They call us witches because we frighten them. After all, that’s the first thing you’re supposed to do when you’re afraid of something, isn’t it? Pin a name on it, make it different than yourself, and then it’s easy to pretend it’s less than human. So it is with us. It doesn’t matter that we look, breathe, live like they do. It doesn’t matter that we went to their churches or helped deliver their children. It doesn’t matter that we’re just trying to find some happiness in the same short lifetime that they are. No, we’re different, we’re witches, and so they make our lives hell. We always knew it would be hard. We knew there’d be harassment, but not on this level. Never on this level. We never sleep anymore. There’s always someone just outside the door, yelling, threatening, wailing. Once, we even woke to the sound of shattering glass and the reek of smoke. They were trying to burn our house down around us. But it’s not only during the night. Neither of us can go into town without someone pushing us to the dust. Even the children throw stones. The children. …show more content…
The same children that I used to help bring into the world throw rocks at me because they taught them that it was the right thing to do. Ha! And we’re the ones that walk hand in hand with the devil himself. We used to be some of the most active members of their church, but then they locked its doors. They told us that God wouldn’t tolerate such filth in his house. I didn’t remember that from my well-read book, but everyone else accepted it. The reverend’s word was law: God’s and ours. Even our closest friends were crushed under his iron fist. I think that hurt the worst. They didn’t even try to visit us under the cover of darkness to offer a kind word, or a smile when no one was looking. No, it was like we’d never existed at all. And what was the crime for which we were being punished every single day? Love. Love! The one thing that’s supposed to make a life complete has ruined ours. Because it’s different; it’s not something they can understand. Two women, together? Horrific, disgusting, Satanic. They said we’re sick, but how will threats and bruises heal us? Did they honestly think that their daily torture was going to make me release my love’s hand? If they used their brains for anything but padding in their skulls, they’d know that what they do will only make me cling to her tighter: a port in the storm. Maybe they did know. Maybe they knew that we could withstand anything together, so they ripped us apart. Before, I could be a loving Christian, turn the other cheek. I could stand tall while they hit me with their words and their stones. But now they’ve taken the very legs from beneath me. It happened in the middle of the night, when we were too tired to sleep.
We’d gotten used to the screamed threats, and now the frost-tipped night seemed too quiet without them. Everything was silent, and then everything was madness. Our fragile door exploded inward. Phibe screamed. My arms reached for her. I wrapped my body around hers to be a shield, to protect her, and she clung to me in return. Time slowed. Men surrounded our bed and glared down at us. There was a collective breath. Then they reached for us. I tried to fight, but it only loosened my hold on Phibe, and she was ripped out of my arms like a doll from a child. My screams were probably heard all the way across the sea, in the old English town that I’d left for a better life. Phibe reached for me, her screams matching my own, but the man that held her snatched her arm back. There was a stomach-churning crack. Phibe screamed until her voice
shattered. They carried us to the lake, its surface obsidian under the moonless sky. An ice-bringing wind tore through my nightclothes and whipped the surface of the water into roiling chaos. Sickness climbed my throat as the men carried us closer to the shore. Phibe and I met eyes, and I longed to reach out and wipe the frantic tears from her face. The muscular young man that carried me threw me to the ground. A branch clawed my hip. I struggled to catch my breath as the man put a knee on my back, pressed down until I felt something snap, and tied my hands together with a rough-hewn rope. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t even have enough air in my lungs to whisper. I turned my head just in time to watch two other man bound Phibe’s arms and legs as tightly as they could, left her up, and cast her into the lake. Her eyes darted furiously as her dark head of curls was enveloped by water like tar. Between the men and the lake, she wasn’t allowed a last word. That was the last time I ever saw her. My ribs ached and my throat was raw, but I screamed until black dots spun and whirred in my vision. Then I was being lifted into the air. I sucked a breath through my destroyed throat, and then I was in the water. The bone-chilling blackness knocked me senseless, and I sank deeper into its embrace. But only for a moment. With a few kicks, I managed to tear my feet from the hasty knots’ embrace. Then I had to figure out which way was up. There was absolute midnight all around me. A few bubbles escaped from my thin slip. They were my deliverers. With my hands still tied behind my back, I kicked in the direction that the bubbles had risen. My head broke the surface, and I was only able to steal half a breath before furious waves crashed into my mouth. I choked and sank back beneath the water. Liquid rushed between my lips. With another kick, I tasted air again. I coughed and sputtered as my leg muscles jumped and twitched with the effort of keeping me aloft. With the half a moment I earned, I refilled my lungs, then slipped back beneath the surface. My hair wrapped around my face as I thrashed and yanked at my wrists, trying to escape the rope’s hold. If I could get them free, I might live. I could