according to miller, what caused the witch hunts?

According to author Carol F. Karlsen . It investigated whether the charges resulted from personal animosity toward the accused; it obtained physicians statements; it did not allow the naming of accomplices either with or without torture; it required the review of every sentence; and it provided for whipping, banishment, or even house arrest instead of death for first offenders. In his commentary, Miller names a variety of reasons for the injustice and atrocity which were the essential elements of the witch-hunts. Why did Arthur Miller name his play "The Crucible"? After an outbreak of hunts in France in 158788, increasingly skeptical judges began a series of restraining reforms marked by the requirement of obligatory appeal to the Parlement in cases of witchcraft, making accusations even more expensive and dangerous. It was this combination of sorcery and its association with the Devil that made Western witchcraft unique. Secondly, Miller states that 'The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.' Lewis, Jone Johnson. Log in here. Latest answer posted April 17, 2020 at 1:25:04 AM. Furthermore, people could now freely express their hatreds for neighbors and take vengeance under the the guise of an attempt to identify those who communed with the devil. This is important because a large mass of innocent people were killed due to their race. The outbreak at Salem, where 19 people were executed, was the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all in a vacuum of political authority. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. These beliefs changed drastically, however, towards the end of the Middle Ages, as witchcraft came to be associated with heresy. For instance Putnam accuses people whose land he covets, while Abigail wants rid of Elizabeth Proctor, her rival for John Proctor's affections. Drawing on research on the witch trials he had conducted while an undergraduate, Miller composed The Crucible in the early 1950s. Read the document introduction and transcript and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer these questions. Through their reactions to the witch trials, characters in Arthur Millers The Crucible portray two major themes of self-preservation and mass hysteria. The next spring, the trials ended and various imprisoned individuals were released once their fines were paid. Become a subscriber and support the site! One of the most important aspects of the hunts remains unexplained. He mentions that, firstly, the witch-hunts developed from what he names a 'paradox.' How does Abigail turn the court against Mary Warren in The Crucible? Sarah Good claimed her innocence but implicated Tituba and Osborne. Students can make very profitable comparisons between the two tragic heroes: The Manchurian Candidates Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and The Crucible's John Proctor. Also during the McCarthyism era and the witch trials innocent lives were ruined when people were forced to accuse others or be accused themselves. Accusations originated with the ill-will of the accuser, or, more often, the accusers fear of someone having ill-will toward him. In the final analysis, the witch-hunt was nothing more than an eruption of the tensions and fears which had been repressed by a society which believed that suffering was a virtue and that the expression of one's dissatisfaction with one's lot was a sin. eNotes Editorial, 6 June 2016, https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-reasons-miller-gives-salem-witch-hunts-360670. The notorious Spanish Inquisition formed due to the Counter-Reformation focused little on pursuing those accused of witchcraft, having concluded that witches were much less dangerous than their usual targets, namely converted Jews and Muslims. Widely influential, it was reprinted numerous times. Under the rules of the colony, similar to rules in England, even someone found innocent had to pay for expenses incurred to imprison and feed them before they could be released. His 17 June 2000 article inThe Guardian/The Observer, "Are You Now Or Were You Ever?,"describes the paranoia that swept America in that era and the moment his then-wife, Marilyn Monroe, became a bargaining chip in his own prosecution. But the events surrounding the witch trials of Salem in 1692 were not in any way unique or isolated. The economic theories of the Salem events tend to be two-fold: the first attributes the witchcraft trials to an economic downturn caused by a "little ice age" that lasted from 1550-1800; the second cites socioeconomic issues in Salem itself. Thus creating the different movements to bring awareness to the situations and hope that the citizens will work to change and or stop these homicides from happening. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they left Britain for the New World to establish a society that, they believed, reflected their religious beliefs. []. George Burroughs and the Salem Witch Trials, Mary Easty: Hanged as a Witch in Salem, 1692, M.Div., Meadville/Lombard Theological School. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, what does the author mean by his statement that "the Salem tragedy developed from a paradox"? Students put themselves in the place of the playwright to answer: Aligns with CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.3- Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain. As students examine historical materials with an eye to their dramatic potential, they also explore the psychological and sociological questions that so fascinated Miller: Aligns withCCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.8- Evaluate an author's premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information. Where previously it was believed no mortal could control the weather, European Christians gradually came to believe that witches could. According to a theory posited by economists Leeson and Russ, churches across Europe sought to prove their strength and orthodoxy by relentlessly pursuing witches, demonstrating their prowess against the Devil and