The Salem Witch Trials: A Terrible Tragedy

The Salem Witchcraft Trials had many effects on the town of Salem, Massachusetts. A lot of the effects were negative, destroying the community, government, even individuals. The Witch Trials affected the community of Salem in multiple ways. The witch trials created many tensions between several families in the town. The most acknowledgeable dispute from the play was between the Putnam’s and the Nurse’s.

She starts accusing people that she doesn’t like of practicing witchcraft, including Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor is John Proctor’s wife, and Abigail doesn 't like her because she wants to be with John, who she had an affair with. Abigail thinks that by accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft Elizabeth will be killed and then she can finally be with John. During these witch trials, many other people were accused and blamed for things that they did not do. It was mostly because of Abigail and her friends were lying about innocent people doing witchcraft.

Nathaniel Nguyen The Crucible Arthur Miller English 2 Honors Period 2 Witch Hunting During the years 1692 to 1693, The Salem Witch Trials were a time of great fear and hysteria, as even neighbors would accuse one another of witchcraft just to lower the suspicion that they themselves were witches. Although many people nowadays are very well aware of what happened during this frightful time, most still don’t know how the Salem Witch Trials actually began. The Crucible by Arthur Miller captures the horrific experience of the Salem Witch Trials from their very beginning, to their ending when people began realizing that the entire situation had been a lie from the very start.

According to “Journal of the Early Republic” eventually, the community admitted the trials were a mistake and ended up compensating the families of those convicted. Since then, the Salem Witch trials has become synonymous with paranoia, injustice, and fear; therefore, continues to occupy a unique place in our collective history. Because the belief in the supernatural and in the devil’s practice became widespread in the Salem village, it evoked fear among the community. Witchcraft was considered a sin and a crime because the witches were able to conjure the Devil to perform cruel acts against others.

More people were starting to be accused of practicing witchcraft. They thought they people were wild savages running around their village. These people had to be contained and they did not want the so called curse to spread. “Abigal Williams was one of the first affected girls in the Salem Witch Trials.” Her and a couple other girls were playing games on day and they read their future.

When thinking of witchcraft, one’s mind immediately goes to a woman with green skin, moles, and a pointy nose. Witches stand around a cauldron with their wild hair, summoning spirits or fly around terrorizing those around them. However, as we find out in Arthur Miller’s 1952 play, The Crucible, the accused were anything but. The victims accused of witchcraft within The Crucible were targeted for not fitting the social norms of the time, breaking Puritan code, or posing a threat to someone else. In our world today, we can still see the effects of the Salem Witch trials through accusing those who are on the margins of deeds we don’t want to take responsibility for.

Salem was surprised and scared of what happened during the 1690’s. Rosalyn Schanzer wrote the book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, which is a book that describes the life in Salem during the witch trials. The witch trials was a period of time when people accused others for being witches and using witchcraft. It was a devastating time for the Puritans.

He wrote a play called The Crucible where he had told the story of the Salem people who were bounded by the Devil. The Salem-town (nowadays Salem) situates in Massachusses state and during Witch Trails it was under the influence of Puritans church and traditions. In other words, The Crucible is the play about fears of social isolation and unknown, and how hysteria spreads fast among people. The most notable character of the play is Abigail Williams.

Later in the story Tituba under the pressure of the court confest which ignited a hunt for witches. in both the salem witch trials and the red scare people where both paranoid of something. At the time of the witch trials the people were afraid of evil spirits, and the devil if you were accused of being a witch you would lose almost everything you owned. With the power of the church the people of Salem where easy overpowered by Propaganda and hysteria, with this people started so claim any was a witches for power, land, and even political strength. “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”

Also it was the fact they were related to them and they thought that their mom or father was teaching them witchcraft. The crucible was a tragedy because no one was safe and everyone was scared that the girls were going to point at them next and they would hang. The trials were unfair because if the denied witchcraft they were hung for saying that they weren’t and if they admitted they were put in jail and would confess their sins to the

The Salem Witch Trials were such a terrible moment in history for the people of Salem, Massachusetts they eventually decided to rename the area to Danvers in hopes to forget what all occurred in that small village. In the end, the Salem Witch Trials could be considered a very lurid moment of history due to the fact that the villagers in that town went so far into their religious beliefs that they actually went along with the idea that the people they grew up with, the people they married, and even their families were involved in

One of the first accused was Samuel Parris’ own slave, Tituba. It was unheard of for a Reverend to have witchcraft practiced under his own roof, and Parris could not afford to lose his reputation. Samuel stood by his children in court as they testified against the accused, and he even helped them by testifying against Rebecca Nurse. People thought for certain that if the Reverend was standing with the girls against the so called “evil witches” that there must be a real problem. Parris even made a statement that the witches were plotting against Christianity, which made sense if the witches were indeed working for the Devil.

The witchcraft of Salem, Massachusetts was an example of mass hysteria, it resulted in the hangings and deaths of many people from being charged with relations with the devil. The people who convicted the innocent were actually the ones who themselves had relations with the devil. The reasons the convictions happened were because of the young girls who got caught dancing around a fire in the moonlight and doing other practices, they didn’t want to get accused of the witchcraft so they ended up blaming other people who they were jealous of. Innocent people were accused and convicted on witchcraft making it the most unjustifiable testimonies in Salem.

The idea of witches stemmed from religious folks believing that the Devil could give certain people, known as witches, the power to harm others in return for their loyalty (Smithsonian). Due to the popularity of religion and supernatural beliefs, many people believed that the source of evil was the Devil. This idea appeared in Europe as early as the 14th century and it was quite popular in New England colonies. Villagers often blamed unfortunate things upon the Devil and other spectral sources of evil due to their lack of knowledge.

If someone wanted land and they couldn 't get it, they would say that they are a witch and the person would get hung. A lot of people died because of getting blamed on about being a witch. But in “The Crucible” the character Abigail would blame anyone that got in the way of her and John Proctor, she was obsessed with him. There is a lot of movies that can relate to the