Th Marion Starkey's The Salem Witch Trials Of 1692

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a series of trials held before a magistrate which took place in many parts of Massachusetts, revolving around what was thought to be practice of witchcraft or “Devil’s magic.” Many girls from the town of Salem, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris in particular, falsely accused other townsfolk of possessing them or practicing witchcraft. The government officials of this town believed that the girls were telling the truth about what they claimed to have seen/know and their random outbursts caused by this “demonic possession” or having a spell put on them. This scam led on by a couple of teenage girls ultimately ended up taking the lives of 20 people before it was demanded to stop by higher Massachusetts government officials and the cases were proved as a mistake. Since then, many psychologists, philosophers, and historians have tried to figure out the motive of the teenage girls.

First published in 1949,

The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials by Marion L. Starkey is the first novel to ever be written about the Salem witch trials using the unpublished verbatim transcripts of trial records and documents from the 1692 events. Marion Starkey decided to write this book after taking two psychology classes in her graduate years at Harvard, because she was interested in giving people more insight on what happened and what could have been going on psychologically in the minds of the people of the Massachusetts cities affected by this. Therefore her goal of this book was to tell the story of the Salem Witch Trials in it’s entirety (events leading up to it, the trials, the people involved, etc) and to “apply modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria.” I believe the intended audience would be at least college level students who are looking to find in depth information on the trials while still staying interested by the narrative part of the book.
The Devil in Massachusetts starts off in chapter one by describing the two main characters, Abigail and Betty, in depth about their personalities, views on their religion, and their family backgrounds. Abigail and Betty are cousins. Starkey describes Betty as “really sweet, biddable little girl, ready to obey anyone who spoke with conviction” (23). Abigail is described as a careless hellion. The first few chapters are mainly about people involved that were close to Abigail and Betty, such as Tituba, the Parris’s African American slave. One day the girls were with Tituba getting their fortune told because that was something that Tituba enjoyed doing - fortune telling. Shortly after, Betty starts acting in weird ways like barking and having crying fits or faints. Abigail caught it out of what seemed like contagion and few other women in the town started experiencing these random seizes and fits. The doctor ruled out everything and then diagnosis that “the evil hand is on them” (Starkey, 42) meaning that he diagnosed them as possessed by the Devil, which the town did not take lightly. The magistrates soon wanted to know who was the cause of this to the precious children of their town, but the girls would not say. Eventually they started to accuse some random people and some they already knew. The girls would claim to see ghosts or demons talking into the ears of the accused and claimed they saw the accused practicing witchcraft. The magistrates confided in the young women who were accusing and set up trials for everyone accused of this. The magistrates would believe anything that the girls would say, including if they were accusing women or men of God and who had never done anything wrong in their lives. Although their accusals left the people of their town questioning how people of God could commit such an act of the Devil, these people accused were still thrown in jail/hung. The story goes on to name what seems like 100 people who were accused, the stories of them and why they were accused, and walks through their trial and sentencing. It briefly mentions hysteria and what could possibly be the causes of the the Salem Witch scandal. It explains the horrors of getting accused and how no matter what you said, no one would believe you. Some of the accused would get so freaked out and overwhelmed at trials that they would confessed to things they didn’t do, just because they knew that either way, they were going to be punished. The story describes what it was like after the trials were over. Towards the end chapters it speaks of the people who had admitted to lying about what was going on with them, who they said were witches, and asked for forgiveness from God.
Starkey’s angle of this book was to argue that the reason for the teenagers fraudulent acting and accusations was because they were suffering from a psychological condition known as hysteria. She claims they were experiencing this condition because of the subdued nature of living a Puritan lifestyle and in a Puritan community. She also argues that there were economic and social reasons behind why this hysteria might have affected nearly the whole town. Marion Starkey definitely reaches one of her goals in this book which is to tell the story of the Salem Witch Trials. She does so by explaining in detail the background of almost every girl or woman who was an accuser and describing the story of every person accused in what seems like an on going list throughout the whole book. She was able to give readers actual insight to the trials by using accurate information and conversations between the townspeople. She claims that one of her goals is to apply her modern knowledge of psychiatry to the witchcraft hysteria and she does so by adding in conversations that were not actually said between the people so that she could better show what she believes the people involved were thinking or feeling. Starkey touches vaguely on the hysteria theory and reasons behind what might’ve caused this witch hunt. While Starkey’s book is well supported by factual and crucial background information on the trials/characters involved and narrated well to show the readers what could have been being said, I did not notice much, if any, psychiatric knowledge being used besides the fictitious conversations. Although she does mention in the Preface that this book is not meant to be a psychological monograph, it seems as if she forgot about the psychology part all together besides somewhat using it when describing the children. I believe she did a great job of informing the readers on the (not so) interesting lives of the community people back then and gave knowledgeable information on what happened during that terrifying time, and although there were some points when psychology/psychiatry was used and backed up with evidence, I do not believe she carried out her goal of applying psychiatry throughout the whole book. I do agree with her theory of hysteria being the cause of this and her views on economic/social problems being what caused the hysteria.
