Senator McCarthy rose to power during this time by creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion based on false claims of communist activity. And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! While people were being falsely accused of witchery without definite facts. 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. The playwright sets that story as the catalyst for a larger, quite literal witch hunt, stoked into a frenzy by a mostly unprovoked confession of witchcraft spoken by a fantastically-minded woman of color whos been practicing sexy voodoo in the woods with the girls of Salem. Historical Context Essay: Arthur Miller and the Red Scare Older women were more frequently accused of casting malicious spells than were younger women, because they had had more time to establish a bad reputation, and the process from suspicion to conviction often took so long that a woman might have aged considerably before charges were actually advanced. Because we are all taught that if we listen to women too closely, that way lies the unraveling of the fabric of society. She would also have likely been aware of the unrest in the community when raids were launched in New England, starting up again in 1689 (and called King William's War), with New France using both French soldiers and local Native Americans to fight against the English colonists. All three of the accused were examined the next day at Nathaniel Ingersoll's tavern in Salem Village by local magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. 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. Girls had specific roles in society and were expected to follow the rules of the church without question, so when they acted out and danced or strayed from the church, chaos was unavoidable. Classical authors such as Aeschylus, Horace, and Virgil described sorceresses, ghosts, furies, and harpies with hideous pale faces and crazed hair; clothed in rotting garments, they met at night and sacrificed both animals and humans. Parris. 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. Although the lurid trials at Salem (now in Massachusetts) continue to draw much attention from American authors, they were only a swirl in the backwater of the witch hunts. What was it about the time period that made such hysteria, and ultimately tragedy, possible. Whereas womens sexuality has long since been tied to the idea of personal hysteria, Miller updated that by singling out womens desire for love and sex as a direct cause of mass hysteria. Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, which forms the basis of many Americans' knowledge of the trials, takes liberties with the story. It is nearly impossible to determine a correct estimate of how many people were tried and executed for witchcraft during this time. 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. When Arthur Miller published The Crucible in the early 1950s, he simply outdid the historians at their own game.. Very few accusations went beyond the village level. To prove that the promise of salvation served as a reason for the sudden flare-up of witch hunts during this period of religious turmoil, we only need to look to the notable absence of witch trials in Catholic strongholds. Similar to The Crucible , a majority of the characters reacted the way they did out of fear. But there was one entry in Upham in which the thousands of pieces I had come across were jogged into place. With tensions running high, many turned to inculcate the more vulnerable members of society. Parris was, at the time he was in New Spain, not yet married and not yet a minister. 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. Where previously it was believed no mortal could control the weather, European Christians gradually came to believe that witches could. By 143550, the number of prosecutions had begun to rise sharply, and toward the end of the 15th century, two events stimulated the hunts: Pope Innocent VIIIs publication in 1484 of the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (Desiring with the Greatest Ardour) condemning witchcraft as Satanism, the worst of all possible heresies, and the publication in 1486 of Heinrich Krmer and Jacob Sprengers Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), a learned but cruelly misogynist book blaming witchcraft chiefly on women. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Some have speculated that this was a way of deflecting further suspicion of himself or his wife. By this time, I was sure, John Proctor had bedded Abigail, who had to be dismissed most likely to appease Elizabeth. The witch executions occurred in the early modern period, the time in Western history when capital punishment and torture were most widespread. Parris promised to pay the fee to allow Tituba to be released from prison. King James VI of Scotland, a monarch notorious for his role in Scotlands witch-hunting craze, believed that he had been personally targeted by witches who conjured dangerous storms while he sailed across the North Sea to Denmark. *** Beyond Arthur Millers The Crucible, numerous dramatic presentations offer insights into irrational human fear. The early modern period was a time of calamity, plagues, and wars, while fear and uncertainty were rife. Now, after more than three-quarters of a century of fascination with the great snake of political and social developments, I can see more than a few occasions when we were confronted by the same sensation of having stepped into another age. During this time, witches and conspiring with the devil were frowned upon by the Puritan church, and were the cause of much fear and suspicion. What do the characters in the play believe about witches? It used to be that women were only madthemselvesbecause of their lusts. The first hanging for witchcraft in New England was in 1647, after the witch hunts had already abated in Europe, though a peculiar outbreak in Sweden in 166876 bore some similarity to that in New England. The breakdown in the social order during the various different conflicts of this period added to the atmosphere of fear and led to the inevitable need for scapegoating. They were a wide cultural, social, political phenomenon. 