his followers. In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the weak people are taunted by the stronger people to give in to admitting to witchcraft. In each paragraph these traits will be further explained. *** Beyond Arthur Millers The Crucible, numerous dramatic presentations offer insights into irrational human fear. Arthur Millers play, The Crucible, presents a theme that demonstrates how characters change throughout the storyline. (2021, January 5). While she enjoys any topic relating to history, culture, and the humanities, she is most interested in Ancient Greece and Rome, the Ancient Near East, Irish history, colonization and de-colonization, Jewish and Christian history, and the Early modern period. Witches were considered Satan's followers, members of an antichurch and an antistate, the sworn enemies of Christian society in the Middle Ages, and a "counter-state" in the early modern period. A bolt of lightning releases the handcuffs on a woman accused of being a witch and strikes down her inquisitor in this late nineteenth-century lithograph of a colonial-era trial. Witch Hunts In Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Scapegoating can be viewed as the main reason behind the American witch hunts. Although accusations of witchcraft in contemporary cultures provide a means to express or resolve social tensions, these accusations had different consequences in premodern Western society where the mixture of irrational fear and a persecuting mentality led to the emergence of the witch hunts. Emailus. Their acts were seen as patriotic and holy. The early modern period was a time of calamity, plagues, and wars, while fear and uncertainty were rife. A witch hunt is surprisingly efficient in dealing with all offenders because once the movement gains momentum, people are accused left and right for many reasons, such as protecting . Because accusations and trials of witches took place in both ecclesiastical and secular courts, the law played at least as important a role as religion in the witch hunts. They were Christians who originally left England because they felt persecuted. Prior to the 15th century, the Church did not persecute people for witchcraft. Very few accusations went beyond the village level. It tells the story of when King Saul sought the Witch of Endor to summon the dead prophet Samuel's spirit to help him defeat the Philistine army. Rev. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Want more stories like this? But Tituba recanted her confession, and Parris never paid the fine, presumably in retaliation for her recantation. all rights reserved, History U: Courses for High School Students, Cotton Mathers account of the Salem witch trials, 1693, Located on the lower level of the New-York Historical Society. As the trials wore on, Miller traveled between Massachusetts and New York, researching what he saw as a clear correlation between the Red Scare and the Salem witch trials, both of which depended on a mass hysteria propelled by fear. Arthur Miller felt as if it were a . It certainly was not deemed to be a threat, even by the leaders of the Catholic Church, who simply denied its existence. Ecclesiastical and civil authorities usually tried to restrain witch trials and rarely manipulated witch hunts to obtain money or power. How does he describe the witch-hunts. Witch hunts primarily target women and exploit India's caste system and culture of patriarchy. Why did Arthur Miller write The Crucible? The hunts were most severe from 1580 to 1630, and the last known execution for witchcraft was in Switzerland in 1782. Tituba, also known as Tituba Indian, was an enslaved person and servant whose birth and death dates are unknown. (Include at least one play by an American dramatist.). from University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Miller presents the idea that vengeance ruins peoples lives or reputation so that you can get what you want and be satisfied. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. Prior to the beginning of the early modern period, before the devastating impact of the Black Plague transformed European institutions and the political dynamic of the entire continent, many people throughout Europe may have believed in magic. How Rye Bread May Have Caused the Salem Witch Trials. Parris in the Salem Village church conflict. In this way, the socio-political changes caused by climate change, such as failed crops, disease, and rural economic poverty, produced the conditions that enabled witch-hunting to flare up. The Crucible shows how fear can inspire hysteria, intolerance, and paranoia and mirrored what was happening in America in the 1950s when a different kind of witch hunt was afoot. In The Crucible, what message is Arthur Miller trying to get across to the reader? Throughout the ages, people repeatedly use witch hunts as a method for dealing with issues that are widespread. Both of these historic elements, however, were shaped by Miller into a story about a married man tormented by an orphaned, libidinous teenage girl seeking to punish him for a sexual transgression she participated consensually in. In both The Crucible and in modern day witch hunts, witch hunts are caused out of fear or for personal gain. believed to have inspired Shakespeares Macbeth, Eve, Pandora and Plato: How Greek Myth Shaped the First Christian Woman, How Leonardo da Vincis Notebooks Transcend Time, Marco Polo: Renowned Merchant, Explorer & Travel Writer, How Protestant Reformation Shaped Modern Education, Macbeth: Why the King of Scotland was More Than a Shakespearan Despot. On a more material level, the fact that the land charters to Salem had been revoked helped to create an air of tension about land ownership. This pattern took shape in 10501300, which was also an era of enormous reform, reorganization, and centralization in both the ecclesiastical and secular aspects of society, an important aspect of which was suppressing dissent. This tendency to believe in the certainty of one's convictions as well as the belief that their practices of exclusion were justified among the cultural conditions of Salem. No one was safe from persecutions, and the witch hunts for communism began. Miller transforms Tituba, a young Native American girl, into an African slave who led a group of young women into the forest to participate in magic rites. That Abigail started, in effect, to condemn Elizabeth to death with her touch, then stopped her hand, then went through with it, was quite suddenly the human center of all this turmoil. Most of the factors influencing the widespread witch hunts over the course of the early modern period can be summarized under two headings; salvation and scapegoating.. Indeed, Miller uses witchcraft and the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for situations wherein those who are in power accuse those who challenge them of suspect behavior in order to destroy them. 