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. The overwhelming majority of processes, however, went no farther than the rumour stage, for actually accusing someone of witchcraft was a dangerous and expensive business. Those include fear, personal motives, unfair treatment of the accused, and accusers. Salem was a pressure-cooker ready to explode. 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. Four-year-old accused witch Dorcas Good went insane after spending months in prison and watching her baby sister die while in jail with their mother, who was later hanged. The events in 1692 parallel the witch hunts in 1950s. For many peopleespecially New Englanders (wicked or not) and fans of Daniel Day-Lewis or Winona Ryder (stars of the 1996 movie version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible)17th-century Salem, Massachusetts, comes to mind when they hear the word witch hunt.The persecution of witches goes back to ancient times, but it was during the 16th and 17th centuries that witch hunts intensified. This was a dissertation that endorsed witch-hunting and is believed to have inspired Shakespeares Macbeth. Because of the continuity of witch trials with those for heresy, it is impossible to say when the first witch trial occurred. They were a wide cultural, social, political phenomenon. 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. A detailed study of a timeline accompanies their close reading of The Crucible. Among the main effects of the papal judicial institution known as the Inquisition was in fact the restraint and reduction of witch trials that resulted from the strictness of its rules. Witch trials continued through the 14th and early 15th centuries, but with great inconsistency according to time and place. The 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Millers play helps one understand what the Salem Witch Trials did to peoples emotions and mentalities. As a result of such ideas, by the late 15th century, witches were considered as followers of the Devil. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. Miller completely discounts the idea that these events are caused by supernatural forces, and instead seeks to show how everyday difference between the members of the Salem community and the all-common emotions of anger, envy and greed are responsible. Witch Hunts In Arthur Miller's The Crucible. from University of the Western Cape, South Africa. In the gloomy courthouse there I read the transcripts of the witchcraft trials of 1692, as taken down in a primitive shorthand by ministers who were spelling each other. Witch trials were equally common in ecclesiastical and secular courts before 1550, and then, as the power of the state increased, they took place more often in secular ones. How does Abigail turn the court against Mary Warren in The Crucible? Some of the trial takes place in the actual courtroom, but the metaphor extends beyond the courtroom scenes. Still creepy, but slightly less creepy? In response to the mass hysteria over this communist infiltration, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible. "Tituba and The Salem Witch Trials of 1692." Although some people undoubtedly practiced sorcery with the intent to harm, and some may actually have worshiped the Devil, in reality no one ever fit the concept of the witch. Nonetheless, the witchs crimes were defined in law. Parris. The Crucible by Arthur Miller tells the story of the vindictive town of Salem and its unproportional amount of accusations of witchcraft. Miller wrote the play during the . But the reason as to why Arthur Miller felt the need to write The Crucible in the first place was because the unfortunate reality that history seemed to have repeated itself again. The setting of a literary work refers to the time and place in which the action occurs. Soon, people feared, communist ways would come to the United States and would quickly corrupt the government system. Historical Context. Explanations of the witch hunts continue to vary, but recent research has shown some of these theories to be improbable or of negligible value. Again, the so-called witches made for the perfect scapegoats. Prosecutions of witches in Austria, Poland, and Hungary took place as late as the 18th century. For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as Latest answer posted November 22, 2020 at 12:05:25 PM, In The Crucible, explain what Elizabeth means when she says, "He have his goodness now, God forbid I take it from him. Widely influential, it was reprinted numerous times. 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. Tens of thousands of supposed witches mostly womenwere executed. However, Spain did witness one of the largest witch trials on record. In other words, there was how things actually happened during the Salem Witch Trials, and there was how Miller wrote about them, taking lots of liberties to tell this story through a prism that made sense to him. The play results in a mob mentality and hysteria taking over because people believed a lying girl. Salem, of course, serves as the perfect example of this fanaticism and scapegoating taken to the extreme. 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. Therefore, to create unity, one also had to exclude and prohibit those who could threaten it. To find out what was causing the afflictions, a local doctor (presumably William Griggs) and a neighboring minister, Rev. 