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What Are The Causes Of Hysteria During The Salem Witch Trials

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In Witches: The Absolutely True Tale Of Disaster In Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer people in the town of Salem were Condemned for being witches. By the end of it all more than 200 people were accused and 20 were executed. Horridly they accused people from all ages, everyone from teenager to ancient was accused. But why? The Salem Witch Trials were caused by hysteria, popularity, and revenge. Hysteria is defined as uncontrollable excitement, especially among a group of people. In the book there were a group of people (the Puritans ) who all were paranoid over something that isn’t even that large of a conflict. In the book accusations of neighbors, sisters, brothers, mothers, and even fathers being witches spread like a wildfire. “By March, …show more content…

In My mind the whole Witch hunt has been a popularity contest People are trying to rack up kills like a Call Of Duty session are the Hunger Games. “ Abigail Williams, fingered 41 different witches for attacking her’’( Schanzer 56). I believe she was trying to get more people to like her and comfort her since she had been “attacked”. Maybe she just wanted to get back at someone which leads to one thing revenge. Revenge, Everybody has done it. Revenge is defined as’’ the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands’’. What I believe is that parents of the “suffering” children had an argument with another family. This resulted in the parents to blame the others of being witches or conjurers. It was the perfect way to get revenge and nobody would suspect it. “ In all, 10 of 18 depositions against Rebecca Nurse were signed by Putnams, but 2 of the other accusers had grudges against the nurse family as well’’. Revenge, Hysteria, and Popularity everyone has an idea on what caused the salem witch trials. It would take forever to just list out all the possible factors. Beleiving in the listed ones are the best bet. All the world can do is think and believe. Society will never know how or why the salem witch trials happened. OR WILL

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What Caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? What caused the Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1692? The three reasons that caused this were revenge, jealousy, and feeling empowered. Between June 10 and September 22, 1692, 20 people got put to death in Salem for witchcraft.

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One thing that might have caused the witch trials is profit, “ Mary Walcott ,Anns step cousin ,named an astonishing 69 witches”(page 56). This almost proves that she might have been accusing people for money/profit. “Abigail Williams, fingered 41 different witches for attacking her; Ann Putnam Jr. accused 53;her servant Mercy Lewis named 54; and a girl named Mary Walcott who was Ann’s step-cousin, named an astonishing 69 witches”(page 56). This means they were fervently,maliciously, wanted to abolish some of these people,and that most of the accusers stated accused more than 40 people. “Not all witches are human beings.

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The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,

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Imagine being a wealthy 45-year-old woman in 1692 being accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch trials were caused by jealousy, fear, and lying. People believed that the devil was real and that one of his tricks was to enter a normal person 's body and turn that person into a witch. This caused many deaths and became a serious problem in 1692. First of all, jealousy was one of the causes of the Salem witch trials.

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Ultimately, I believe that the Salem Witch Trials’ main cause was mass hysteria and paranoia among the group. I can predict this, because in Exhibit A, Cotton Mather states, “ I will prove that Witchcraft exists. Those who deny it exists argue that they never saw any witches, therefore there are none.” I believe this is strong evidence supporting the over exaggeration of most people towards the trials and how hysterical people can become towards an unrealistic assumption like witches and witchcraft. Another piece of evidence supporting mass hysteria as the cause of the trials would be in Exhibit B, where Abigail Hobbs a 16 year old girls pleads guilty.

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Most of the things they said and did were for attention. or because they were told to by their parents. What started as a game led to a town wide event. In my opinion this just shows how important it is to give your kids attention. Abby the preachers niece started the witch hysteria by getting her father’s slave Tituba to teacher her simple witchcraft.

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The old tale says curiosity killed the cat. Another reason for a widespread hysteria was the already strong belief in witches by the Puritans beforehand. The Puritans were strong believers in the powers of the devil and how strong his influence can be on members of the church. By knowing this, it can be judged that they already had in inclination to believe and already be aware of the real

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In 1692, the small town of Salem, Massachusetts was overrun with mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is a situation where many people behave or react in an extreme way because of fear or anger.  Five girls began acting out in public with no explanation.   When looking for a possible cause, the town turned to their strict Puritan religion.

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The Mass Hysteria of Salem Mass hysteria struck colonial Massachusetts in 1692 when several hearings took place known as The Salem Witch Trials. In this small town of Salem, there were 141 people arrested, 19 people hanged, and one person crushed to death. Why would this take place you ask? They were all accused of witchcraft, the Devil’s magic, and it was not taken lightly..

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The hysteria would spread all throughout the Salem village leading to the deaths of many innocent women who were all victims of false accusations made over vengeance leading to their deaths. Many people took advantage of the hysteria the people of Salem where in and used it for their own gain they saw it as their one chance to get revenge in a “christian” manner. The puritans were only trying to avoid their own sinful thoughts by taking out their revenge in the only way that would please the church. In The Crucible Miller shows this about the Salem Witch Trials, he shows the people making accusation out of pure envy and hate sometimes even just fear, but also for vengeance. The hysteria all started over a single person’s vengeance and then everything led up to irrational accusations that all derived from that one original person’s desire for vengeance.

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The town of Salem is known for its infamous witch trials that took place in 1692. The gruesome trials resulted in the hanging of nineteen people and the imprisonment of hundreds. The nineteen that hanged were put to death for refusing to admit to witchcraft. In the trials, the only evidence proving the accused to be witches is the actions of a dozen teenage girls. The girls claim to be possessed by the people they are accusing as witches.

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It is evident that the Salem witchcraft accusations were facilitated by numerous factors, and there were key figures who were accountable for causing the most damage. What caused and led the false trials into fruition was the naivety of the Salem theocracy and the influence by an allegedly infallible group. Thus, the Putnams and Abigail were the principal leaders of the group who accused, Reverend Gale spurred the initial craze on religious pretext, and the baseless and easily swayed judges, in particular Dansforth, allowed the claims to be turned into hangings. Foremost, among those responsible for the witch trials are the accusers made up of the town girls as well as the Putnams, who occasionally exercised their hidden agenda.

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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.

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Fear that spread among a group of people in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials, that event in history is a prime example of Mass Hysteria. In Salem the reason why so many women were killed was because of Mass Hysteria. It caused many people, in Salem during this event to think fast, rash and jump to conclusions. “The Crucible”, a short play dedicated to these events in Salem shows us how hysteria was such a leading cause of why the Witch Trials had even occurred. Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth.

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One the articles say, “ The physicians were called in to examine the girls and no natural cause of the disturbing behavior” ( “The Salem Witch Trials, 1692”). The source of the affliction was not attributable to a physical illness. The community decided that the odd behaviors must be the work of Satan because of many practicing Christians, and those of other religions, had a strong belief that the Devil could give certain people known as witches the power to harm others in return for their loyalty. (“A Brief History of the Salem Witch

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