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Why Is Salem Witch Hunt Still Relevant Today

1088 Words5 Pages

Throughout history there have been many events which fit into the criteria of a witch hunt, literally and metaphorically. From the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 portrayed in The Crucible and McCarthyism during WW2, to modern day issues such as terrorism witch hunts have plagued history. Today, these “witch hunts” have gotten more realistic and are backed up by actual threats to society. Although, they are still related to the original witch hunts of Salem as there are many people searching for large amounts of a certain type of people. However, modern day witch hunts clearly have the same cause/ effect as the actual Salem witch trials.

In The Crucible, the whole court system of Salem actually to people who are accused of witchcraft. The judges …show more content…

In Document A, Ann Putnam testifies “What is your name for I will complaine of you tho you be a Minister: if you be a wizzard…and Immediately I was tortured by him being Racked and allmost choaked by him: and he tempted me to write in his book which I Refused with loud out cries…” (Doc A). In this section of Document A, Ann Putnam is testifying that the ghost of a minister was attacking her and trying to get her to sign his book, which would make her work for the devil. Document C says “That the play works on a wider allegorical level is suggested by the frequency with which it has been performed since the 1950s and by the way that it has been applied to a wide number of similar situations in different cultures and periods.” This shows how relevant Miller's The Crucible is to real world …show more content…

“One group feels they can or should assert power over another. Whether it is to cover something up and get off free, like the girls in the Salem trials. Or if it is to boost your approval ratings like Joseph McCarthy during his "communist hunt". “There's always some type of gain in the exploitation of others.” (Doc F). Witch hunts, no matter the time period always are caused by a group of people looking for something to gain by blaming others. “Americans, the most optimistic of people, now faced unnerving official terror warnings? Their television screens broadcasted alerts.” This shows how these witch hunts have affected people throughout

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In times of fear and hysteria in the U.S. it is mass chaos and it only gets worse and worse. During the time of both the witch-hunt eras, whether for communist or actual witches, they prove to have many similarities between them. Both of these times were full of confusion and lying which lead to the temporary downfall of the authority at that time. Joseph McCarthy proved to be a factor in this time and add on to the chaos that was America. Arthur Miller wrote about these times in a book called The Crucible, based on the witch trial era.

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In the Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the Salem witch trials to show how a society can become flawed and corrupt, leading to an inevitably witch hunt and hive mindset. These mindsets have still carried on in modern day society. The community of Salem was run under a strict theocracy, where religious leaders held immense power and threat to the common people. With the large fear of the unknown and wide belief in apparitions and entities this added to and heightened the chaos of these witch trials. During the trials an unjust court is shown immediately in the first hearing, the presumption of innocence was ignored and all of the evidence was based on hearsay and rumors.

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Before Salem, “ America’s first witch hunt hysteria swept through another colonial New England town” (Klein, 2012). This means As a result, when the accusation of witchcraft arose in Salem, the fear, already instilled in the citizens, was magnified. This means, that when the first accusations were made, people had no reason for disbelief as they all believed the threat to be a real. The original accusations lead to the fear of witchcraft to grow and terrorize the town, as the threat became more real with confessions. This fear amplification was also evident during the Red Scare.

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Since the beginning of time people have gone through trials in court to either be proven innocent or guilty. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller a massive number of people were being convicted in Salem, Massachusetts because of the witch trials. The law of the land states that everyone is above suspicion until they are demonstrated to be guilty by legitimate evidence; in the play the Crucible if a person was accused of an unlawful act they were summons for being a witch and working for the devil without proper confirmation. Citizens in Salem were imposed to establish their innocent or be put to death, which caused conflicting issues in the village.

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1716 Words | 7 Pages

The first known witch hunts took place in the early 1300’s (Wallenfeldt). As early as the 1400’s, prominent and trustworthy European figures like the pope released pamphlets on finding and persecuting witches (Saari 13-15). The Salem Witch Trials weren’t even the first to occur in America; a woman in Boston had been hung for witchcraft shortly before the Salem trials began. The people of Salem even cited the Boston trials as proof for their accusations; because their afflicted girls had the same symptoms as those in Boston, then clearly both must have been telling the truth (Alexander 194). It would make sense for Salem residents to look to past events to try and understand their current situation, since this is something that happens frequently through history and even

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