feel the tough fibers ripping into my skin, but I couldn’t stop. I kicked to the surface, took a breath, struggled with the ropes. Kicked, breathed, yanked; kicked breathed, yanked; kicked, breathed, yanked, over and over. I was so tired. And dizzy. The bottom of the lake beckoned. I was giving up when the rope unraveled. I barely had the strength to make it to the surface for the final time. As I sucked air past my blue lips, I glanced around. The men were still waiting on the nearest shore, their arrogant torches lighting their hateful faces, and the other bank seemed so far away. I would never make it, but I was out of options. I couldn’t be sure if the men saw me, but I tried to keep my head low to the top of the water. The black liquid kept washing into my mouth and nose, each drop bringing me a little closer to drowning in it. But I wasn’t going to be stopped that easily. Purpose pushed me much harder than my own limbs. And then I made it. My fingertips scraped rocks. I took a shuddering breath and pushed myself forward just enough to force my upper body onto the land. I laid my cheek to the water-lapped clay and stones and inhaled their wet, earthy scent. When I could, I flipped onto my back and stared up at the stars. They seemed much, much further away than they had when I’d gone to bed. After an eternity, I climbed to my feet. My long hair, tangled and streaked with mug, clung to my face and back, and my raw wrists oozed blood. They’d called us witches and tried to take care of us, did take care of one of us, accordingly. I laughed, high and sharp. They’d tried to get rid of a witch, but in reality, they’d only created one. And I was going to become their new nightmare.
...they don’t understand. Reactions of witch-hunts were based on misconceived panic and anxiety of anything outside of the common religious beliefs. Because of poor record keeping, the exact numbers of men and women persecuted on the account of being witches may never be accurate enough to decide if it was an issue of misogyny.
Witchcraft, the use of magical faculties, most commonly for religious, divinatory or medicinal purposes, something that is supernatural. One would think something of the supernatural order would be null and void to the concepts of social norms and labeling. Well one would be wrong. From the start of this ordeal in Salem social order was one of the first things to be thrown down on the people of Salem. The first three women accused of practicing Witchcraft and being witches were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. These 3 women who lived in Salem during the Witch Craze of 1692 were seen as “rejects” and the “outcast” of the community. Sarah Good was no more than a homeless person, always begging for food and place to sleep. Sarah Osborne wasn’t a poor women like the lesser Sarah but she was a mean old lady who was confined to her bed most of the time due to her old age. Now Titbua, she wasn’t a fre...
. She claims that the proceeding force connected with lady as-witch in this combination creative ability handles the problem on the power that surpasses embellishment and design the particular discernment connected with witches and witchcraft throughout. Looking at these kind of queries could encourage selection that the mention of their imagination and prejudices attached to the particular "lady as-witch" idea that the current strain on females building in popularity can easily trigger anger these days. She slyly evaluates having less adequate traditional beliefs with regards to the part women performed inside creating our community, at a variety of instances.
Thus the very thought of a witch, someone who had infiltrated a virtuous community to carry out their own sinister agenda, struck fear into the hearts of every Puritan who actively subscribed to the religious teachings of the time. Again, in Salem, the antipodal perspectives between light and darkness, God and Lucifer, purity and corruption, are responsible for the extremity of the situation; the same desire to rid the community of a perpetrator, this time unbeknownst, in conjunction with the entire town’s apparent conformity constructed a recipe for the terror and hysteria that accompanied the trials. Miller expounds upon such an idea, relaying that “So now they and their church found it necessary to deny any other sect its freedom, lest their New Jerusalem be defiled and corrupted by wrong ways and deceitful ideas” (Miller 5). This comment directly reflects the xenophobia present in Salem at the time of the trials, as the community’s apparent desire to purge itself essentially echoes the onset of the foreign concepts of individuality and religious independence. Additionally, such foreign concepts are reflected by Paris’s conviction that “a wide opinion’s running in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong” (Miller 27). Paris, sensing “the Devil”, acts as a perfect example of how the steady diversification of the
...ion. The Salem tragedy, which occurred in 1692, makes us feel sympathetic towards the innocent people that died. It almost brings tears to our eyes because these people gave in to death in order to maintain humanity on this Earth. Although the deaths of these people were very tragic, it clearly demonstrates that good deed will always over power evil. The people, who reinforced this statement, were people like John Proctor and Rebecca Nurse. These people uprooted the seeds for evil from the ground, to lay the seeds for goodness. Throughout history citizens have branded people as witches, and warlocks. Maybe, a person act's different than us, or they have strange habits, does this make them a witch? In the Massachusetts Bay Colony in January of 1692, you would be branded a witch for these odd doing's. Being accused of witchcraft had serious consequences (spark notes).