Starkey’s reasoning for thinking hysteria, defined as a “psychological disorder whose symptoms include conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms, selective amnesia, shallow volatile emotions, and over-dramatic or attention-seeking behavior,” relies around many central problems. Starkey believed that the reason the girls were facing the stress that caused this hysteria was because of their Puritan style life. Puritans believed that your destiny was chosen at birth of whether you would be sent to Heaven or Hell, and that either way there was nothing you could do to change it. Although Abigail did not always obey the lifestyle of a Puritan as she was described to be interested in the talk of the devil and did not necessarily care what bad thing she did because she knew her destiny was already predetermined. Betty was different in that she always obeyed Puritan lifestyle and was more of a timid person. Starkey says “One is never more delicately an individual than in the teens, or more resentful of crude generalizations that ignore the precious individuality” (66). This leads me to think that all of the girls involved in the accusing literally just wanted to be the center of attention and act out because of society's perception of them being that they are perfect children of God. They had to stick to a boring life basically described as waking up to work for your meal and then doing the same thing the next day. “She was a child who long to make far more noise in the world than she had ever been permitted to make,” (25) Starkey describes Abigail. It is plain to see that these girls were bored and seeking attention, especially Abigail. The book speaks briefly about how Abigail knew what her and Betty were doing was wrong but that she was “so constructed that up to a point the guilt only added zest to the adventure” (31). Making it clear that Abigail definitely had some kind of underlying psychological issue, though all of the girls definitely had issues as well. Another reason that Starkey makes clear to be a possible reason for the hysteria caused was that during the Winter of 1691 Indian raids were happening frequently and King Phillip’s War had just begun. A huge theory is that Abigail lost family members in the indian raids that could’ve caused her her mental stability. Adding to that, the people of Massachusetts had just lost their charter in 1684 and were not sure they were going to get it back, which made the people of Massachusetts think that God had declared them unworthy. A smallpox epidemic had just come and pass through the colony. Most of them thought for sure that doomsday was coming because of all the bad happening. She describes people as having frantic anxiety over all of the events happening and it being the possible reason that caused the witchcraft hysteria. The reason for the believing of this hysteria by the magistrates is unknown. It is said that the magistrates were stressed out about all of the bad news in their town that any time another person was accused they were locked up without realistic evidence just to hush the town. Starkey really only included one paragraph about the Hysteria which claims that no one can ever know in full detail what happened because the people failed to record data then. Basically her way of incorporating psychology in with the witchcraft hysteria was by describing the people involved, though there was not much psychology involved in the descriptions and by evolving her own conversations between them. For trying to apply “modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria” being the main goal of this book, there was not much information on it.
Marion Starkey wrote The Devil in Massachusetts as a narrative in order to psychologically try to get into the minds of the people then and show readers what could have possibly been said, while also using some of the actual things said by people in trials.

In my opinion, I thought that since this book was written as a narrative Although this book is nonfiction and she states in her preface “one thing I want to make clear. This is history, not fiction,” I believe that making it into a narrative took away from the factual information in the book. From the moment when she says “I had let my imagination run wild” in the preface, it makes the reader feel as if what they are reading is not true at all. I understand that by doing this it was to get people to think about how the people were feeling and to dramaticize the story so that the reader could easily imagine the depths of horror these people went through, and it worked. I just think that if many of the conversations are fabricated, that some of the other information must be

too.
I would not recommend this book to people. It does have a lot of useful information about the Salem Witch Trials but almost too much. The author used too many names that it was hard to keep up with who is who. The story drug on and it seems like the whole book just talked about people getting accused the whole time. I thought it was going to be a lot more factual and more in depth about the psychology part of it. It was useful to learn more about the people of the trials and the possible causes of the witchcraft hysteria.