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. Many critics described Death of a Salesman as the first great American tragedy, and Miller gained an associated eminence as a man who understood the deep essence of the United States. Whether she was aware of Rev. . Parris was, at the time he was in New Spain, not yet married and not yet a minister. For many of them the witch-hunt provided an opportunity to release themselves from their own guilt and vent their impure thoughts under the cloak of seeking absolution. From 1993 Halloween classic Hocus Pocus to American Horror Story: Coven, the witch hunts that ensued from such simple origins have captured the imagination of many artistic minds over the past 300 years, making it perhaps one of the most famous events in American history. Scrutiny of Miller's historical sources, which include biographies of key players (the accused and the accusers) and primary source transcripts of the Salem witch trials themselvesgive students a chance to trace the events embellished in the play back to historical Salem. Another approach would be to have students read and analyze the following informational text by Miller, which recollects his personal experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956 when he refused to name names. Miller was convicted June 1, 1957 for contempt of Congress. Samuel Parris moved to Salem Village in 1688, a candidate for the position of Salem Village minister. "In Act 1, what explanation does Miller give as to why the witch hunts developed in such a community in The Crucible?" These courts reduced the number of witch trials significantly by 1600, half a century before legal theory, legislation, and theology began to dismiss the notion of witchcraft in France and other countries. In counties divided along religious lines, such as Germany, however, there were many trials and executions. Through works of literature such as the Malleus, witches were broadly blamed for the effects of the Little Ice Age, thus becoming a scapegoat across the Western world. A fire, a fire is burning! In the play some girls get in trouble for dancing in the woods. The drastic effects of the Little Ice Age reached a height between 1560 and 1650, which happened to be the same period in which the number of European witch hunts reached their height. Both Protestants and Catholics were involved in the prosecutions, as the theology of the Protestant Reformers on the Devil and witchcraft was virtually indistinguishable from that of the Catholics. The Salem witch trials proved to be one of the most cruel and fear driven events to ever occur in history. There was bad blood between the two women now. Local feuds, for example, could prove detrimental to communities, as neighbors and families turned against each other and condemned their rivals to the pyre and the gallows. In the Near Eastin ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and Palestinebelief in the existence of evil spirits was universal, so that both religion and magic were thought to be needed to appease, offer protection from, or manipulate these spirits. Miller wrote. Latest answer posted December 16, 2019 at 7:31:02 AM. The witch roused Samuel, who then prophesied. He also portrays the accusers as teenagers when many were in fact much younger. Poor, poor men and their cold wives and their not being able to help being drawn to younger women only to ruin their lives, too. Since 1970 careful research has elucidated law codes and theological treatises from the era of the witch hunts and uncovered much information about how fear, accusations, and prosecutions actually occurred in villages, local law courts, and courts of appeal in Roman Catholic and Protestant cultures in western Europe. How can history be dramatic, and how can drama bring history to life? Countries that were predominantly Catholic such as Spain, did not endure the scourge of witch-hunting to the same extent as those that experienced religious unrest. Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late 1960s. As a result of such ideas, by the late 15th century, witches were considered as followers of the Devil. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. This unrest also contributed to the witch-hunting hysteria in another way. Maleficium was a threat not only to individuals but also to public order, for a community wracked by suspicions about witches could split asunder. People thought without a trace of logic, accusing and punishing innocent, witches, left and right. Still creepy, but slightly less creepy? Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. Therefore, to create unity, one also had to exclude and prohibit those who could threaten it. Rev. This began the Salem Witchcraft Trials. For example, if something bad happened to John that could not be readily explained, and if John felt that Richard disliked him, John may have suspected Richard of harming him by occult means. They [residents of Salem] carried about an innate resistance, even of persecution. Miller captured the events in a riveting story that is now considered a modern classic in the theater. