Specific Purpose Statement: To persuade my audience to stop the witch-hunts
Character: Concerned citizen of Salem just before the hanging of Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor
Concerned citizens of Salem, if it were a good mornin' I would bid you that, however it is not. This mornin' a grave injustice is looming like the grey clouds before a storm. This morning we will bear witness to yet another brutal and senseless murder of two innocent Christians, Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor. Ladies and gentlemen, for four long months the very court that proposed to protect us from all evil has deceived us and in fact perpetuated the evil doings running rife throughout our fair town. For four long months a prodigious fear has settled itself in our very hearts, a fear of the unknown and a fear of becoming one of the accused. My friends, it must be clear to any truly Christian society that the devil be not among us in the form of witchery or wizardry, but in the manifestation of vengeance! I implore you to take a stand, to band together and to put a stop to this madness before it completely takes hold of Salem and you too are on trial for witchcraft!
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not God's work to kill. It is not God's work to coerce innocent Christians into admitting a connection with the devil when none so obviously exists! "Thou shalt not kill," is but one of the ten fundamental commandments legislated by the Lord himself in the Bible. Any true Christian would recognise the brutality of these witchcraft hangings as simply a blatant disregard for the Holy Bible itself. Has it not occurred to the officials of the court that those that have confessed have only done so out of the fear of hangin' for telling the truth? Aye, Goody Good and ...
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...e victims' connection with the devil. I plead with you to band together and stop this injustice!
Our Holy Bible states: "Trust not in lying words." Let us not take heed of the vengeful Putnams' accusations. Let us not take heed of the girls' falsified and malicious accusations. Let us band together to stop these outlandish witch-hunts. Our neighbours in Andover have revolted against the demonising of good folk. Let us then too revolt against the condemnation of innocent Christians. Let us revolt against the very system responsible for the deaths of so many innocent Christians! Let us express our indignation at the flawed witch-hunt inquisition and finally restore peace to our fair town of Salem.
Donna M. Campbell. "The Salem Witch Trials." wsu. n.p., 2010. Web. 18 February 2014. .
The floor creaks between each one of their pauses. The silence is deadly. Should I dishonor my lord? The pressure I just can’t stop pacing back and fourth, my skin is tender and sweaty. Salem’s gone mad! All the women be crying witchcraft! But the only one that bewitching is that whore Abigail Williams. Reverend Parris caught her in the forest leading the young ones into the depths of sin, yet I am the one to blame. Its as if I’ve gone crazy myself. They all be believing the devil is loose in Salem. But the Lord may not shine through the unfaithful. She be confessing that my Elizabeth Proctor be practicing witchcraft. I will not believe none of it. She is the biggest sinner in the house of the lord, a liar. How may she call heaven? She may think God sleeps, but God sees everything. God knows a sinner.
Numerous individuals may be quick to accuse others of wrong doings that are not necessarily the truth. In this matter, it is evident in the Salem Witch Trails, which happened in 1692, where individuals accused their own neighbors of witchcraft because of unforeseen death or sickness. Moreover, it led to 200 innocent human-beings that were accused of worshiping the devil’s work, which led to 19 helpless individuals who were hanged because of these untruthful allegations. Furthermore, the Salem Witch Trails were a historical event that is due to lack of knowledge, selfishness, and inhumanity.
However comforting it is to look back at the Salem witch trials as a ...
Proctor exemplifies an ordinary second class Puritan of Miller’s adaptation of the bloodthirsty town of Salem, Massachusetts. Miller fabricates the character of Proctor to appear wholesome and scrupulous, however, acts of sacrilege in the form of adultery tarnish the character’s reputation, thus bringing to light the scepticism of an exclusively Puritan society. Proctor embodies the qualities revered by the Puritans; diligence, integrity, and frugality. Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth Proctor, is an advocate of John’s morality, describing her husband as “a good and righteous man. He is never as drunk as some are, nor wastin’ his time at the shovelboard but always at his work” pg. 100. Miller skilfully constructs a well-rounded character epitomising the ideal Puritanical figure, however, man’s tendency to be fallible resulted in a fatal flaw in the character of John Proctor. This flaw, also being a sin, is his lust and infidelity. Miller demonstrates the influence of cultural relativism through Proctor’s incapacity to absolve his own sins, despite his wife’s forgiveness, “I do not judge you. The magistrate that lives in your heart judges you.” pg. 55. This ‘magistrate’ is denoted by Miller to symbolise Proctor’s conscious, which was moulded and cultivated by the Puritans of Salem. The
I had been in the village for all but a week when I realized there was something... wrong. There seemed to be an underlying atmosphere of fear and animosity. Of course, with my wide-eyed, innocent thinking at the time, I assumed the presence of Satan had damaged the townspeople 's trust of one another. Again, I blissfully accepted this, and I was wrong.
