In Salem, around the early 1600’s, witch hunts broke out to try and determine the underlying reason for the twitching and ticking of the citizens. Though, perhaps witchcraft was not the reason for the abnormal ways in which these people acted, but there was a more radical explanation. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, many young girls of Salem, including Betty Paris, Ruth Putnam, Abigail Williams, and Mary Warren were accused of going into the woods with Reverend Parris’ slave, Tituba, where she apparently had them conjuring Ruth’s dead sisters. To do this, the girls danced around a fire, some naked, all while Tituba sang songs from her native country, Barbados. This, evidently was not something these Puritan girls were to be doing, …show more content…
Betty was the first one to develop this disorder, followed by Ruth, then Abigail and Mary Warren, all which they gained later on, because Conversion Disorder is “typically only affecting those who have seen other affected people” (Szalavitz). Particularly, when Mary Warren is being questioned by Danforth in court, the girls subconsciously mimic everything she says in reply to him. “Danforth asks Mary Warren if she can speak, but she says I cannot. The girls then mimic her, I cannot”(Miller, 1211). From this disorder, “Our brains also naturally and unconsciously engage us in conscious mimicry,” (Szalavitz), which is why the girls persistently repeat the things that Mary Warren does and says. When one of the girls has visions in the courtroom of Mary Warren being a ‘yellow bird,’ she defends herself that she is rather not up on the ceiling down on the ground with them, by saying “to all the girls, I 'm here! I’m here!” The girls then blurt out after her, “I 'm here! I’m here!” (Miller, 1209-1210). The girls did employ themselves in the constant mimicry of the actions and words that Mary Warren used because they were being controlled by witches. It was involuntary, and they could not help it because of the case of Conversion Disorder that they were …show more content…
This disorder has been an issue for a very long time. “Examples stretch back to the Middle Ages and early renaissance, when outbreaks of twitching and tics lead to witch hunts”(Szalavitz). Not only has this same disorder been mistaken for witchcraft before, but the exact same symptoms have been displayed back then, as now. Their antics in the woods could not have been the cause of the way that they acted, besides the evidence that they have this disorder, because they were infected immediately after Paris frightened them. The only explanation for this ‘mass hysteria’ is Conversion Disorder, “spread through groups by way of human’s unconscious social mimicry of one another 's behavior”(Szalavitz).
In the 1600’s the idea of witchcraft ran deep throughout the town of Salem. Though, in The Crucible, for Betty Paris, Ruth Putnam, Abigail Williams, and Mary Warren, it is safer to say that instead of being bewitched,or faking witchcraft, they were infected with Conversion Disorder. This inference is safe to be made, because they were involved in a stressful incident, Betty and Ruth were both inert and unresponsive, and Mary Warren and the rest of the girls displayed abnormal, uncontrollable movement, in which they began doing by means of mimicking each
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft is a concise, 231 page informational text by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Published in 1974, it explores the economic and social conditions present in the Salem village during the 1600s that led to the hysteria surrounding witchcraft. Multiple graphs and illustrations are present, as well as an average sized font, an abundance of footnotes typically on the left page, and a prominent voice from the authors. The book was written to serve as a more comprehensive informational piece on the Salem witch trials due to the authors finding other pieces written about the same topic to be inaccurate. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum wanted to create something that utilized
While researching texts written about the Salem Witch Trials, I found a few authors who published articles and books about the Salem Witch Trials. These authors often showed that the most likely cause of the fits coming from the victims was produced by ergot of rye. However, I could not find much discussion about another important source of the fits’ cause: witchcraft. My goal in this paper is to produce a convincing argument that the victims during the Salem Witch Trials that experienced strange behaviors came from ergot of rye rather than witchcraft. To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four main sections.
The author of this book has proposed an intriguing hypothesis regarding the seventeenth-century witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Laurie Winn Carlson argues that accusations of witchcraft were linked to an epidemic of encephalitis and that it was a specific form of this disease, encephalitis lethargica, that accounts for the symptoms suffered by the afflicted, those who accused their neighbors of bewitching them. Though this interpretation of the Salem episode is fascinating, the book itself is extremely problematic, fraught with historical errors, inconsistencies, contradictions, conjecture, and a very selective use of the evidence.
	During the winter of 1691 and 1692 Salem Village had a mass hysteria over the possibility of witchcraft in their village. The movie shows this was brought on after Reverend Parris discovered some girls dancing in the woods. A black slave known as Tituba supposedly led the rite. Tituba was really American Indian Arawak in history though. Of course the village believed the girls were practicing magic but it may have been a result of the girls eating some moldy wheat. The girls suffered from violent fits.
In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch. To start from the beginning, Abby, Tituba, and the girls were out in the forest one night, dancing, and were caught by Reverend Paris. Abby blamed Tituba for calling the Devil. Tituba then said it was not her, for there are many witches in the community. Tituba named some of the town’s women as witches.
For example, Betty Paris and Ruth Putnam in the movie could not wake, but in Wilson’s historical depiction the only symptoms the afflicted girls had were: slipping into trances, cowering in corners, blurting nonsense, and collapsing into shrieking epileptic fits. Miller’s beginning scene of “The Crucible” where the girls were dancing and conjuring spirits in the woods with Tituba is not something that is known to have actually occurred. In Wilson’s historical depictions, Tituba is accused of being a witch because she made the witch cake, but in the film Abigail accuses her in order to avoid punishment because of what her and the girls were caught by Reverend Parris doing in the woods. Tituba’s confession in the movie was whipped out of her, but according to the historically she was interrogated, not whipped. Miller also changed why Martha Corey was accused in the film it is because her husband, Giles Corey, said she was reading suspicious books, but according to Wilson it was because Abigail said she saw her specter on the beams during sermon. According to Wilson’s historical depiction of the Salem Witch Trials, jailers would torture children to get them to confess their mother was a witch, but Miller did not put that in his
Many young girls were in the woods trying to conjure spirits. Tituba was trying to teach them how to do so (Blumberg). Witchcraft was punishable by death, and these young girls were trying to avoid being caught(miller). They were falsely accusing many people so they would not be accused of witchcraft(miller). Several innocent people died during this time
In the Town of Salem Massachusetts, 1692, a group of adolescents are caught dancing in the forest. Among the adolescents in The Crucible, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren. The girls are horrified that they have been caught dancing, a sinful act, therefore they devise a story to evade punishment: they claim to have been bewitched. The first person who they accuse of witchcraft is a the black maid, Tituba. This results in her jail sentence as well as fearful suspicion throughout the town. Arthur Miller demonstrates the impact of lying as the girls recognise and manipulate their power in the town. Lead by Abigail, they go further, claiming countless others guilty and dooming them to exile. Miller demonstrates that there power is so great that even when Mary attempts to stand against her friends, she is quickly overwhelmed and once again plays along with their trickery. As the girls’ conspiracy continues, controversy arise over their truthfulness; people choose sides often lying themselves to support their side, further altering the lives of all involved.
At the beginning of The Crucible, Mary Warren fears about having to face the consequences of practicing witchcraft in the forest. “What’ll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be callin’ us witches, Abby!” (Mary Warren,
The Salem Witch Trials occurred because “three women were out in jail, because of witchcraft, and then paranoia spread throughout Salem” (Blumberg). In the Salem Village, “Betty Paris became sick, on February of 1692, and she contorted in pain and complained of fever” (Linder). The conspiracy of “witchcraft increased when play mates of Betty, Ann Putnam, Mercy, and Mary began to exhibit the same unusual behavior” (Linder). “The first to be accused were Tituba, a Barbados slave who was thought to have cursed the girls, Sarah Good, a beggar and social misfit, and Sarah Osborn, an old lady that hadn’t attended church in a year” (Linder). According to Linder, Tituba was the first to admit to being a witch, saying that she signed Satan’s book to work for him. The judges, Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, “executed Giles Corey because he refused to stand trial and afterwards eight more people were executed and that ended the Witch Trials in Salem”
The witch hunt in the crucible is initiated when Abigail and her friends fear the consequences of their ‘dancing’ in the forest. This connects to McCarthyism as the HUAC is represented by the judges and the ‘accuses’ (the girls) are representatives of Elia Kazan and others like him. The theocratic society of Salem is what the girls fear as the forest is seen as the devils resting place and the puritan nature of the town forbid dancing as it was seen as ‘vain enjoyment’ which as Miller himself states at the beginning of the novel to not be allowed. The character of Mary Warren begs the girls to just admit they were dancing as “…you’ll only be whipped for dancin’…”, but as Abigail is questioned and Parris mentions the kettle and how he believed “…there to be some movement- in the soup…”, the devil becomes prominent in the conversation. This is due to Abigail fearing that she will be blamed for devil worshipp...
As we may already know, the town of Salem was subject to an epidemic of the accusations of witchcraft that lasted over ten months. Witchcraft of this time period was not taken lightly. In England alone over 40,000-60,000 people were killed after being found guilty of witchcraft. Needless to say the people found witchcraft as a virus that infected the town. The first cases started off with the daughters of Samuel Parris, the town minister, accusing his slave, Tituba, of being a witch. She claimed that she and others in the town were witches and there was even a wizard. The town broke out in hysteria in further months. Over 100 people were put in jail because of accusations. The council that were to find these people’s innocence or guilt were corrupted as well because to claim innocence meant you were guilty and if you were to claim guilt you could be redeemed. Many of the items found incriminating were pins and voodoo dolls. Many of these people faced the psychological terror of being pressured into claiming guilt to a crime, you didn’t commit in front of a committee and scared the community to death that they were going to be subjected to. Many of the witnesses to these trials were said to have undergone physical distress or act inhumanly. Many historians say to these records that since their body was put under so much strain and fear of the witchcraft that surrounded them all the time, their bodies going through strange changes such as paralysis or temporary blindness with no real cause rather than stress. But many historians also believe the witnesses were voluntarily acting and committing fraud against the others. But why was this such an enigma to understand why this small town in New England was all of a sudden becoming a cen...
One night Ann saw the shape of a coffin from the egg trick, that's where it all started. Soon after that happened Ann Putman, Abigail Williams, and Betty Parris started acting weirdly. They started babbling, convulsing, or simply staring blankly. Once they were identified as victims of witchcraft they were asked to point out their tormentors. Ann pointed to Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne. She also testified against Tibuta and said that the woman had tortured her grievously by pricking and pinching her dreadfully."(Yanak, T.,and Pam Cornelison, ...
The notorious witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts occurred from June through September. It is a brief, but turbulent period in history and the causes of the trials have long been a source of discussion among historians. Many try to explain or rationalize the bizarre happenings of the witch hunts and the causes that contributed to them. To understand the trials and how they came to be, we must first examine the ideals and views of the people surrounding the events. Although religious beliefs were the most influential factor, socioeconomic tensions, and ergot poisoning are also strongly supported theories. A combination of motives seems the most rational explanation of the frenzy that followed the illness of the two girls. This paper looks closely at the some of the possible causes of one of the most notable occurrences in history.
Tituba’s confession sparked a massive, hysterical, witch hunt in which at least 22 people were killed, in which nineteen people were hanged, between four to thirteen people who died in prison, and one person who was pressed to death. What is astounding is that although Betty and Abigail were the ones that were possibly sick, many others played along and accused people. Together, they accused almost 100 people of be...