ipl-logo

How Did The Salem Witch Trials Happen

785 Words4 Pages

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions that lead to the death of 20 innocent lives with over 200 accused of Witchcraft. However, I believe that something similar would’ve happened if the Salem witch trials didn’t happen. Salem was a ticking time bomb ready to explode any moment. The restrictive Puritan society coupled with personal fear of the severe punishments that ensues witchcraft, and people’s natural inclination for survival and power made Salem an ideal setting for mass hysteria. The restrictive Puritan society allowed for people to use the system according to their advantages. The Puritan society was restrictive in many ways, not only on their strict religious legal system, but the fact that there was extreme …show more content…

The natural human desire to survive coupled with fear allowed for the rampant false accusations to ensue in such a short amount of time. Another factor for such a fast snowball effect to occur was the already tense environment that was in place (such as land disputes) causing people to blame people that they dislike or have a grudge against. If everyone was like John Proctor who viewed their personal integrity and the lives of the people around him, there would be no snowball effect that would eventually engulf the entire Town. It is because of personal fear of the painful and deadly execution methods that are used in Salem which encourages people to quickly blame other people to avoid their painful execution. In a way it is ironic to see painful execution methods encouraging criminal activities, which were originally used as a deterrent criminal …show more content…

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, people’s natural inclination for power made leeway for tension in the Puritan community which lead to people falsely accusing one another to later buy their property. Another prime example of this is Abigail herself, although she did accuse people at first for the sake of her survival, she realized she could use her position to accuse many more people in the end to reign power over the people that did her wrong in the past. The scenario was a Ponzi scheme with no other alternative than death and it was just a matter of time this virus would engulf the entire town of Salem. That doesn’t mean that there were people that had interests besides survival. John Proctor being one of the people that chose his personal integrity over his survival for the sake of his children and his grandchildren being able to live a life without being a martyr was more important. He was executed, but died in a heroic

Show More
Related
345 Words | 2 Pages

The Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 ended almost as soon as it began. Why did this happen, and why did it happen in Salem? Between June and September of 1692, over 20 men and women were hanged, an 81 year old man got pressed to death under heavy rocks and hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. In 1689 Samuel Parris moved to Salem as the village minister.

Read More
1099 Words | 5 Pages

Twenty-four innocent people died during the Salem Witch Trials. This was due to many different factors that effected the people who lived there. The biggest factor being their religion; everyone living in Salem was a Puritan. When the Witch trials began, people’s judgment turned over into fear and superstition. Mass hysteria began because there was no governor, and there was no law system.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

John Proctor was most responsible for the Salem witch hysteria. John Proctor scared many individuals in Salem because he claimed innocent people were being accused of witchcraft. In Act 1 of The Crucible Proctor claims, “I can call you death without a charge.” This statement claims that it is easy to cause death for an individual if you accuse them of witchcraft. This made many people terrified that they themselves or their loved ones would be accused and executed.

Read More
1312 Words | 6 Pages

Unfortunately, the detestable events caused lingering effects, some of which are still around today. These lasting effects are evident when one thinks of the lives that were taken during the events - the lives that cannot be taken back and the deaths that cannot be reversed. In addition, more lasting effects could be seen as soon as the trials were over, when people were stuck in jail and were not released. “Despite the trials being over, many were still in jail due to the fact that they could not afford to pay for their release” (“Five Myths of the Salem Witch Trials”). This left many families in different pieces and prevented them from getting all their work done.

Read More
991 Words | 4 Pages

The Massachusetts Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were unfortunate, unforgettable tragedies that resulted in the slaughtering of innocents, tests and punishments against accused witches, and ultimately regret that tore a community apart. Puritans were wary of witchcraft so by the end of May 1692 prisons were full of people who were believed to have sold their soul to the devil (Wilson 103). However, the accused citizens had much to say about that outrageous claim. Sarah Good, a woman executed in July of 1692 due to the Salem Witch Trials yelled this as she was being convicted; “You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you my blood to drink” (Brandt 34).

Read More
1209 Words | 5 Pages

Upon reading the theatrical reimagining of the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, everyone's main thought should be how it’s possible for lies to twist into the destruction of a once quiet village. The root of the lies started with a doomed affair that led to mania through a teenage girl and resentment to overtake a man. In Salem, there was a plague of lying girls; they would claim to be attacked by witchcraft, and in the Puritan culture, witchcraft was directly affiliated with the devil. As accusations of witchcraft spread, hysteria spread through the accused while they tried to save themselves from the court. The court would ensure that a witch be hanged unless the accused declared they weren’t a witch and gave names, accusing others of witchcraft.

