In conclusion, the characters of Thomas Putnam and Abigail Williams influenced and shaped the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail Williams and Putnam started the first accusations which led to widespread fear of witchcraft in the village. This same fear was exploited by Williams and Putnam in order to achieve their selfish motives. Without these characters, the Salem Witch Trials might have never occured which brings us to realize how much damage vengeance and wealth can cause. All in all, Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam’s grudges and selfish intentions were what caused Salem Witch Trials and the destruction of several innocent
Before the main character has any part in the play the witches start it off in ominous mutterings about wicked acts and the future. The fear among the audience is set before Macbeth even thinks about killing anybody. Macbeth is then told by the witches about things that are supposed to happen in his future, and assuming they are telling the truth he believes them. Not only does he believe them but he himself commits acts that make them come true. This is another representation of how people believed they could be affected by witches.
She once said "She hates me uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave. It 's a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman!" (Miller, Act 1, 12). Consequently, she feared discovery of her transgressions, dancing in the woods, wishing Goody Proctor dead, and drinking the blood. Elizabeth Proctor wanted to regain Proctors love and respect.
Proctor realized the truth behind everything and decided it was time to come forward and tell Danforth, “She thinks to dance with me on my wife's grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore's vengeance, and you must see it now” (Miller ). John tries to reveal who Abigail really is but it does not help the lives of those who are to be hanged.
People were being hanged in front of the town, and as those accused did not want to meet the same fate, they confessed because they were in fear. This was very effective in the Crucible as it was able to create tension among the town of Salem. It caused people to fear, and turn against each other and create mass tension. Fear was a very important type of propaganda in the Crucible, but there is one more very important
How Paranoia and blame Affected the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy hearings In the 1690’s, a wave of fear for the devil washed over Salem, Massachusetts, resulting in the accusations of 200 supposed witches and the execution of 20. Almost 200 years later, after World War II, communists were highly feared. The strong urge to stay away from communists led to the McCarthy hearings where many innocent people were accused and tried for being communists. The Salem trials and the McCarthy hearings have many ties, the two closest being how paranoia highly affected the actions of individuals related to the cases and that the only way to save one’s self was to blame others.
When three girls were accused of being possessed by the devil in 1962, suspicions ran wild. Many believed that the devil was taking over society and taking over people in the community. According to this theory, once one child was possessed
The boundaries and guildlines detecting witchcraft came from a book called The Malleus Maleficarium. Because of this book, many Europeans believed that witches and witchcraft was becoming a serious problem. The Europeans blamed the plague on witchcraft and began the purge the country
“Perhaps no figure in myth or legend has been so despised and feared as the witch.” (Ancient Mysteries Witches, 1996, 4:15-4:18) Witches are feared mainly because they were seen as wicked and people who did the devils work. They do terrible things to other people. In Macbeth the witches are known to represent the hidden evil in Macbeth himself.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts bay colony during 1692/93. Some readers may believe Abigail is the most admirable in the book the Crucible because She bears most of the responsibility for the girls meeting with Tituba in the woods Other readers believe Abigail Williams is the despicable character in the book because she lies, and a promiscuous girl. In the first place, Abigail lies about not doing witchcraft in the woods.
The crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller which focuses on the inconsistencies of the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior flaws that the people represented during the 1690’s. In the story all the characters lived in a puritan town where several young women were exposed or afflicted to witch craft. These young women decided to accuse people of witch craft in order to save themselves from punishments such as, torture and execution, the people being accused by these girls were usually people that their families didn’t like or have had issues with in the past in order to get them out of the town. The main women to continue the act of accusing innocent people in order to save themselves from punishment was Abigail Williams. Around the same time of these events Abigail had relations with a married man named John proctor.