The Salem Witch Trials Fact or Fake Essay - 2429 Words

The Salem Witch Trials were the most famous, most deadly, and most studied witch trials in the British colonies according to author Brian Pavlac.(138) What started out as innocent childs play ended with 19 deaths and one killed by being pressed to death with stones. The events were gruesome, tragic, and filled with irrational behavior. The people of Salem, who were mostly of a puritan background, were driven by fear, to stop those who were consorting with the devil, and cleanse their town of all evil. This however, remains to be seen as the true intention of all of those involved with the witch hunts. These trials, which took place over the course of the winter of 1691 through the summer of 1693 were a time of uncertainty, paranoia,†¦show more content†¦Eleven-year-old Abigail Williams was another matter. She was of a robuster sort, and though as relentlessly catechized as her small cousin, instinctively took damnation, death , and most other unpleasant things as someth ing scheduled to happen to someone else, particularly to people she didnt like. (Rice 20) These two were completely opposite in character one, it seems, desiring a deeper look into witchcraft so she could curse those whom she did not like. The other was seemingly forced into â€Å"consorting with evil spirits,† and simply was a victim. These stories continued night after night, allowing the girls to delve deeper and deeper into a seemingly innocent endeavor, A picture show Tituba weaving stories into the air with the children watching her every move. Notice the details of the picture. First and foremost Tituba was not as old as she seemed in the picture according to Earle Rice.(21) Those stories could have routed into one of two paths. The first allowed for what would have been a psychological idea to develop in the girls heads. They took a fantasy that they wanted to be true and eventually their minds just interpreted it as reality. The other path that could have been ta ken was that the girls were actually beginning to develop a connection to a form of witchcraft, which in Puritan society was looked upon as an extreme evil. This begs the question as to whether witchcraft is real or not. Puritans and many cultures do believe in witchcraft. AsShow MoreRelatedThe Crucible : The Potential Of Change916 Words   |  4 PagesJohnston English 11H, Period 7 8 October 2015 The Crucible: The Potential of Change Introduction: In The Crucible, Arthur Miller recreates the anxiety and hysteria of the Salem witch-trials from 1692. Although the title, not once is the word â€Å"crucible† spoken in the play. However, the people and events of the Salem witch trials correspond with the definition of a â€Å"crucible†. 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