In today’s times, witches are the green complexed, big nosed ladies who ride around on broomsticks at Halloween. Back in the 1600’s, witches looked like average people, but they worked alongside the devil. Salem, Massachusetts, was a religious town of Puritans. They were strong believers in God, and had believed that witches were the devils workers. Everything was usual in Salem in 1692, until, 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigale Williams had sudden outbursts of screaming, contortions and convulsions, the doctor came and diagnosed witchcraft (Blumberg, Jess) And from this time on, the people of Salem believed there were witches all around them.
Parris and Danforth prioritize their reputations over John Proctor’s actual life. Hale does not care about his good name, but about the lives of the people in Salem and his guilt for partaking in the trials. Like Proctor, Parris, Hale, and Danforth are extremely flawed men. They all make unrighteous decisions that can be selfish. Unlike Proctor, though, these men place their own needs above the needs of the community. John Proctor has lived in Salem all his life and cares for the town and its citizens, whereas Reverend Hale, Reverend Parris, and Danforth are all outsiders to the town. They place themselves above the well-beings of the townspeople for the reason that they do not care if Salem is to be destroyed. Reverend Parris, Reverend Hale, and Deputy Governor Danforth’s yearn of John Proctor’s confession represents they only care for their own self-interests and not about what his confession could do for the town of
For centuries the Salem witch trials have astonished historians, and people in general. People were executed based on accusations of being a witch. People were afraid of being accused. Chaos continued to ensue as neighbors, friends, and family turned against one another. The very people who lived under the same roof turned around accused their own flesh and blood of witchcraft. The events that occurred during the Witchcraft crisis would claim the lives of nearly 20 men and women via execution. Witchcraft was considered a capital crime and anyone accused was tried and potentially executed. The only escape from execution was to confess. Several girls, women, and even men stood at the center of a pivotal event in history. There is no real answer
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.
One of the turning points of the war was in 1777, when the British surrendered at Saratoga with over 5,500 troops. After General Horatio Gates and General John Burgoyne came in conflict, but the latter understood that supplies were lackluster, they had to surrender. This battle would result in France entering the loop of the war and siding with the Americans, attacks from out of Canada would be secured and New England isolation would be all prevented because of this battle.
Gretchen A. Adams, the author of the journal, describes how the stereotype and image of colonial puritans were portrayed as hasty prosecutors, and victims to mass hysteria. “In fact, Salem’s witch-hunt…operated under the influence of “hysteria, witch hunts, or vigilantes”, this excerpt talks about how even in the mid-20th century people were using the Salem witch trials as an example of hysteria and prosecution (Adams p.24). In ‘Escaping Salem’, Godbeer talks about how even the people of Stamford also went into a panic, “Once the Wescots…had to be willing to speak out” (p.10). This shows that even when Stamford witch hunt was mild compared to the Salem hunts, people still can assume the worst when a conflict happens. The article later mentions how Americans in the 19th century were exaggerating the witch trials as a means of propaganda against the northern politicians, “In the 1850s… uniquely suited to derive the maximum emotional reaction from its intended audience” (Adams
John M. Murrin’s essay Coming to Terms with the Salem Witch Trials helps detail the events of these trials and explains why they might have occurred. The witch trials happened during a “particularly turbulent time in the history of colonial Massachusetts and the early modern atlantic world” (Murrin, 339). Salem came to be in 1629 and less than seventy years later found itself in a mess of witch craft.
Salem 1692, two girls ,Betty Parris, age nine, and her eleven year old cousin Abigail Williams, had a dream. They wanted to be the best actors in the village. They worked very hard to do that and they got twenty people killed. Betty and Abigail were Puritans and they are not supposed to lie or they would end up with the devil in the afterlife, but it seemed like they didn’t care. That’s why we ask, why were people blaming the innocent for being witches in Salem, 1692? The Salem Witch Trials were caused by two poor, young girls who acted possessed. There were also other people who took the risk of lying and accused other people. Most of the accusers were under the age of twenty and woman. The little girls caused the Salem Witch Trials hysteria by pretending to be possessed. Most of the accusers were poor and lived in the western part of the town.
The Salem Trials took place between the 10th of June and the 22nd of 1692 and in this time nineteen people. In addition to this one man was pressed to death and over 150 people where sent to jail where four adult and one infant died. Although when compared to other witch-hunts in the Western world, it was ‘a small incident in the history of a great superstition,’ but has never lost its grip on our imagination’ . It’s because of this that over the last three centuries many historians have analysed the remaining records of the trials in order to work out what the causes and events were that led to them.