Salem Possessed essays

Salem Possessed essays In the past, the word Salem has always been somewhat synonymous with the infamous witch trials. Rather than overlook the ordinary people living in the towns in which Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum write, they instead take the instance of the witch trials of 1692 and springboard from them into a detailed inquisition into the entire history of the small village of Salem. In their own words, Boyer and Nissenbaum have exploited the focal events of 1692 somewhat as a stranger might make use of a lightning flash in the night. That is to say, the authors strive to show how the witch trials were not simply a completely spontaneous event, but rather a long, horrible process by which individuals were singled out, tried, and executed in order to vent emotions of hostility towards change. Boyer and Nissenbaum proposed that one difference between the accusers and the accused was a difference of economic status. The way in which the authors go about this, however, is in a somewhat difficult to comprehend style that goes back and forth between the years, forcing one to rethink all the facts thus far each time a new chapter is introduced. In addition, the authors tend to focus mostly on the social and economic aspects of witchcraft, with little to nothing as far as further explanation of the actions of the women accused. In the year 1692, the small farming village of Salem, Massachusetts saw a social phenomenon that would propel the village into the history books: the calamity that was witchcraft. The witch trials were initiated whenever three young girls, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam were caught performing fortune telling rituals in the woods, trying to gather information on what type of man would be best for them. Soon thereafter, the girls began experiencing hysterical fits, prompting Betty Parriss father, Reverend Samuel Parris, to call in the authorities to confirm the cause of the girls symptoms. The authoriti...