In Rosalyn Schanzer´s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, turns to chaos as people accuse others of torturing people through witchcraft. Two young girls had become afflicted with a terrible disease that had not been heard of before. With the lack of the knowledge and tools that exist today they only found one reason for what was happening to them. The doctor thought they were bewitched. The two young girls then started accusing people of attacking them with their spirit. Twenty five people lost their lives because they were accused of something they did not do. The accusers said that innocent people were attacking them out of fear, revenge, and hysteria.
Some of the accusers accused out …show more content…
Some people were afraid of getting afflicted, where you are bewitched by witches and have contortions and convulsions. People were also afraid of getting accused and thought of as an imp. Therefore, many people just started accusing anyone that was believable because they were frightened to the point that they forgot what was right and wrong. It got to a point where the amount of witches were unreasonable. ¨Of course the jails were bursting at the seams, and it wasn´t a pretty picture.¨(Schanzer 58). Many problems came with this and the hysteria started to spread all around the town to where it got as bad as hangings and even pressing people to death. “As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June”(Salem Witch Trials- History). There religious beliefs also brought on the hysteria and caused many people to freak out. They thought that God was giving them a warning that they needed to fix things in Salem. “The belief that Satan was present and active was widely held in Europe and eventually spread to colonial America. A common precept of this belief revolved around the necessity of believing in demons and evil spirits in order to confirm the belief of the existence of God and angels. This, combined with daily superstitions where all misfortunes were blamed on the supernatural, created a perfect environment for the mass hysteria leading to the Salem witch trials.” (“Salem Witch Trials- Totally
Some of the accusers accused out …show more content…
Some people were afraid of getting afflicted, where you are bewitched by witches and have contortions and convulsions. People were also afraid of getting accused and thought of as an imp. Therefore, many people just started accusing anyone that was believable because they were frightened to the point that they forgot what was right and wrong. It got to a point where the amount of witches were unreasonable. ¨Of course the jails were bursting at the seams, and it wasn´t a pretty picture.¨(Schanzer 58). Many problems came with this and the hysteria started to spread all around the town to where it got as bad as hangings and even pressing people to death. “As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June”(Salem Witch Trials- History). There religious beliefs also brought on the hysteria and caused many people to freak out. They thought that God was giving them a warning that they needed to fix things in Salem. “The belief that Satan was present and active was widely held in Europe and eventually spread to colonial America. A common precept of this belief revolved around the necessity of believing in demons and evil spirits in order to confirm the belief of the existence of God and angels. This, combined with daily superstitions where all misfortunes were blamed on the supernatural, created a perfect environment for the mass hysteria leading to the Salem witch trials.” (“Salem Witch Trials- Totally