Role of Fear in Salem Witch Trials Essay

Salem, Massachusetts, was a town in colonial America founded by the Puritans from England. The Puritans had strict laws and ideals based on their religious beliefs. These included the prohibition of dancing, the following of all of God’s laws and commandments, and the strict behavioral expectations of women and children. In early 1692, young women and girls, repressed by their society, started accusing the adults, mostly women, of witchcraft, punishable by hanging in the Puritan courts. A person…

Arthur Miller, tells the story of Salem, Massachusetts, and the fear which led the townspeople to accuse each other of witchcraft. Miller wrote the play as a direct jab at Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who spent the years after 1950 arresting and trying suspected communists in America. McCarthyism, the practice that has been derived from this period of time, was the practice of making accusations of subversion without proper evidence. Miller chose the Salem Witch Trials as a basis for his play, as…

Treachery and horror ran rampant in the year of 1692. In a small town, the frightening words of a small teenage girl would terrify and haunt many God loving people. By following blindly, many of the townspeople caused fear and death. This is exemplified in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Arthur Miller warns to not have blind faith in people, when they are intentionally harming others. One can have a great amount of faith and trust in someone but it’s not right if that person has bad intentions and…

torment others. While their intentions were different, there are many social similarities that teach us what can transpire when a society full of people are caught with fear. The hardship which the citizens of Salem faced mimic what happened to many of the people in Germany during The Holocaust. Many issues presented themselves in both Salem and Germany, such as illnesses…

By most historians the Salem Witch Trails were a product of mass hysteria; it all fueled by hearsay and distorted stories – even out of mere dislike of a neighbor. The Puritans, who had left England for religious freedom, noticed more and more individualism of the people of Salem and felt a loss of control of them. They used this hysteria, to try and bring them back to the church, but people even became weary of church members and suspected them of witchcraft. The extremely religious community,…

The town of Salem was a tightly knit and watchful group of puritan citizens. Puritans came over and inhabited the state of Massachusetts and the city of Salem, to escape from religious persecution in England. Irony makes its way into Salem when witchcraft becomes punishable by death. The Crucible by Arthur Miller depicts salem during the peak of the witch hunts and trials. The town of Salem, in the beginning is shown as a town that is almost ready to turn on eachother. Everyone knows…

Was the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria a Product of Women’s Search for Power? In the late 1600s, occurrences of “witchcraft hysteria” took place in Salem, Massachusetts. These occurrences involved young girls experiencing fits and blaming it on the practice of witchcraft. They would accuse other women of practicing witchcraft, and this eventually caused a hundred colonists to end up in jail, and nineteen hanged. How is it possible that such a tragedy could happen? In early America, there were…

following the “crowd.” Many people acknowledge that they are right, yet society pressures them into believing otherwise. Fears created by the few can cause calamities to take place, just like in Millers famous play, The Crucible. In which the false accusations of a couple of young girls cause the town to go into a state of hysteria and anarchy, where people experience uncontrolled fear that leads them into believing completely wrong facts and making irrational decisions while lacking an sort of…

different ways and for different reasons. The Red Scare was the hunt for communists in America and The Crucible was the hunt of witches in Salem. I am sure there are plenty of things that both The Red Scare and the Crucible had in common but I will go through many articles and compare the two to see why they are similar. A man known as Joe McCarthy played a very larger role when it came to the hunting of the communists. As a senator, he thought he needed to go and find all of the communists…

The culture of Salem led to very significant events, creating the start to persecute innocent beings as “witches.” Perhaps the strict binding Puritan society had played a role in the killings of innocent others. With learning from these events, it will give us all the chance to teach us important lessons of fear and prejudice. Roughly fifty year after Salem being settled, (Linder, 2002) does Martha Goodwin age thirteen begin showing very bizarre behavior. Soon after her siblings are to promote…