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

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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) …show more content…

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

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419 Words | 2 Pages

First, the Salem Witch Trials happened in 1692. In Salem Village, the minister’s daughter, Betty Parris, and his niece, Abigail Williams, severely got sick. The girls felt pinching sensations, knife like pains, and the feeling of being choked. Everybody thought it was witchcraft, the girls accused three women, the first was Tituba. Tituba told the girls stories, and showed them magic tricks.

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Do you have any younger siblings who can blame anyone if they do something wrong and the person they accused will get in trouble? That's how the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism were. Neighbors and friends would be able to blame someone for something with false accusations. For instance, in the Salem Witch Trials it would be witchcraft and for McCarthyism it would be for being communist. McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials are related because they both were caused by fear and mass hysteria.

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What Caused the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 In Salem, Massachusetts there were Witch Trials held during the summer months of 1692. Throughout the seventeenth century in New England, witchcraft was said to be a crime punishable by death. Puritans came to New England in the early 1600’s to practice their Christianity in the purest form possible. They believed every word in the bible and that the words of God were to be followed down to the last sentence there was. Havoc started occurring around the town and 19 women along with men were hanged for witchcraft.

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Witches were said to be a form of Satan, and God has his constant worship to undergo annoyance of the evil spirits. In Exodus 22:18 it states how the Puritans have strong point to prosecute witches from what it says in the Bible. Another cause of the prosecution of people for witchcraft is suspicious acts from the adolescent girls. Abigail and Betty wanted to know their fortunes for the future from Tituba.

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What a Horrible World     In today 's day and age we have more technological, medicinal, societal, and worldly advancements than we did in either 1692 or 1947, but we are still just as easily corrupted by jealousy, power, and paranoia. The years 1692 and 1947 are perfect examples of prospering societies that became undermined through very similar processes. In 1629 the Salem Witch Trials and in 1947 the McCarthy Communist Trials- were both held unjustly, involving condemnation based on unfair trial practices. People desperately admitted to being a witch (1692) or to being a communist (1947) only because they didn’t want to die. Even if you were found innocent your life was virtually over because your career and livelihood had been destroyed

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Salem Witch Trials were a series of prosecutions and hearings of people being accused of witchcraft, at which it took place in 1692 and in 1693. Similar to that, was the Red Scare. The Red Scare, commonly known as McCarthyism, took place from 1959-1954 and was a campaign that endorsed the use of unfair allegations and or investigations. The horrible rumors and acts in both events really made people fear what was going on around them and pushed them to act on it, which lead to if you were with us or against us, which came with punishments and or hangings. Both the themes fear and with us or against us, play huge roles and are major factors in the upsurge of the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare.

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Tituba, the slave of Reverend Parris, is the first to admit to dancing with the devil. Based on the background knowledge of the time, slaves were not considered part of the class system, so she was not valued as a community member. Tituba is conscious that she is in danger, “she is also very frightened because her slave sense has warned her that, as always, trouble in this house eventually lands on her back” (Miller, pg. 6). Tituba attempts to tell the truth about Abigail when she says, “You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm” (Miller, pg. 44) but realizes that her word against Abigail will not stand.

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In Salem, Massachusetts, Puritans were strong believers in the Bible. The Bible states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The Puritans beliefs led to them accusing 20 innocent people of being a witch, this resulted in their deaths in 1692. Even though the Puritans couldn’t see it at the time, their accusations were really based off jealousy, lies, and Salem being divided into two parts. One cause of the Salem witch trial hysteria was jealousy.

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With the Puritans having strict religious beliefs about the devil and God, it gave them strong feelings about the ways in which women impacted their community. Along with their religious beliefs, their society had certain beliefs about women and the way they should act which led them to suspect anything out of the “norm” as a sign of the devil. While some of this could be on women and the way we speak, the Puritans already had such strong feelings toward the vulnerable mind of women that it wouldn’t matter. The women were represented by weakness in nearly every aspect a person can be judged on and this thought of them as the weaker vessel is what ultimately led to them being accused and persecuted more than men during the Salem Witch

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807 Words | 4 Pages

The Salem Witch Trials was where women were accused of performing sorcery even though they weren't and were still convicted of the crime. This is parallel to Bradbury’s encounter because the policeman decides to consider walking a “crime” just because he feels he has the power to do so which is just a bad sense of character. The Salem witch trials are also similar to the idea of people who read books in Fahrenheit 451 being bad because they are veering away from what society deems right and society chooses to single them out just because they aren't following their rules. In Fahrenheit 451, the characters within the novel are taken to the incinerator and have their houses burned if they are found with books, anyone can be accused of this crime and without question, the fire department will go burn down their house. This is parallel to the witch trials because the vulnerable people in the society get taken advantage of by the people of power, they are punished for crimes that they never committed and aren't even given a say in

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466 Words | 2 Pages

The Salem Witch Trials can be compared to many historical events around the world. The Holocaust is one of the most compared events to the Salem Witch Trials. These events are brought together by the facts that both of them were tragic and people died horrifically. Neither of these events were handled in a way that was beneficial for their economies. The Holocaust is a modern day “Witch Hunt” that relates to the Salem Witch Trials due to instinctual prejudice and mass hysteria, but differs in religion and the scale of the executions.

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Puritans are Europeans who escaped religious persecution from the Church of England. The Puritans age likely varies from children to adults. However, it’s apparent that Winthrop is appealing more towards Puritan males to create their ideal utopia. Winthrop evokes God to entice the colonist to fruitfully colonize the land. He uses nationalism, religion, and imagery to entice the colonist into creating a bountiful colony.

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342 Words | 2 Pages

Language is a major themes in both novels “1984” by George Orwell and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwool. Language are heavily reshape in both novel in order to crave a goal to control individuals. “1984” creates authority over citizens through altering and reducing the English language to its most basic form. To “return” to the root of English, the Party have to eliminate the complexity of the language - synonyms and subtle meaning of words -from the existence of the people minds in the apparent belief that there is no justification from antonyms and ‘shades of meanings’, and only one concept should only subsist . However the true purpose of simplifying language and destroying words is to eliminate concepts that might led to the idealism of rebellion and disobedience; The Party does not want the thoughts of rebellion and disobedience to exist therefore they have to destroy and simplify to a huge extent.

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1107 Words | 5 Pages

Often, we see a society’s cultural values reflected in its citizens. For example, the United States values equality, a standard that is shared in all facets including gender. The opposite is true of Gilead, a fictional society in Emily Bronte’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel’s main character, Offred, is subjected to degrading treatment simply because she is a woman. It becomes apparent that this repeated degradation has affected the protagonist’s mind.

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In both novels Frankenstein and The Handmaids Tale the question of what it means to be human is a reoccurring theme in which emphasizes the passions and desires every individual may have... There are both dark and bright sides of being human as overcontrolling passions may lead to madness, distress, and use of violence. Victor 's overpowering passion for knowledge led to him doing the extreme by playing God and bringing a creature to life in a world where it would never be accepted as society tends to only accept humans that are visually appealing- as for society what it means to be human depends mainly on the outer appearance. The monster wanted nothing more but compassion and human contact, something babies desire for the most, but since

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