Witchcraft In The Elizabethan Era

The witches have full responsibility for Macbeth's downfall. Macbeth should have never listened to the witches because from then on, it changed him. The word ‘witchcraft’ has been derived from the word ‘Wicca’ which means ‘the wise one." During the Middle Ages, witches were considered evil, making pacts and connections with the Devil. It was even believed that witches engaged in

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. The main character, John Proctor, may seem to be a normal, middle aged man living in the Puritan town of Salem, but however, he holds a dark secret: he cheated on his wife with a girl named Abigail Williams. What he doesn 't know, is that by cheating with Abigail, he partly started the Salem witch madness; John makes Abigail very envious of his wife, and thus, she begins accusing others of dark sorcery and witchcraft.

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.

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. The first victims to be accused within the Salem Witch Trials were those who didn’t fit the social norms of society at the time. From the beginning, Abigail Williams has power over those who are below her. Not only does she possess this power, she lords it over those who are seen as valueless in a society built for the rich and for men. When placed in the hot seat after being discovered dancing in the woods, Abigail throws the weakest person she can find under the bus: Tituba.

They are “the bad guys” in this play. The witches’ characteristics which adhere to the villain archetype: Powerful (magical powers) Intelligent Devious Scheming Odd looking At the start of Act 1 Scene 3 in  Macbeth,the Witches prepare for their first encounter with Macbeth. As they do so, they plot revenge against those who they believe have insulted them. *Scheming . Sooner on, the witches predict that Macbeth will be the future king.

In act one there were four examples of visions and hallucinations, mostly having to do with the witches. The witches had a very a significant role in the play. They created most of the things that happened based off of their prophecies. Shakespeare uses the theme of visions and hallucinations to create a vivid image of the play to give the play a creepy connotation and give a better understanding of the characters. In acts one and two there was a total of six examples of visions and hallucinations.

Macbeth is a tragedy that plays out a savage dichotomy between the head and the heart. Throughout the course of the play, Macbeth the dichotomy within Macbeth’s character by falling from the lofty hearts of a pure and loyal warrior to a murderous savage determined to fulfil the prophecy delivered to him by supernatural powers. The witches influence on how Macbeth made his decisions played a crucial part in contributing to his eventual destruction. They planted the seed of evil in Macbeth’s head that grew to dominate his mind. “Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor: The greatest is behind.” Due to the outside influence from the witches, he thinks that it is his destiny and that he must do everything to fulfil it; Lady Macbeth’s constant harassment pushed Macbeth to commit all evil.

The Salem witch trials proved to be one of the most cruel and fear driven events to ever occur in history. Many innocent people were accused of witchcraft, and while some got out of the situation alive not everyone was as lucky. Arthur Miller the author of The Crucible conveys this horrific event in his book and demonstrates what fear can lead people to do. But the reason as to why Arthur Miller felt the need to write The Crucible in the first place was because the unfortunate reality that history seemed to have repeated itself again. In the article “Are You Now or Were You Ever”, Arthur Miller claims that the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trials were similar and he does this through his choice of diction, figurative language, and rhetorical questions.

Act 1 Reading Log Scene 1 • Quote analysis : “Fair is foul and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air” (1.1.12-13). This quote by the witches indicates the general atmosphere of the play, which is one of deceit and uncertainty. Acts that alone are terrible are justified many times throughout the play. By ‘hovering through the fog and filthy air”, the witches mean to say they are above the conflicts of men and although Macbeth may not know his fate, they certainly will. • Significance of scene: Sets the general mood of the play as well as foreshadows what is to come.

` over The Witch of Edmonton (1621), for instance. Moreover, it cannot be said that the witches in Macbeth provide the only explanatory element in the play. If their prophecies provide one motive for the killing of a king, the radical instability of the concept of 'manliness ' is sufficient to precipitate the deed. But it would be misleading to interpret this over determination as a conflict between supernatural and natural modes of explanation, since, within the cultural context, there was no necessity to choose between those modes. (For example, Mother Sawyer in The Witch of Edmonton is at first abused as a witch merely because, as she complains, 'I am poor, deform 'd and ignorant ' (II.