Salem Witch Trials By Vi Keeland

#1 New York Times Bestselling author Vi Keeland once stated, “Fear does not stop death, it stops life.” A boundless collection of interpretations represent Keeland’s quotation. Yet, only one remains relevant to the topic at hand: in the events that led to the witch trials of 1692, fear posed as a major barricade in Salem Village, Massachusetts, hindering the Puritans’ ability to pursue everyday life. The Salem Witch Trials are one of our nation’s most compellingly intricate, though tragic, phenomenons. Immersed in a dangerously-religious, hysterical atmosphere, a group of young, attention-seeking girls behaved as if cursed by a demonic spirit. Sequentially, they accused innocent Puritan people for bewitching them, and a series of court hearings

Throughout the wintry months of 1691 and 1692 in Salem Village, Tituba, Reverend Samuel Parris’s South American slave, and a group of young girls gathered to foretell their futures and tell sinister stories, practices forbidden by God. Infamously, Abigail Williams and Elizabeth “Betty” Parris, the reverend’s daughter, took part in this foreboding custom, despite their susceptibility to fear. “Social and Political Issues” outlines the events that ensued from their actions. The text explains, “Elizabeth instantly felt as if someone was pinching and suffocating her; she then began to hallucinate… The other girls were seized by the same sensations, so doctors were called to examine them. Finding nothing physically wrong, the doctors suggested the symptoms had been caused by witchcraft” (UXL 12). Having been immersed in a deeply-religious, fear-stricken atmosphere, Abigail and Betty lived in a constant state of terror. Horror was inflicted upon them through biblical testaments and Reverend Parris’s church sermons, permitting their development of paranoid mentalities. Although they sought a pastime that would ease their apprehension, the innocence of storytelling only intensified, worsening their frames of mind. It was only a matter of time until Abigail and Betty fell victim to their predominant weakness: fear. In Witchcraft in America, Saari elucidates, “The pleasure they took in Tituba’s stories also gave them a sense of doom, which they felt powerless to fight. Fear and fascination led the girls to confide in a few friends, who too began attending the storytelling sessions” (38). As the author unravels this portion of history, she manifests Abigail and Betty’s tenuous mental state; their lack of a sagacious disposition, but sustained presence of a vulnerability to terror, drove them in a menacing