The Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692 was caused by many factors that were of issue at the time. These factors included fear, attention seeking, and extreme religious beliefs. One summer in Salem Village, 20 people were killed and more died in the witch trial due to the hysteria that surrounded the village.
The first and most obvious cause for the hysteria was the extreme religious beliefs held by the Puritans. It is not unheard of for someone to have such extreme beliefs that they actually experience physical reactions to those beliefs. This theory is supported by document 8, in which James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle wrote in the book After the Fact that, at least the first girls to accuse truly believed they were bewitched. …show more content…
This can be shown by looking at document 9, a map that shows where all of the accusers, defenders and accused witches where located within Salem Village. The map reveals a very distinct line between where the accusers were and where the defenders/accused were. This becomes important because humans naturally fear what is unknown or unfamiliar to them. The fact that they were almost always accusing people on the other side of the village shows that plain blind fear definitely helped to amplify the intense hysteria they experienced. Next is document 2, again paying attention to the dates of the deaths. This is a good visualization of the fear that was served to create at least part of the hysteria inside the village. Looking at the dates reveals how quickly everything happened and not hard to see that out of fear the entire village panicked and went into a state of mass hysteria. Fear served to cause people to lose their sense and start quick and unjust accusations that in turn amplified the fear of others every time. This is shown by the escalation in the numbers of deaths. Another document that is a great visualization of the state of fear experienced was a painting done by artist T.H. Matteson entitled “Examination of a Witch” in 1853. While done way later it still serves as an example of just how they must have felt going through the trials. The overall mood of the …show more content…
This becomes strangely obvious to us now looking back on the court transcript in document 6 as recorded by Samuel Parris. Within the record it is revealed that the accused witch, Bridget Bishop, was apparently controlling the accusers based on her movements. In practice though, this is easily spotted as a childish game of mockery played by the accusers. It is easy to see that these people were in fact making it up. A motive for this can be viewed as a simple act of attention seeking by the accusers. This theory is brought to light by the next piece of evidence, document 7. Charles W. Upham, in his book Salem Witchcraft, called the accusers “great actors. Upham brought to light the idea that they had became “intoxicated… by the terrible success of their imposture (acting)” this meaning that they kept acting because the success of their lying made them feel good, it brought them attention and power they previously hadn’t had. Another document that illustrates this is the painting by T.H. Matteson. An important detail in this is that the accusers are the only ones in the foreground, the ones getting the most attention. Even after nearly 200 years, they are still getting the attention. It is not hard to believe that they also got a lot of attention from the ones in the village at the time. Getting all that attention would have felt good to them and this can be shown more
The first and most obvious cause for the hysteria was the extreme religious beliefs held by the Puritans. It is not unheard of for someone to have such extreme beliefs that they actually experience physical reactions to those beliefs. This theory is supported by document 8, in which James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle wrote in the book After the Fact that, at least the first girls to accuse truly believed they were bewitched. …show more content…
This can be shown by looking at document 9, a map that shows where all of the accusers, defenders and accused witches where located within Salem Village. The map reveals a very distinct line between where the accusers were and where the defenders/accused were. This becomes important because humans naturally fear what is unknown or unfamiliar to them. The fact that they were almost always accusing people on the other side of the village shows that plain blind fear definitely helped to amplify the intense hysteria they experienced. Next is document 2, again paying attention to the dates of the deaths. This is a good visualization of the fear that was served to create at least part of the hysteria inside the village. Looking at the dates reveals how quickly everything happened and not hard to see that out of fear the entire village panicked and went into a state of mass hysteria. Fear served to cause people to lose their sense and start quick and unjust accusations that in turn amplified the fear of others every time. This is shown by the escalation in the numbers of deaths. Another document that is a great visualization of the state of fear experienced was a painting done by artist T.H. Matteson entitled “Examination of a Witch” in 1853. While done way later it still serves as an example of just how they must have felt going through the trials. The overall mood of the …show more content…
This becomes strangely obvious to us now looking back on the court transcript in document 6 as recorded by Samuel Parris. Within the record it is revealed that the accused witch, Bridget Bishop, was apparently controlling the accusers based on her movements. In practice though, this is easily spotted as a childish game of mockery played by the accusers. It is easy to see that these people were in fact making it up. A motive for this can be viewed as a simple act of attention seeking by the accusers. This theory is brought to light by the next piece of evidence, document 7. Charles W. Upham, in his book Salem Witchcraft, called the accusers “great actors. Upham brought to light the idea that they had became “intoxicated… by the terrible success of their imposture (acting)” this meaning that they kept acting because the success of their lying made them feel good, it brought them attention and power they previously hadn’t had. Another document that illustrates this is the painting by T.H. Matteson. An important detail in this is that the accusers are the only ones in the foreground, the ones getting the most attention. Even after nearly 200 years, they are still getting the attention. It is not hard to believe that they also got a lot of attention from the ones in the village at the time. Getting all that attention would have felt good to them and this can be shown more