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Why Is Salem Witch Hunt Still Relevant Today

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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 both The Crucible and in modern day witch hunts, witch hunts are caused out of fear or for personal gain. Jill Schonebelen wrote a research paper on Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights. Throughout this article, it mentions the persecution of witches today in communities around the globe, mentioning the flashbacks of similar strategies that were used in the past, doing different types of tortures. In Modern days, recent generations have abandoned wonderful traditions. Rather, recollecting others with distasteful memories such as witchcraft.

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469 Words | 2 Pages

Ray Bradbury is the author of Fahrenheit 451, which was published in 1953. It's based off a world where having or reading a book is a crime. The main character Guy Montag is awakening the reality of books. He had been hiding his investigation about the true meaning of books but was caught. The chase led him to a new city with people like him.

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Soon, people feared, communist ways would come to the United States and would quickly corrupt the government system. Senator McCarthy rose to power during this time by creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion based on false claims of communist activity. Conventional wisdom has it that mankind has evolved so far that the idea of targeting innocents is no longer an issue; however, Senator McCarthy and targeting of innocent Muslims after 9/11 remind us that witch hunts still exists in modern times. One way The Crucible witch hunt

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1039 Words | 5 Pages

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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677 Words | 3 Pages

This is also depicted in the McCarthy hearings, for accused communists were pressured to give up the other communists. In the article “Wikidot: McCarthy’s Communist Witch Hunt” by unknown, it is mentioned that “During the Red Scare, McCarthy had employees of many companies sign loyalty oaths that stated they were not a communist or sympathized with any communists and the best way to get around any further questioning was to shove the blame towards another person.” This exemplifies the fact that blame was always shifted to someone else, causing the issues to last far too

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192 Words | 1 Pages

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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1254 Words | 6 Pages

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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1321 Words | 6 Pages

In the late 1600’s, the Salem Witch Trials began and have now influenced how America is today. Three fourths of the witch hunts took place in West Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland (Wallenfeldt). The trials didn’t just happen because of one thing, there were actually multiple issues that led to them.

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784 Words | 4 Pages

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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2240 Words | 9 Pages

While witch trials were on the decline across Europe and the American Colonies by the end of the 17th century, there remained a dangerous remnant in some regions, where the social context could easily spark another panic. This essay will compare the Salem village witch trials of the early 1690s to those in Scotland, with particular emphasis on the case of Christian Shaw in Renfrewshire in the late 1690s: two areas in which a sudden resurgence in witchcraft accusations can be seen. It should be noted that witchcraft cases in Scotland were highly varied, and the cases used here cannot be taken as standard across Scotland during the period. Both societies were highly religiously centred, with doctrine permeating every aspect of life, making them

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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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1338 Words | 6 Pages

Witch hunts have been around for generations. Both in the literal sense of hunting down supposed witches, and in the figurative sense of campaigning against a person or group with unpopular views. What exactly defines a “witch hunt” has differed throughout history, but there is a commonality throughout, a desire to return to normal. In Sean Armstrong’s article, Stalin 's Witch-Hunt: Magical Thinking in the Great Terror, he sums up what defines a witch hunt, no matter the situation or time period: A witch-hunt arises when some part of a society feels generally threatened by witchcraft.

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547 Words | 3 Pages

To genuinely understand the issue of witchcraft hysteria in New England, a general background, namely the underlying causes for the persecution of witches, should be taken into consideration. With no doubt, the witch hunts were a highly complex movement and thus there is no way to justify them by delving into one specific cause that touched them off, namely a religious drive in the case of this thesis. As Pavlac puts it, none of the theories are perfect and the way they are perceived by historians tends to vary, although they were based on credible data (Pavlac 4). The European hunts generally took place from 1400 to 1800 and many political, psychological, sociological and economic changes took place within those years. The best way to deal

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977 Words | 4 Pages

The massive witch hunt of the early modern period came to be due to the concept of witchcraft becoming more and more present with reality. Religious Reformations officially started the illusion of witches and demons walking among society. This is the case when the concept of the devil gets molded with the gods of norse mythology, which are Pagan gods. This caused society to fear Pagans and view them as devil’s servants walking the earth alongside them. This illusion was vivified when the concept of Sabbath, a ceremonial gathering of witches to worship the devil, was introduced and non-Christian religious groups got targeted for practicing their religion secretly.

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707 Words | 3 Pages

Hysteria in Salem The Crucible is a play written by American author, Arthur Miller, in 1953. It is a somewhat fictional play about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote it as an allegory to the Red Scare, the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism. Miller himself was blacklisted for refusing to testify in front of the HUAC, a committee that was created to investigate any person who might be a communist.

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