What Are The Similarities Between The Salem Witch Trials And The Handmaid's Tale

At first it seems that the Salem witch trials and the novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” are nothing alike, but, when we take a close look, we see that they are very similar in nature. They have similar themes, symbols and details which leads me to believe the novel was inspired by the trials. The actual novel itself is dedicated to Mary Webster which the author of “The Handmaids Tale,” Margaret Atwood, believes she may or may not have been related to Mary. When Atwood was growing up, her grandmother would tell her at times that she was related to Mary and the other days completely deny it “because it wasn’t very respectable.” Atwood wanted to write a novel about Mary, herself, but didn’t know enough about the 17th century to accomplish that, but, did write a poem call “Half-Hanged Mary” which details the way Mary possibly felt having to hang by her neck from a tree all night, surviving until morning after being falsely accused of being a witch. (Wernick)

The Puritans are god fearing people who don’t really understand why bad things are happening to good people in the colonies. It seems like it makes things easier to understand when they have something to blame their troubles on and in this case, they blame the Devil. They believe Lucifer is walking amongst the people and is irritated that these new people are now on his land. Phillip Smith is what I would consider one of the high class of Hadley, Massachusetts. In January 1685, he falls extremely ill and the Puritan community cannot seem to get their heads around why such and outstanding person become so sick. The Puritans just assume “witch.” They concluded that Mary Webster lives alone and that horses will not go past her house on Main St. unless she is beaten first, so she must be using witchcraft to torment Phillip Smith. They thought they could beat Mary and Phillip would get