracy is an unjust system which punishes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. These problems are what leads to the ultimate tragedy and kills many people in Salem.…
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.…
throughout the crucible there were many trials within the salem witch trials, these determined the fate and dignity of several citizens in Salem. As always, there are many actions that costed innocent lives to be taken away from them.The dramatic effect that deceitfulness has on Salem is costly only to the ones trialed. On a personal viewpoint, it can be justified that the following three charachters are responsible: Abigail, Danforth and Tituba. The real lesson to be learned even after hundreds of years after the Witch Trials, is that ignorance is a main cause of the disintegration of society…
Boyer and Nissenbaum assume a direct causal relationship between socio-economic conditions and individual behavior. Indeed, the authors manage to trace almost all personal motivation back to the pocketbook. While their deft reconstruction of Salem Village's factious society and the economic changes which contributed to such divides is quite convincing, the intellectual jump they make to connect these pre-existing divisions with the personal motivations of accusers is largely speculative and circumstantial. Boyer and Nissenbaum's analysis of communal conflict also omits the religious ideas behind the trials - the very ideas which the people of Salem would have believed to be most important. It can be said that a reason that escalated a town squabble into death was the Puritan theology. This theory numbered witches as among the punishments God could inflict upon his inattentive people. Therefore, this allows the Salem outbreak to be understood in its own terms, rather than simply in terms of economic rationalization and communal…
From literature we learn that people are deceiving and opportunist seeking personal desires and wealth. In The Crucible Betty says “you did, you did! you drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill goody Proctor” (Miller 148). In this quote Miller demonstrates how much a person is willing to endure to reach their goal.…
Although the Salem witch trials remain an account of great eccentricity, still they are a historical process that can be analyzed, studied, and explained. Historians have examined areas including but not limited to geography, religion, agriculture, war, gender, and have provided argument upon argument on the basis of one or several of these contributing to the Salem witch trials. Yet, the majority of these historians have failed to recognize that all of these factors have links to the economy, and when combined together had a significant impact on it, which directly went on to fuel the mass hysteria. This raises the question, “To What Extent Did Economic Factors Contribute to Mass Hysteria During the Salem Witch Trials of…
He wanted to fix his mistake without actually admitting that he had made a mistake. The people of Salem recognized that and refused to forgive him for what he had put their families through. Instead of accepting that he had a major role in the trials, Samuel Parris blamed the people, by stating that the plague of witchcraft never would have occurred, if they would have done as they were instructed to in the first place, and paid him what they were supposed to. He made the people of Salem feel that they had offended God by refusing to give their hard earned money to crops to this…
Within this passage of The Crucible a major theme is brought up, that is good vs evil. The book talks about how society uses these polar opposites to explain away some of the more complex concepts in life. An example of this is shown in this passage when Mrs. Putnam asks, “Is it a natural work to lose seven children before they live a day?” (Miller 45). In her lack of understanding the nature of child death Mrs. Putnam begins to blame the Devil for the misfortune that has befallen her. Mrs. Putnam, much like the rest of society, has used the concept of good and evil, in this case God and the Devil, in order to explain greater phenomenon in life. The book presents us with the idea that evil, what everyone perceives as unjust, is something…
It would take alot of greed to accuse someone of witchcraft to have them executed so that their land would be auctioned off. Vengeance played another key role in salem, if it weren’t for vengeance the witch trials would have never happened. In the beginning of the Elizabeth wanted revenge on goodie proctor, because she felt that she was the reason john proctor wouldn’t marry her. Because of this she accused Goodie proctor knowing that would surely get rid of her.…
The Salem witch trials were caused by jealousy, paranormia,and teenagers. Jealousy was a huge part because of the rich people having better land or have more money so people accused them to be able to own their stuff. Paranormia was a part of it because people were scared that the devil was entering their body to make them do bad things. Teenages were also part of it becsuse teeagers didn’t get a long with everyone, so when they didn’t they acted like the person was put a witchcraft spell on them. This is why the Salem witch trials in 1692…
The Salem witch trials scared many people during its time. During this time people accused each other of being witches. Many of the accused were killed because they would not admit to being a witch. The causes of the Salem witch trials were town division, lying girls, and jealousy.…
In the Crucible, Arthur Miller writes of the hysteria during Salem Witch Trials, hoping that the world will never do anything stupid again because of hysteria. During the Salem Witch Trials there were many people that chose to act as individuals, rather than a community. Judge Danforth, Reverend Parris , and Abigail Williams had the power to stop, and even prevent the trials, but chose not to because they did not care for anyone except themselves. Judge Danforth could have stopped the trials when he found out that he was wrong about the whole thing. Also, Parris is the reason the trails took place, and Abigail Williams fed the flame of hysteria throughout the trails. These three individual contribute to callous attitudes that exist in Salem, and cause the ultimate deaths of the innocent.…
In early times people didn’t understand reason. Especially the Puritans who only saw God’s will and the evilness of the devil. During the Salem witchcraft crisis, Puritans struggled to decipher communal security and find the truth around them. They believed that Satan recruited humans to do his evil and be servants to him, i.e. witches. The witches had a magical power that allowed them to harm others. To protect the community the judges of the town took it upon themselves to hold jury trials and hang the witches as punishment. Many believed the witches were burned at the stake, however that is untrue.…
In Arthur Miller's “The Crucible” the last words uttered by the people at the end of the Salem witch trial were ones with no regret as they hung to death in front of the town. All of these people who were in fact innocent all faced similar problems due to the Puritan religion and government being, in essence, one in the same. Jealousy, revenge, and fear of the unknown sets the stage for how one persons should act vs how the people did act in the religious society.…