Summary Of Wiesner's Final Subject Of The Spirit

The Salem witch trial was a time about accusing your fellow neighbor or being accused yourself, this all began in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. During this time many people were being accused of being a witch, a majority of the time it was because either someone truly believed that you were a witch and were reeking havoc or they were trying to find someone to take the blame if they were to being accused. So this leads us to question, what began the Salem Witch Trials? There were at least three causes of the Salem witch trials hysteria. These were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams story, Ergotism, and the acknowledgment of hysteria.

Gender roles played a heavy role in colonial society, and the women who did not conform to these roles were easy targets for witchcraft accusations. Women who were post-menopausal, widowed, unmarried were not fulling their “duty” to society of bearing children and thus could come under fire (Lecture.) Those who were aggressive, out spoken, or did not do as another wished could also bring cries of “witch!” (Lecture.) This is highlighted in Cotton Mather’s Accounts of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, one of these accused women Susana Martin stands trial with many of the testifiers being men who had been wronged by Martin in some way or another. One of the testifiers, John Atkinson, claimed witchcraft after a cow Susana had reluctantly traded to

Karlsen leaps to the present with two short paragraphs concerning the connection of early America belief in witchcraft influencing modern thinking and fascination with historical witchcraft. She asserts, "the continuing power of woman-as-witch in our collective imagination"; she addresses the issue of the power that continues to mold and shape the perception of witches and witchcraft in modern America. Why is this relevant to the book and her original story? Why would she throw this in? Pondering these questions led to the conclusion that the reference to current thought links the "woman-as-witch" ideology to the current emphasis on female empowerment prevalent in feminist writing today. She subtly interjects a commentary on the absence of sufficient historical research concerning the role women played in shaping our society, past and

In the Crucible, fear, hysteria, and revenge are the most important elements where fear spreads around the whole village. Hysteria involving witchcraft would end up with many innocent people killed. With many false accusations of a long held grudge with another villager would kill others they would have problems with.

Women have always had a significant role in history even though they were treated horrible in most cases. During the Medieval Times was really the first time women were allowed to become more than just a house wife. The fight for equality has always been a struggle and even in today’s society is still an ongoing battle. Although women of lower and middle class were treated poorly in the Medieval Times, some powerful women held great responsibility and were looked up too by both men and children; despite being admired, “men were thought to be not only physically stronger but more emotionally stable, more intelligent, and morally less feeble” (Hopkins 5).

Throughout the 16th century Reformation through the Enlightenment in the 18th century, was a period of time that saw both change and continuation in European society. One of the biggest examples of this was the role of women and how they should function in European society. Women in this era faced a large amount of hardships and obstacles from great leaders and philosophers such as Martin Luther and Immanuel Kant, who were both against the equality of women to men at this time. From the time period of the 16th century Reformation all the way up to the Enlightenment in the 18th century, the women of Europe were viewed as fragile and unworkable women whose main priority and purpose should only be being a housewife. As time progressed, women

After reading “Devil in the Shape of a Woman: The Economic Basis of Witchcraft “by Carol Karlsen I was intrigued by Karlsen’s interpretation, and upset about the ways women were treated. During these witch hunts women and men alike were accused of the crime, but the majority were women. I found it interesting that she related the commonly known Puritan beliefs, which lead to accusations of witchcraft, with gender roles. She ultimately says that Puritans feared these accused women because they symbolized female independence. I found it shocking that women, often the wealthier, had a greater chance of being let go of their accusations if they had a husband to spoke on their behalf. Those that did not have husbands to do so, despite wealth, were

Madchen Amick, an American actress, once said, “I do love that witches haven 't really been explored that much. Usually, witches are the little side character... a bad female character that comes in and leaves”. Throughout history, witches have been portrayed as many different things; old, scary, but do people really know about “witches” and their historical past? Although the fifteenth century was a progressive and prosperous time for many in Europe, tens of thousands of people were killed as a result of witchcraft; associations with the devil, unexplained nature, and evil doings.

The Renaissance, Religious Reformations, religious wars, and oversea expansions lead to changing attitudes in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Protestant Reformation raised the status of women, but at the same time reformers like Martin Luther believed women should be domestic figures and stay out of the public area. As a result of the strong religious feelings from the Reformations, people became insecure with certain women, like widows and midwives, and developed the idea that they were witches and conferring with the devil. This insecurity and confusion launched the Great European witch-hunt. A witch-hunt is the searching for witches, which often resulted in the trial and persecution of women allegedly practicing witchcraft.