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Those include fear, personal motives, unfair treatment of the accused, and accusers. The ultimate purpose of such a system was to create unity and, therefore, to fight any force that sought to break it. Though the Salem trials took place just as. The ensuing witch hunt would result in the executions of 19 men, women, and children, along with the deaths of at least six others, and the suffering, torment, and calamity of an entire community. Moving crabwise across the profusion of evidence, I sensed that I had at last found something of myself in it, and a play began to accumulate around this man. Its interesting to look at this in the context of what was happening in Millers real life. The most common suspicions concerned livestock, crops, storms, disease, property and inheritance, sexual dysfunction or rivalry, family feuds, marital discord, stepparents, sibling rivalries, and local politics. The 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Most Americans knowledge of the seventeenth century comes from heavily mythologized events: the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Pocahontas purportedly saving Captain John Smith from execution in early Virginia, and the Salem witch trials of 1692. The town of Salem in The Crucible, can relate to our nation today, through the way we target the Muslim religion as terrorist. They were a wide cultural, social, political phenomenon. Its the fact that one person didnt like a certain group of people besides their own so; they felt like they had the right to take away their lives. This was a dissertation that endorsed witch-hunting and is believed to have inspired Shakespeares Macbeth. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. Tituba and The Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Senator McCarthy rose to power during this time by creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion based on false claims of communist activity. In January of 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece of Salem Village minister Reverend Samuel Parris, suddenly feel ill. Making strange, foreign sounds, huddling under furniture, and clutching their heads, the girls' symptoms were alarming and astounding to . Nevertheless, the reasons for the decline in the witch hunts are as difficult to discern as the reasons for their origins. Why is Thomas Putnam bitter in act 1 of The Crucible. Members of the community claimed to have seen a person's spirit performing witchcraft, a crime that would cause a person to be sentenced to death. These can all be related back to The Crucible, in the way in which each character experienced. The Crucible by Arthur Miller tells the story of the vindictive town of Salem and its unproportional amount of accusations of witchcraft. The third girl was Ann Putnam Jr., who was the daughter of a key supporter of Rev. These allegations would have important implications for the future because they were part of a broader pattern of hostility toward and persecution of marginalized groups. The Puritans were marked by inflexibility and extremism. She is a tour guide in Glasnevin Cemetery Museum, a popular historical site in Dublin, and a published fiction and non-fiction writer. They were a wide cultural, social, political phenomenon. As Headley points out, he cites his relationships as instrumental to his writing of The Crucible in an essay he wrote about his process for The New Yorker: I visited Salem for the first time on a dismal spring day in 1952; it was a sidetracked town then, with abandoned factories and vacant stores. Set in the 17th century The Crucible told the story of a town that ensued a hunt for witches, caused by the accusations of Salem 's young girls and their ring leader Abigail Williams. We do not know if the enslavement of Tituba was the settlement of a debt, though that story has been accepted by some. Its hard to imagine that there was once a time when witches were not seen as cackling women with pointed hats, black cats, and bubbling cauldrons. The Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation heightened the fear of witchcraft by promoting the idea of personal piety (the individual alone with his or her Bible and God), which enhanced individualism while downplaying community. With tensions running high, many turned to inculcate the more vulnerable members of society. Presumably, whoever paid the fine had become Tituba's enslaver. Many teachers use The Crucible alongside their discussion of McCarthyism. The effects of conflicts such as the Thirty Years War were exacerbated by the drastic Little Ice Age with which they coincided, especially in regard to the European witch hunts. This is highly similar to the homicides that led to rise of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. Tituba's confession, by the rules of the court, kept her from being tried later with others, including those who were eventually found guilty and executed. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. Cotton Mather, a prolific author and well-known preacher, wrote this account in 1693, a year after the trials ended. The witch trials offer a window into the anxieties and social tensions that accompanied New England's increasing integration into . And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! The play is about human weakness, hypocrisy, and vindictiveness. Soon, people feared, communist ways would come to the United States and would quickly corrupt the government system. Yet one general explanation is valid: the unique character of the witch hunts was consistent with the prevailing worldview of intelligent, educated, experienced people for more than three centuries. We can guess from the circumstances that Parris enslaved Tituba in Barbados, probably when she was 12 or a few years older. The Reformation, Counter-Reformation, war, conflict, climate change, and economic recession are all some of the factors that influenced the witch hunts across the two continents in various ways. For example, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, an episode of Rod Serlings Twilight Zone series, may provide students and teachers an opportunity to examine the phenomenon of mass hysteria.

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