Witch-hunt

justification can ruin both the individual and the group as a whole. “Witch hunts,” as they are later called, are a series of events (often accusations) that have no logical evidence, are biased, and are often connected to a situation involving heavy amounts of fear. Witch hunts have occurred during many points throughout history, such as the McCarthy era and the Salem Witch trials, trying to find communists and witches respectively. Often witch hunts are composed of three roles: the punisher,…

In The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy portrays the character of Marko Ramius as one of the story’s two protagonists, with the other protagonist being the main character of Clancy’s series, Jack Ryan. This is not the last time Clancy ends up using this concept in his books. Later on in Red Rabbit (in terms of the storyline, Red Rabbit comes before The Hunt for Red October, but the latter was in fact written before Red Rabbit), he had Oleg Ivanovich Zaitzev fill the role of the second…

Written in the 1940's, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible explores the hysteria, persecution, and lack of due process that characterized the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Arguably, the themes explored in this play resonate With many modern and historical events. Arthur Miller himself saw strong connections between the events Salem Witch Trials and events surrounding the Red Scare in the 1950s. When juxtaposed with the events of the Crucible, themes of hysteria, persecution, and lack of due process…

however, it not always enough to cover the “wants” of people. Playwright, Arthur Miller of The Crucible demonstrates a clear scenario of how people in Salem of 1692 acted in their forms of satisfying their wants. The Crucible is regarding to the Salem Witch Trials. Reverend Paris's daughter Betty has fallen into an illness and people start questioning it weather it is witchcraft. Several girls along the way start blaming others of witchcraft that is happening in Salem. The girls blamed…

play The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses very strong characters to depict their personality. One character he uses is John Hale. John Hale went through a lot of changes within the play. In the beginning he is all into the witch hunt. Originally he comes to participate in the witch hunt because he believes Satan is here with his “lieutenants”. Him along with the others feels that there are spirits around them. He believes strongly in this until later when he starts to realize that everything that…

the play due to the Puritan society where it was known that children were highly susceptible to detecting evil. The girls were brought to the court and had the prevailing determination on who was and was not a witch. It has become theorized over the years that the true purpose of the witch hunts was for individuals to enact revenge on fellow neighbors and gain…

Trials Wild accusations. Mass hysteria. Systemic abuse of power. Legal procedures of dubious repute. All hallmarks of the two major witch hunts in the American past, the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Trials. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, a piece on the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, is plainly stated to be an allegory for the days of McCarthyism, the witch hunts of communists in government and celebrity positions from 1950-1956. The world of Salem was a radically different one from our own.…

Witch Hunts 101 “Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.” The Salem witch trials took place from 1692 to 1693, when the civilians of Salem believed that witchcraft was consuming their town. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the restrictive Puritan society and town of Salem is displayed to the reader. These trials are nothing more than false accusations that imprisoned hundreds of people, and twenty people were executed. If one is put on trial and does not…

The tens of thousands of people who were persecuted for being witches during the witch hunts showed the world how fear and the right motive can cause people to turn on their own neighbors. After the Malleus Maleficarum and the catholic church’s persecution of heretics witch hunts began to grow more prevalent even spreading to the americas. Usually targeting women who were single, were in a low economic class, and unable to properly fight the accusations they became a easy target to condemn to…

Ergotism is poisoning caused by consumption of foods contaminated with the fungus ergot, resulting in hallucinations and other symptoms. Behavioral psychologist Linda Carporael and many historians have found links between ergotism and the Salem witch hunt. Ergotism was likely a major cause of the infamous mass hysteria in Salem. First of all, the circumstances/conditions in Salem at the time were ideal for ergotism-fueled hysteria. Rye, a grain very susceptible to ergot, was a staple crop in…