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. 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. We can guess from the circumstances that Parris enslaved Tituba in Barbados, probably when she was 12 or a few years older. 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. This is also the place Arthur Miller has written about in his book The Crucible. Another accusation that often accompanied maleficium was trafficking with evil spirits. Salvation and Scapegoating: What Caused the Early Modern Witch Hunts? In a piece over at The Daily Beast, Maria Dahvana Headley writes about Arthur Millers history with Marilyn Monroe, and how that affected his plays, which perpetuated very specific ideas about women through the American literary canon. No wonder the term witch hunt has entered common political parlance to describe such campaigns as that of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his attempt to root out communists in the United States in the 1950s. John Proctor, as Miller portrays him, is a good man whos made a bad, but human, mistake. Their acts were seen as patriotic and holy. Through their reactions to the witch trials, characters in Arthur Millers The Crucible portray two major themes of self-preservation and mass hysteria. In 20th Century America, it all started when a playwright named Arthur Miller had an affair with a Hollywood actress named Marilyn Monroe. In the play "The Crucible," Arthur Miller uses a great trial in the Salem witch trials to describe how he felt during the Red Scare in the 1950's. The Red Scare was a national hunt for Communists, or "Reds" as they were called. A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials - Smithsonian Magazine Witch trials continued through the 14th and early 15th centuries, but with great inconsistency according to time and place. To every guy out there today whose greatest concern is being falsely accused, youve been manipulated by a frustrated playwright into genuinely believing that being callous and abusive with women dont have consequences. Most readers are unfamiliar with McCarthyism. According to author Carol F. Karlsen . The inevitable need for a scapegoat, for someone to hold accountable for misfortune, seems to be ingrained in the human psyche. 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. By the late 16th century, many prosperous and professional people in western Europe were accused, so that the leaders of society began to have a personal interest in checking the hunts. Historical Context. Any source of witchcraft must be destroyed . Wherefore The devil is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarld with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountered; an Attempt so Critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon Enjoy Halcyon Days, with all the Vultures of Hell Trodden under our Feet. Most accused children had parents who had been accused of witchcraft. It was this combination of sorcery and its association with the Devil that made Western witchcraft unique. As just one example, the king of Italy, Charlemagne, dismissed the concept of witchcraft as a pagan superstition and ordered the death penalty for whoever executed someone because they considered them to be a witch. []. The myths surrounding what happened in Salem make the true story that much more difficult to uncover. The witch-trials provided release and the outcome was tragically unpleasant. Tituba would not likely have been directly involved in the growing church conflict involving Rev. Its interesting to look at this in the context of what was happening in Millers real life. Miller argues that the fundamental nature of Salem's construction made it a community where the Witch Trials were inevitable. 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. A fire, a fire is burning! Women were certainly more likely than men to be economically and politically powerless, but that generalization is too broad to be helpful, for it holds true for societies in periods where witchcraft is absent. The third girl was Ann Putnam Jr., who was the daughter of a key supporter of Rev. The North Berwick trials serve as one of the more famous examples of witches being held responsible for bad weather. The accusers is constitutionally finding scapegoats to back up their culpability. As a result of such ideas, by the late 15th century, witches were considered as followers of the Devil. Written in the early 1950s, Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 1692 Salem witch trials . I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! Understanding the Salem Witch Trials | NEH-Edsitement The current preoccupation with men being falsely accused of harassment or assault, like so many other accepted truths can be traced to a moment in time during which a version of the idea was created and then absorbed into the culture. In his commentary, Miller names a variety of reasons for the injustice and atrocity which were the essential elements of the witch-hunts. They were Christians who originally left England because they felt persecuted. 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. Log in here. After the magistrates finished their examination of Tituba, she was sent to jail. 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. However, the general consensus is that the witch hunts spanning the two continents resulted in the deaths of between 40,000 and 60,000 people. A bizarre set of accusations, including the sacrifice of children, was made by the Syrians against the Jews in Hellenistic Syria in the 2nd century bce. From the 14th through the 18th century, witches were believed to repudiate Jesus Christ, to worship the Devil and make pacts with him (selling ones soul in exchange for Satans assistance), to employ demons to accomplish magical deeds, and to desecrate the crucifix and the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist (Holy Communion). The hunts were not pursuits of individuals already identified as witches but efforts to identify those who were witches. Rather, recollecting others with distasteful memories such as witchcraft. And we have now with Horror seen the Discovery of such a WITCHCRAFT! 