The Crucible introduction witch hunts Salem The Salem

The Crucible introduction

witch hunts - Salem • The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, and were based on the accusations of a twelve-year-old girl named Anne Putnam. • Putnam claimed that she had witnessed a number of Salem's residents holding black sabbaths and consorting with Satan. • Based on these accusations, an English-American clergyman named Samuel Parris spearheaded the prosecution of dozens of alleged witches in the Massachusetts colony. • Nineteen people were hanged and one pressed to death over the following two years.

witch hunts – Miller’s era • Miller's play employs these historical events to criticize the moments in humankind's history when reason and fact became clouded by irrational fears and the desire to place the blame for society's problems on others. • Dealing with elements such as false accusations, manifestations of mass hysteria, and rumour-mongering, The Crucible is seen by many as more of a commentary on "Mc. Carthyism'' than the actual Salem trials. "Mc. Carthyism" was the name given to a movement led by Senator Joe Mc. Carthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities. • This movement involved the hunting down and exposing of people suspected of having communist sympathies or connections. While those found guilty in Mc. Carthy's witch hunt were not executed, many suffered irreparable damage to their reputations. Miller himself came under suspicion during this time.

witch hunts – currently • The term “witch hunt” is used often used by politicians and other people in the media. Consider what these people have to gain – or lose – by using this term.

scenes • Although the action is continuous in each act of The Crucible, it may be broken into what are called "French scenes. " • A new French scene begins every time a major character enters or exits.

crucible • A crucible is a vessel in which metals are heated to extremely high temperatures, melted down and purified. • The play, The Crucible, shows a community which ignites and burns with accusations of witchcraft, mass hysteria and retribution. • Set in the small town of Salem Massachusetts in 1692, it explores the struggle of one man with his conscience, and his eventual purification. • It is a work of fiction, but based heavily on the historical records of an awful chapter in American history.

setting Salem, Massachusetts, 1692

introduction to Salem • The town of Salem was a small settlement on the east coast of what is now Massachusetts in the United States of America. It was one of the earliest towns in New England, but at the time the play is set, it had been in existence for less than seventy years. • The people of Salem were settlers in a hostile environment - a land in which they struggled to establish farms and live off the land; a land which was bordered by vast unexplored areas. As Abigail reminds us when talking of the death of her parents, there was also a threat from marauding Indian tribes. Life was hard. The religious rigour of Puritanism, under which they lived, made their lives even more harsh and demanding.

Puritanism • A group of Puritans, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, sailed on The Mayflower to New England in 1620. Their strict religious ways had become unpopular in England, and they sailed to North America to escape religious persecution Other Puritans and colonists followed. • Puritans lived by a strict code. They kept to simple, plain dress. Men ruled the household, and took all the major decisions. Children knew their place and were expected to be dutiful. They did not have much in the way of entertainment, as they didn't allow dancing, theatre, reading for pleasure and they did not even celebrate Christmas. Attendance at church was essential and strict records were kept of who attended and who did not. Note how Hale persistently questions the Proctors on their attendance at church. Unnecessary work and household chores on Sundays were frowned upon.

Puritanism - continued • They had a binding duty to the Church and were ruled by the words of the Bible. If the Bible, therefore, acknowledged the existence of witches then Puritans would believe in their reality. As Proctor states: 'The Bible speaks of witches and I will not deny them'. • As you read the play, consider the effects of Puritanism on such characters as Parris, Abigail, Proctor and Elizabeth.

Witchcraft • To the people of seventeenth century Salem, witchcraft was a very real and potent threat. Across Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many people - perhaps those seen as odd or outsiders - were accused of being witches, and were tortured and executed. • The persecution of witches spread to England under the rule of James I and with the Puritans, it also spread to the new settlements on the east coast of America. • The Church said that witches made a contract with the Devil and that the witches kept a book with signatures of those contracted to the Devil. The Devil would then work through them and their 'familiars' (evil spirits in the form of an animal a cat or a toad, for example. )

Witchcraft - continued • Witches were thought to commit crimes, such as making cows sick, turning beer sour, flying broomsticks or causing injury to people. • There were said to be various 'proofs' of a witch including: – The testimony of a fellow witch – the common belief/accusation of those who live with the suspected witch – cursing or quarrelling being followed by some mischief or mishap – the person suspected has the Devil's mark (perhaps a birthmark or deformity) – the person contradicts her/himself when questioned. • Matthew Hopkins set himself up as Witch-Finder General, and between 1644 and 1646 he had over 200 people hanged as he searched for witches in the east of England. For each execution he was paid one pound.

‘forces of evil’ • “Those that set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards. ” • Charles W. Chestnutt (1858 -1932) most influential African American writer of fiction during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries