Tracing back to the 16th century witch hunting has been around causing the lives of many innocent people destruction. Witch hunting has never died off, it is still here today. In my opinion witch hunting will always exist and occur as long as we have fear, ignorance and jealousy. Many people were accused of being a witch or committing witch activity mainly throughout the 16th and 19th century. Primarily because people fear for what they don't know or can't understand. If a person is unable to understand something they instantly think the answer is not of this world, the devil's work perhaps. Fear has always been a big thing in that society and still exists in today’s. As long as we have fear, there will always be “witch hunts” to go along …show more content…
Many “civilizations are scared of the accused “witches” ” (source I). Fearful because they are worried about their own personal well being. The world tends to allow hysteria when a nation is unstable.” Citizens are afraid of what they don't know”(Source A). For instance, uncertainty, suspicion, and people quick to come to conclusions, came across the Salem Witch-hunt Trials, not to long after that came the many years of McCarthyism. These two did have two different situations but they both allowed disorder and frenzy to be taken over all because of fear. Salem, a town in Massachusetts had a period of witch beliefs that many people made a pact with the devil himself. Taking place in 1962 had developed from disputes between the citizens. I believe the situation was motivated by jealousy. The community, being in a farmland, tension spread like wildfire. Abigail Williams was an instigator that was able to fool the community that they were being harassed by spirits. This led to many convictions that didn’t even have reasonable evidence to prove her torment. …show more content…
Whether it be happiness, success, money, or even love. People will try their hardest to get what they have and will do anything to get it in their possession. Abigail Williams in the Crucible had the most animosity for John Proctor's wife. Abigail went through all the trouble just to convince the town that their was some sort of witchery going on. Abigail did this just so people could get punished and have Elizabeth hanged so she can have Proctor all to herself. Neither her or her accomplice received punishment for convicting the crime. In March 1973, Hollywood had a “blacklist” where they “ refused to “name names” or cooperate in any other way with the HUAC” (Source D). The producers and directors in HollyWood did not want to give credit to some of the actors for unknown reasons, I presume they directors and producers didn’t want to give them credit for acting is because they did not want certain people getting the screen time and getting noticed. I say all occurs because of jealousy. Jealousy is probably the deadliest of them all. Being jealous can cause anyone to something out of the ordinary just to get what they
Hysteria, paranoia, and delusion was what drove the Salem Witch trials in 1692. Many people were executed by decision of the court because it believed in absurd false allegations. Justice in the court was perverted by fear and delusion (Johnson 9). In the 1940s and 1950s, many people in the United States were living in fear of communism; similar to those who feared “witches” in Salem. In the 1953, Arthur Miller came out with a play: The Crucible based on the Salem Witch Trials tackling McCarthyism; accusing others of being communists trying to overthrow democracy in the United States (9-10).
In both The Crucible and in modern day witch hunts, witch hunts are caused out of fear or for personal gain. Jill Schonebelen wrote a research paper on Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights. Throughout this article, it mentions the persecution of witches today in communities around the globe, mentioning the flashbacks of similar strategies that were used in the past, doing different types of tortures. In Modern days, recent generations have abandoned wonderful traditions. Rather, recollecting others with distasteful memories such as witchcraft.
They have been seen as a mirror of the times' fears and tensions, as well as a warning of the risks of public frenzy, bigotry, and injustice. Witch-hunts were triggered by several circumstances, including
Many of us might think that such barbarous acts such as the witch trials have long been forgotten on the practices of man, but such an assertion if believed would plainly ignore the reality of many events since the trials ended. Of the many events that have occurred one that is most recent to us would be the on going persecution and/or discrimination against people of the Islamic faith known more commonly as muslims. Now while these two instances may have many differences such as reasoning, methodology, are even varying in how much damage has been committed the persecution of muslims and the witch hunts share great similarities. Aforementioned similarities include attitudes of distrust when around the targeted group, the spreading of lies and
What Caused the Salem Witch Trials Hysteria of 1692? In Exodus 22:18, it proclaims, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” In 1692 Salem, Massachusetts, the Puritans believed every word that the Bible said, causing the death of twenty people because they were accused of witchcraft. What caused the panic and alarm that lead to the death of twenty people in Salem?
In times of fear and hysteria in the U.S. it is mass chaos and it only gets worse and worse. During the time of both the witch-hunt eras, whether for communist or actual witches, they prove to have many similarities between them. Both of these times were full of confusion and lying which lead to the temporary downfall of the authority at that time. Joseph McCarthy proved to be a factor in this time and add on to the chaos that was America. Arthur Miller wrote about these times in a book called The Crucible, based on the witch trial era.