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. This helped to feed the paranoia that people felt about one another. According to Miller, what caused the witch-hunts? Tituba, also known as Tituba Indian, was an enslaved person and servant whose birth and death dates are unknown. For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as Latest answer posted November 22, 2020 at 12:05:25 PM, In The Crucible, explain what Elizabeth means when she says, "He have his goodness now, God forbid I take it from him. One theory which could explain the apparent madness of the trial and judicial hangings may be found in the bread the settlers were eating. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/tituba-salem-witch-trials-3530572. Ultimately, 19 individuals who had refused to admit guilt were hanged and another was pressed to death. Many historians see its publication as a watershed moment in witch-hunting history. By directing blame for misfortune upon others, various populations across Europe succumbed to the mass panic and collective fear ignited by those in authority. https://www.thoughtco.com/tituba-salem-witch-trials-3530572 (accessed March 4, 2023). It is nearly impossible to determine a correct estimate of how many people were tried and executed for witchcraft during this time. *** Beyond Arthur Millers The Crucible, numerous dramatic presentations offer insights into irrational human fear. Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late 1960s. Arthur Miller felt as if it were a . 2023. Who are the experts?Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. ", Latest answer posted October 02, 2020 at 10:46:39 AM. In the early modern period, Protestantism emerged as a viable challenge to the Catholic Churchs firm hold on the Christian population of Europe. (Include at least one play by an American dramatist.). Other peers of Miller's, such as playwright Clifford Odets and actor Lee J. Cobb, also testified. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. Salem witch trials, (June 1692-May 1693), in American history, a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 convicted "witches" to be hanged and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts). A fire, a fire is burning! She included in her confession complicated tales of witchcraftall compatible with English folk beliefs, not voodoo as some have alleged. With The Crucible, Miller extrapolated that, citing womens instability when it came to the instability of an entire community. Parris. Charges of maleficium were prompted by a wide array of suspicions. B.A. She confessed to witchcraft and accused others. Have a tip or story idea? ThoughtCo, Jan. 5, 2021, thoughtco.com/tituba-salem-witch-trials-3530572. Tituba herself went into a fit, claiming to be afflicted. 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. John Proctor, as Miller portrays him, is a good man whos made a bad, but human, mistake. But the events surrounding the witch trials of Salem in 1692 were not in any way unique or isolated. Tituba was questioned for two more days. In essence, these infamous witch hunts took place because people came to believe that witches conspired to destroy and uproot decent Christian society. He tells the story of a man in a cold marriage who because of this is pushed into an affair with a much younger girl who then goes crazy and accuses him of wrongdoing. The Puritans were marked by inflexibility and extremism. Although, the play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on the historical event, the Salem Witch Trials.According to the the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, The Crucible explores a mass hysteria that its residents must go through because of the witchcraft accusations made by young girls and many other people of the region.These accusations, we learn further in the novel, are not true and are purely for the purpose to put the blame of someone's mistakes or wrongdoings to someone else. This is highly similar to the homicides that led to rise of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. In his telling, witch hunts are perpetrated by the marginalized rather than upon them, since, when sex is involved, women are inclined toward group-malice, sexual irrationality, and wholesale invention. 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. Why would the church and government authorities continue to credit these wild and unsubstantiated stories as respectable people from all walks of lifelandowners, women of independent means, neighbors, even clergywere arrested and brought to trial? Tituba was among the first three people accused of being a witch during the Salem witch trials of 1692. If theyre that much trouble? In the article Are You Now or Were You Ever, Arthur Miller claims that the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trials were similar and he does this through his choice of diction, figurative language, and rhetorical questions. They believed in short that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. 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. In The Crucible, what message is Arthur Miller trying to get across to the reader? 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.
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