Read More
582 Words | 3 Pages

When people don’t want to get in trouble for something they normally blame it on someone else. Now most of the time it doesn't end out that bad, or they find out the person was not telling the truth, but that is not the same for the people of Salem. The main cause of the Salem Witch Trials is Abigail Williams, in Arthur Miller’s Crucible, because of her calling people witches, 20 people got killed there was a lot of fear and no trust for anyone. It’s the fear and people not trusting others that made the witch trials bad, and she seemed to create this hysteria because she feared getting in trouble, she wanted to get revenge, and because once she started she couldn’t stop without getting very punished.

Read More
1449 Words | 6 Pages

The accusations of witchcraft continued and started to spread outside Salem Village, some beginning to fill up the jails in Salem and Boston (Ray). The most active accusers resided in Salem Village and, consequentially, they had the most executions which caused the community to greatly suffer. The people of Andover, a town outside

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, as a response to McCarthyism, which is, in general, accusing people of crimes with little to no proof. It ran rampant through the United States during the Second Red Scare through the early 1950s (exactly when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible). In The Crucible, Miller juxtaposes the leaders, who rationally think for themselves, and the followers, who believe what everybody else believes, through irony, imagery, and denotation. The Crucible is riddled with irony, and Arthur Miller utilizes situational and dramatic irony to show the difference between followers and leaders.

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

The evidence John Proctor showed to the court ended up only getting more people accused, which is what leads many not to confess to witchcraft even if it would save their life as it would put others at risk. “Then you tell me that you sat in my court, callously lying, when you knew that people would hang by your evidence?”(Miller 1200), this is one of the judges arguing with John Proctor about his evidence of Mary Warren's new confession. It shows how they believed that there had been wrong doing up until that point and that they had no idea they were being used. Their reaction to this information is all to save their reputation, and not to actually bring justice to Salem. This shows how they are corrupt and how despite John's best intentions, he was always going to fail at his overall goal, and in doing so putting more at risk of hanging in the process because of the judges not wanting the town to find out they were wrong as that would cause them to be removed from

Read More
552 Words | 3 Pages

The 1692 events in Salem were not caused by a single person. Rather, the horrific miscarriage of injustice that was unfair persecutions under the guise of witchcraft could be blamed on natural phenomena. When young girls of the Massachusetts town developed strange symptoms, such as vivid hallucinations and strange bodily sensations, the local town doctor could not explain why they had suddenly taken ill. Confused, he diagnosed them with the one thing that made sense to the suspicious religious town: Witchcraft. Now, modern science concludes that a simple fungus was responsible for the girl’s symptoms.

Read More
1240 Words | 5 Pages

Reverend Parris, Deputy Governor Danforth, and Reverend Hale’s desire for Proctor’s confession demonstrates their need to keep up their reputations and the well-being of the citizens of Salem. A motive for Proctor’s confession is for Reverend Parris and Danforth’s reputations to be upheld and avoid a rebellion of the townspeople against the court and leaders. Parris fears that if Proctor is to be hanged, then the town will attempt to overthrow the court for it’s dishonesty and rebel against him. Danforth’s beliefs are similar to Parris’: if Proctor does not confess, then his reputation of holding up an honest and valid court would be ruined.

Read More
1008 Words | 5 Pages

Not many people know much about what actually happened in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe someone would think that it was just about witchcraft and crazy people being hanged, but it is a lot more than that. The Salem Witch Trials only occurred between 1692 and 1693, but a lot of damage had been done. The idea of the Salem Witch Trials came from Europe during the “witchcraft craze” from the 1300s-1600s. In Europe, many of the accused witches were executed by hanging.

Read More
1624 Words | 7 Pages

An article from the First Amendment Encyclopedia shows the significance of these senseless accusations, writing, “The Salem Witch Trials testify to the way fear can ruin lives of innocent people and the importance of due process in protecting individuals against false accusations” (Purdy). This quote from the article supports the idea that these senseless accusations of witchcraft can ruin one’s individuality and freedom. Facing these ludicrous accusations, Proctor is sent to jail. After Proctor is in jail for 3 months, he faces the hard decision of being hung or confessing to something he never did in order to save himself, but permanently destroying his name. He makes the difficult decision to sign a confession but refuses to hand over the signed confession.

Read More
964 Words | 4 Pages

During the hysteria of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, many people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Therefore, their reputation, was ruined. Other people committed many sins in order to keep their reputation clean in town. For instance, some characters had to lie, fight, and accuse other people of witchcraft which could get the individual out of trouble and keep their hands clean. when a person got accused of being a witch, the person’s reputation would get ruined and the person would go to jail or be hanged.

Read More

More about How Did The Salem Witch Trials Happen

Related Topics

Open Document