The first known witch hunts took place in the early 1300’s (Wallenfeldt). As early as the 1400’s, prominent and trustworthy European figures like the pope released pamphlets on finding and persecuting witches (Saari 13-15). The Salem Witch Trials weren’t even the first to occur in America; a woman in Boston had been hung for witchcraft shortly before the Salem trials began. The people of Salem even cited the Boston trials as proof for their accusations; because their afflicted girls had the same symptoms as those in Boston, then clearly both must have been telling the truth (Alexander 194). It would make sense for Salem residents to look to past events to try and understand their current situation, since this is something that happens frequently through history and even
In 1692, a fear of witchcraft led to the accusation of over 200 townspeople. Of those 200, 20 hanged. Throughout the Crucible, it explains the ridiculous trials the people went through to try to prove their innocence. This is parallel to the Red Scare because people went to great lengths to prove their innocence of McCarthyism. In the Crucible, there is multiple occasions where the events that happen are parallel to McCarthyism because the Crucible is an allegory to McCarthyism.
I think you have a valid point but with so many people accused of rape, murder, etc... and the number of times someone has been falsely accused of one of these events, backed up logs of DNA tests to go through, evidence being lost or getting mixed up with another individual, so on and so on. I don't think we should have modern day witch hunts just because someone is accused of a crime that they may not have committed. Obviously, it isn't a quick process of being accused but there have been individuals who were convicted of crimes and released decades later, some even being exonerated after their death. We should work harder to get through cases, so that those who have done the crime are actually
In the Salem witch trials thing there was a lot of irrational fears. The reason why they have these fears is because they don 't know much about how the world works yet no matter if it was how we work or how ecosystems work or how medicine work or how the earth works. Hey the people in Salem were was a community of people that build their community off of the Bible. they didn 't have there any of their ideas built of of science and logic so when which was bought brought up Salem immediately the one thing that they have known OB/GYN for all their life. Because it 's all being known they think that the behavior of a person that was in the slightest bit of difference from the rest of the community with bad was not natural and so again they jumped to conclusions and immediately go after what they think would be the safest solution for them and their families.
Statistics can often be misleading, and it is impossible for historians and scholars of other disciplines to identify every single cause or factor; determining whether or not people were in fact panicking is a particularly challenging task. However, for simplicity’s sake, witch panics were unusual incidences in which “prosecutions suddenly rose and declined in a particular place” (Goodare, 395). Despite the relatively broad definition, each witch panic was entirely unique, though there were a few commonalities that can be observed. For example, at the root of most witch panics were widespread feelings of fear and anger, as people came to view witches as a great threat to either themselves, their communities, or their values that needed to be stopped (Goodare, 397). Such an immense threat to society could not logically be attributed to only one (or a few) witches, thus, many came to see witchcraft as a conspiracy as well as “evidence of the Devil’s growing influence” (Goodare, 397).
It all started when girls in the town were making false accusations of consorting with the devil.(Anderson) They would persecute one another as “witches”, so other people in the town wouldn’t accuse them of being a witch.(Anderson) The deputies of the court would persecute the “witches” that caused them to confess thing that wasn’t true.(Anderson)
The witch hunts were an act of mass hysteria within the community. I believe that scapegoating is so common in both literature and the real world is because it is such an easy thing to do if you have enough authority/power and the desire for
Tituba, the slave of Reverend Parris, is the first to admit to dancing with the devil. Based on the background knowledge of the time, slaves were not considered part of the class system, so she was not valued as a community member. Tituba is conscious that she is in danger, “she is also very frightened because her slave sense has warned her that, as always, trouble in this house eventually lands on her back” (Miller, pg. 6). Tituba attempts to tell the truth about Abigail when she says, “You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm” (Miller, pg. 44) but realizes that her word against Abigail will not stand.
Reasons Behind The Crucible Arthur Miller’s main purpose in writing The Crucible was to show the similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Trials and to warn against government propaganda. At the time that The Crucible was published, America had a huge fear of communism. Anyone accused of having ties with the communist party was shunned. It much resembled the Salem Witch Trials in how the government, or leader of the time, used fear against the people to gain power. For example, Joseph McCarthy can be compared to Reverend Parris in how they both lead the people into the belief that there were intruders in their mists that had plans to sabotage the community.