Rosalyn Schanzer's Witches: The Absolutely True Tale Of Disaster In Salem

In the book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, Rosalyn Schanzer describes what happens all because two girls fell ill. When Betty and Abigail started having fits, a doctor diagnosed them as bewitched. Almost immediately they accused the first witch, their slave Tituba. From there all the accusations started pouring out, Ann Putnam Jr., a friend of Betty and Abigail, became “afflicted” as well as multiple others, and soon the jails were overflowing. The first “witch” was hanged on June 10, and the last “witches/wizards” were hanged on September 22. The most likely reasons for the accusations were a thirst for revenge, boredom, and peer/parental pressure.
The first reason for the accusations is that there was a thirst for revenge brewing in their malicious hearts. On page 47 Edward Putnam accused Rebecca Nurse, and on page 50 it states, “...really a way to take revenge against the Nurse family? Rebecca’s father had often battled with the Putnam family over

their farm boundaries.

Besides that,...” and it goes on to list another of the prodigious topics of conflict between the two families. In an article, “The quest for revenge can be seen as: 1) a motivation for aggression; 2) as a source of psychological distress; 3) as a key factor in the philosophical discussion of punishment and justice”(Paragraph 5 RotDfR) is noted about revenge and how it influences people. On a DBQ for the Salem Witch Trials it talks about hysterical convulsions which represents psychological distress. In the book Witches!... the violent

way “witches tortured” the afflicted as well as the vicious way the witches were treated once arrested, are described. The way the judges themselves scrutinized the so-called witches by using spectral evidence when seeking justice, as stated on page 77 of Schanzer’s Witches!..., “His witches were so cruel and bloody, said the pastor, that it was the judges’ duty to use every tool in the book-including spectral evidence- to see that they were hanged”(there is also another quote, “... almost every person who had landed in jail had been locked up because of evidence from the Invisible World of spirits” 76 Schanzer), represents the discussion of punishment and justice in a sense.
The second reason for these horrid accusations was boredom. Remember, these girls had virtually no entertainment and did chores for most of their day. “...reported that one girl said they went after the innocent suspects ‘for sport… we must have some sport’”(Schanzer 113). Their wishes most likely went unheeded for the better part of the time. “Boredom can also influence your actions in negative ways.” (Paragraph 1 Markman), this is clearly noticed in the way some of the “afflicted” faked their convulsions to gain attention and in a sense respect, just by accusing innocent people. “when people have trouble focusing their attention and they believe the reason for this difficulty is in the environment.”(Paragraph 2 Markman), a young person (as many of the accuser’s were), often has trouble focusing, which could lead to boredom and bad decisions.
The third reason for these outrageous accusations was peer and parental pressure. Throughout the text of Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches!... it is noticed that once the first accusations were made the close friends of the girls soon began naming their own witches, causing a sort of butterfly effect. Ann Putnam Jr. later confesses “I justly fear I have been instrumental with others, though unwittingly,...I was a chief instrument of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters,...” (Schanzer 124-125), this implies that her parents in some way manipulated her, of little to know knowledge to her, into condemning people they despised. “parents have a significant influence on how children turn out, including their personality, emotional development, and…”(Paragraph 2 Murphy), this quote backs up the statement that parents influenced their children’s decisions based on their own embitterment. “We are all influenced by our peers, both negatively and positively, at any age.”(Paragraph 3 Scholastic), notice that at the time Ann and others like her did not think anything of the cantankerous things she was doing, but simply lived in what she felt right at the moment. That is how peer and parental influence brought forth the accusations.
While others may think that the reason is in fact a mental illness or disorder, the causes of the accusations in the infamous Salem Witch Trials were revenge, boredom, and peer/parental influence as some of the accusers later stated that they had lied about most if not all of their evidence and/or named witches. The significance of these reasonings is found in problematic situations today.