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 Mexico the Franciscan friars linked indigenous religion and magic with the Devil; prosecutions for witchcraft in Mexico began in the 1530s, and by the 1600s indigenous peasants were reporting stereotypical pacts with the Devil. With our Essay Lab, you can create a customized outline within seconds to get started on your essay right away. Therefore, to create unity, one also had to exclude and prohibit those who could threaten it. In the spring of 1692, two young girls from a seemingly inconsequential village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to display increasingly disturbing behavior, claiming strange visions and experiencing fits. In about 1689, Tituba and John Indian seem to have married. How Long Will Joe Goldbergs Rampage Be Left Unchecked? Other peers of Miller's, such as playwright Clifford Odets and actor Lee J. Cobb, also testified. Cotton Mather, a prolific author and well-known preacher, wrote this account in 1693, a year after the trials ended. Clearly, both definitions apply to the title of the play. The American and European witch hunts of the early modern era had a significant impact on Western societys history, politics, and culture. In counties divided along religious lines, such as Germany, however, there were many trials and executions. 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. The author writes in a satiric tone to mock the McCarthyism era of communism. Society was undeniably affected by witch hunts, as people did everything in their power to either free themselves from blame or accuse someone else. One theory which could explain the apparent madness of the trial and judicial hangings may be found in the bread the settlers were eating. Malleus Maleficarum, first published in 1487 by Heinrich Kramer, was a major influence on this attitude shift. Tituba was accused by the young girls of appearing to them (as a spirit), which amounted to an accusation of witchcraft. This began the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Witch hunts primarily target women and exploit India's caste system and culture of patriarchy. Poor agricultural success, conflict with Native Americans, tension between different communities, and poverty were not what the Puritan communities envisioned when they set out. In Spain, Portugal, and southern Italy, witch prosecutions seldom occurred, and executions were very rare. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. 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. My own marriage of twelve years was teetering and I knew more than I wished to know about where the blame lay. He also portrays the accusers as teenagers when many were in fact much younger. Proctor house. 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. The Black Death: Europes Deadliest Pandemic in Human History. Many innocent people were accused of witchcraft, and while some got out of the situation alive not everyone was as lucky. Witch Hunts Today: Abuse of Women, Superstition and Murder Collide in The visible role played by women in some heresies during this period may have contributed to the stereotype of the witch as female. Where central authorityi.e., bishops, kings, or the Inquisitionwas strong, convictions were fewer and sentences milder. why did the witch-hunts occur? | The Crucible Questions | Q & A Accusations originated with the ill-will of the accuser, or, more often, the accusers fear of someone having ill-will toward him. However, many were guilty of caving into their own weaknesses and only feared to be caught in their acts of hypocrisy. 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. The theory best supported by the evidence is that the increasing power of the centralized courts such as the Inquisition and the Parlement acted to begin a process of decriminalization of witchcraft. As exemplified in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, witch trials took place. It would, over time, grow to be synonymous with mass hysteria, panic, and paranoia, referenced by those who believe themselves to be victims of unjust persecution; Salem. An additional activity would be to ask students to compare two or more recorded or live productions of Arthur Millers The Crucible to the written text. My basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralyzed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse. 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. In this remarkably observed gesture of a troubled young girl, I believed, a play became possible. 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. 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. Across New England, where witch trials occurred somewhat regularly from 1638 until 1725, women vastly outnumbered men in the ranks of the accused and executed. Throughout the story people accuse others of being witches or being involved with witchcraft so they could be hanged. John Hale, were called in by Parris. In the 11th century attitudes toward witchcraft and sorcery began to change, a process that would radically transform the Western perception of witchcraft and associate it with heresy and the Devil. Children were often accusers (as they were at Salem), but they were sometimes also among the accused. Parris' sermons in late 1691 warning of Satan's influence in town is also not known, but it seems likely that his fears were known in his household. What is the setting for Act 2? The Salem witch trials, which resulted in several deaths in 1692 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, have never been adequately explained. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. Although the proportions varied according to region and time, on the whole about three-fourths of convicted witches were female. Also the fact people would accuse people of witchcraft which would then accuse other people of witchcraft and etc. Another was Abigail Williams, age 12, called "kinfolk" or a "niece" of Rev. There was bad blood between the two women now. 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.