Liz, Kelly. “Moving in the Shadows: Violence in the Lives of Minority Women and Children”
He just turned and left without a word. I touched Lennie’s grave. The rough touch of the wood deflecting to my fingers. I walked back to the ranch. Everyone was asleep. I wanted to run away tomorrow but I couldn’t let this chance pass up. It also prevented any chance of Candy following me. I tiptoed out of the room and went straight to the woods. I made sure to mix myself in with the shadows of the trees. I saw the river and It felt like I did it...until I felt something grab me by my neck. I quickly got flipped over and pushed to the ground.
One day, the daughters of the priest started to act strange. Actually, they weren’t acting a little strange, they were throwing fits everywhere. They screamed, fell, twisted their body to uncomfortable positions, and they hurt themselves. In 1692, the only reasonable explanation was that specters were hurting them. Specters can be initiated by witches, and that means that there are witches in this village. Before long, more girls from the age of 6-20 were being attacked by specters. People were worried. At last, they concluded that there are witches in their society, and they were strong-willed to find the witches.
The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be women and most of those who were accused and executed for being witches were women. Why were women there so many women accused of witchcraft compared to men? Were woman accused of witchcraft because men thought it was a way to control these women? It all happened in 1692, in an era where women were expected to behave a certain way, and women were punished if they threatened what was considered the right way of life. The emphasis of this paper is the explanation of Salem proceedings in view of the role and the position of women in Colonial America.
When someone thinks of a witch, usually he or she thinks about Halloween or the movie The Wizard of Oz. However, during the 16th and 17th century, witches were feared by many. The accusations of witches during this time is the highest reported, more than 500,000 people were tried and more than 100,000 were executed. Many people of the modern era know and believe that witches are not real. This was not the case in the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century. Individuals were prosecuted as witches because people wanted money and to clean up their community, they were women, and the communities needed a scapegoat for their misfortune.
Character: Concerned citizen of Salem just before the hanging of Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor
What do you think when someone calls someone a witch? What comes to mind? Do you think of the movie, ‘Hocus Pocus’ or do you think of the black pointed hats and the long black, slit ended dresses? What about witchcraft? Does the term “Devil worshiper” ever cross your mind? Do you think of potions and spells? For many, many generations, we have underestimated what the true meaning of a witch and what witchcraft really is. What is the history that hides behind it? Witches and witchcraft have been in our history since the ancient times. There is a little bit more than the ghost stories told on Halloween, the movies shown on TV and dressing up on Halloween.
The witch hangs out at the gas station outside of town, dropping thick clouds of smoke from a red-eyed cigarette. She leans against the building, one army boot planted upon asphalt, one angled back upon brick, watching through mirrored aviators and over-bleached bangs as travellers swipe cards, pump gas, and peel out onto the highway. She ignores the town kids slamming down bikes on the sidewalk beside her, eager for evening slushies. They are not here for her, though their eyes snag on her as they tepidly round her corner perch.
The witch is both vulnerable and a powerful figure. The resulting tension between power and powerlessness as a response to laws created by those in power, rather institutionalised power: men, can be seen as expressed through such binary metaphors as that of physical strength and beauty versus weakness and ugliness, kn...
Real and Fake Witches: How Witches Portrayed in Media and Real Life Movies, shows about witches and witchcraft were not a foreign subject for everyone, there are endless titles of stories that are based of the little ancient idea of witchcraft. What most people don’t know of is the fact that there is a portion of the population of this planet still believes in witches and and torture the so-called witch sometimes to death. The violence and cruelty of the torture is like something that came out of a very bloody horror movie scene, which is a pretty contrast between the movies about witches that mostly shows how the amazing lives of being a witch and less torturing witches. Although witches is very familiar to children to adult stories, there