Do you know what affected America the most? The Salem witch trials had a great affect on America; so great that Christianity had to change their ways. This also was one of the great mistakes America had made at the time.

The House on Mango Street is minority literary work written by Sandra Cisneros. The novel tells about a girl named Esperanza who lived in a house on street named Mango. Actually, she desired her own House and not a rent-house when she should share the yard with the people downstairs and pay rent to someone. Through this work, Sandra Cisneros tried to show some problems felt by the main character, Esperanza as minority, whether as Mexican-American or as woman. This paper will analyze the problem of being a woman in Mexican-American community through some characters in the book ‘The House on Mango Street’.

One of the most recognised contemporary works provides insight into gender, punishment and witches; Malleus Maleficarum. The Malleus is generally agreed upon by historians, such as Behringer and Jerouschek, to feminise witchcraft, and is argued to be the most influential work on the early modern witch trials that led to the numerous persecutions of women. Hans Peter Broedel argues that the Malleus’ gendering of witchcraft was not an attack on women, but an attack on the power of their sexuality, while other historians argue that Kramer did not gender witchcraft, but was focused on exposing the heresy of female witches; “…for intelligent men it appears to be reasonably unsurprising that more women than men are found to be tainted with the Heresy of female witches.” Question six in Malleus contains the social and intellectual understanding of femininity and witchcraft, opening with the question ‘why a larger number of sorcerers are found among the delicate female sex

The aftermath of the forced conversions of Jews in the medieval sparked a concern on the implications of interfaith sex and focused on how this affected women. With the conversion of many Jews to Christianity, clergy realized that practicing a different religion did not change a person’s physical attributes, specifically their blood. Women were particularly targeted because as the gender that determines the religion of a baby, women were most susceptible to becoming impregnated by a man considered to be Christian only by faith and not by blood, calling into question the child’s true religion. Initially, it seemed that the goal was to convert the Jews, until it was realized and understood that a person who was once a Jew will always be a Jew and forced conversions only blurred the lines and caused confusion. Both Nirenberg and Furst examine two situations, the Iberian scenario and medieval Ashkenaz respectively, in which the role of women and sex generated anxieties.

She speaks from the premise that men and women served in the early church together and provides imagery through examples of the second and third century women who were ordained as deaconesses along with the male deacons, served as mediators and cared for the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of the persecuted and imprisoned. The reader is invited to trek along the ebbs and flow of the presence of women in the daily administration, in Christian art and even as women bishops in the church. However, such demonstration and presence was not met without further opposition as Kjesbo brings to our awareness, the boldness of revisionists who altered faces on the artwork that resembled a woman to make it appear male. One went as far as to change the inscription of a painting of a woman in a mosaic from its feminine form “Episcopa Theodora” into a masculine form of the word by dropping the “ra”, because the Greek form would have authenticated the fact that women bishops were indeed present in the early church.(p.40) It appeared that each time there was some level of progression, the institutionalization of the church played a role in halting that progress due to its propensity to favor the elevation of men to leadership and increase the deduction of women to more subservient roles. Persistently though, women found a way to rise above the oppression to use their leadership gifts particularly in female

The chapters on colonialism could be determined as superficial, this could be because Wiesner-Hanks provides too much information which lessens the impact of how inclusive the analysis is, in connection with this the depth in which she examines the patterns of life within the colonies could be considered by some readers as not adequate; as she shows disregard for other religious viewpoints outside of Christianity such as Islam and Hinduism. However, these criticisms aside, Wiesner-Hanks book paints a detailed and layered portrait of Christianity in terms of regulation and reformation. True, it would be nice had Merry Wiesner-Hanks been able to dedicated more time to the discussion of wider religious teachings outside of Christianity, and it could be suggested that her teaching may be more crucial if it covered a smaller topic area in more detail, instead of a vast topic area in lesser detail. However, this is broadly convincing study, which gives Wiesner-Hanks portrayal of Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World richness in terms of her dedication to a contextual study. Wiesner-Hank’s book ends at the start of what scholar’s phrase ‘modern sexuality’, and within this she stresses the importance of centralising sex within religion, as the formation of these boundaries is still an issue which occurs in the modern world as well – these norms are