Category: Salem Witch Trials

The Puritans in New England endured the chilliest winters of the time in the period of 1680 to 1730 according to the weather records from Mckaila (2014). In the duration, of the Salem witch trials occurred, hundreds of innocent people had been hounded and nineteen of them were hanged at the end starting in 1962. This assignment is going to argue that the driving factor of these large-scale witch trials was the people’s anxiety by adverse weather at Salem, using case studies and textual research on cod weather theory related to the food shortage, people’s belief of the witch’s ability and the wrath of God at Salem at that time.

The lower temperatures correlated with higher numbers of witchcraft accusations, this cold weather theory was laid out by some scholars in explaining the Salem witch trials. In the Winter 2004 issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, a professor at the University of Chicago, named Emily Oster, became the first to suggest the weather as an explanation of witch mania. Oster (2004) pointed out that the four-hundred-year period of lower-than-average temperature coincided with the most active era of witch-hunting, known to meteorologists as the ‘little ice age’ roughly dating from 1550 to 1800. Furthermore, as previous states, the Salem Witch trials began in the winter of 1691-1692, which was right in the middle of the coldest part of this little ice age.

Firstly, when difficulties in the Puritan community began to arise, such as extreme weather, the blame caused by their anxiety was easily placed on the power of the Devil and the witches. Schuetz (2008) claimed because the Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced by the church and Christian beliefs, the believed presence of the God and Devil was justified in their view, and the witches were the creatures that carried out the Devil’s work in their local community. Behringer (2015) observed in the light of textual evidence from the period, the Puritans consider witches capable of controlling weather and used their powers to cause rain and snow, as well as hail, frost, thunder, and lightning.

The case of an accused woman named Mary Bradbury during the Salem witch-hunting given by Baker (2015) who used his book ‘A Strom of Witchcraft’ to expand Oster’s thesis on cold weather theory, could be an example. A sailor was blaming her due to an incident with a storm eleven years earlier on his ship, she was accused of causing that ship to sink since she created a violent storm that made the sailors lose their cargo, in the Sailor’s accusation to her. Sutter (2008) also asserted that extreme weather would cause people’s fear about the power of nature and make people nervous and anxious, however, when they had no way to against nature, witches became a common scapegoat to express to be blamed. Later on, more people started to use witch hunts to express their negative feelings such as fear, anxiety, and dissatisfaction. Under the extreme weather, the belief of the witch’s presence became more serious, then people who were affected by the anxiety of social instability concluded it must be the work of witches in Salem who needed to be identified in the community and executed.

Secondly, another reason why the witch scare was taken so seriously, and the accused were punished harshly in Salem was because the Puritans assumed the adverse weather was related to the wrath of God in their common belief. Baker (2015) also argued that everything including extremes of weather was a sign of God’s pleasure and displeasure, for the Puritans in New England living before the age that people could use science to explain the changeable nature signs. Not only harsh winters, but also summer droughts and early frost which made failed crops could be the harbingers, and the Puritans set rigid laws and strict moral codes to maximally prevent themselves from receiving these harbingers of God’s displeasure.

Then the members of the Salem community felt that it was their duty to rid the community of sinners who did not obey the strict Puritans code and offended their God, as a result, everyone in Salem was already suffering the consequence of God’s displeasure, such as the chilliest winters of the time. In fact, people who were considered as sinners played a huge role in this accusation and conviction, most of the victims in the Salem witch trials were social outcasts who stayed away from the rigid religious lifestyle. Linder (2008) stated examples from one the first women to be accused of a witch named Sara Osborn who had been scandalized previously by her neighbors for having premarital sexual relations and also not attending church regularly. These kinds of unfaithful behaviors had failed to uphold the community values and would most likely incur the wrath of God in the view of believers.

Furthermore, Oster (2012) theorizes that the connection stems from the fact that the witches were believed to be able to not only control the weather but also cripple food production. The adverse weather of the Little Ice Age led to local crop failure, and the poor conditions with failed crops were also resulting famine and distress in Salem. When the people suffered from harvests due to the extreme weather, Baker (2015) argued that ‘the more miserable people are, the more likely they would trace a scapegoat to blame all the problems.’ Thus, under starvation and poor economic conditions, desperate people in Salem traced troubles to their unpopular neighbors and outcasts who were normally considered as allied to the devil.

The 1680s and 1690s are now known as the Maunder Minimum, a time of freezingly cold winters and dry summers, parts of the result in Massachusetts, New England was increasing crop failures and also the shortages of fish. Statistics given by Baker (2015) show that many towns in Massachusetts produced an agricultural surplus and exported foodstuffs before the Maunder Minimum, however, starting from the 1680s to 1690s, Massachusetts became a net importer of all kinds of cereal crops like corn and wheat from elsewhere. Therefore, the anxiety caused by the food shortage and poor economic conditions made people start to accuse each other as witches should take responsibility for people’s hardship in Salem, at the end, more than 200 people were accused, and nineteen of them were found guilty and executed by hanging.

To conclude, the anxiety by the extremes of weather was a leading factor in the case of the Salem witch trials. Witch-hunting may be an instance of anxiety and scapegoating promoted by a deterioration in life and social conditions brought on primarily by an increase in winter severity which led to food shortages and people’s fears from their common religious beliefs.

What if I told you that the world we live in is much more similar to the 1692 Salem Witch Trials than you thought? Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ speaks about these aforementioned trials through the eyes of those living during the era. Chaos in Salem spread after the accusations of witchcraft against Reverend Parris’ slave, Tituba, due to the fact that his daughter, Betty, became ill with no plausible explanation. Tituba, being brought into custody for interrogation, admits to witchcraft, as if she refused, she would be hung. In hopes to save her own life, she names other people across the town, accusing them of witchcraft. This leads to a spiral of false accusations, and a massive court hearing, this ridiculous conspiracy theory results in the death of twenty innocent people. This staggering event shares common values with today’s society, specifically the topics of false accusations, lies, and doing anything to uphold your reputation, whether it be in ‘The Crucible’, or modern day life.

False accusations held one of the largest, if not the largest role in the Salem Witch Trials. After Tituba was accused, she was forced to plead guilty, leading to her falsely accusing many people of the town, saying “You lie, Devil, you lie!’ And then he come one stormy night to me, and he say, ‘Look! I have white people belong to me.’ And I look—and there was Goody Good…[and Goody Osburn]” (Miller, 44). Abigail then admits to witchcraft, saying that she “saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller, 45). This led to all of these people being charged with witchcraft, some of which refused to plead guilty, resulting in their deaths. On the other hand, the ones who admitted to save their own lives, begin to accuse even more people of the town of being witches.

False accusations were clearly a very important part of the Salem Witch Trials, and false accusations continue to be an epidemic in today’s society. One major case is the Duke Lacrosse Case of 2006. Three members of the men’s lacrosse team whom attended Duke University were falsely accused of rape by a black female stripper, Crystal Gail Mangum. The district attorney, Mike Nifong, claimed that it was a hate crime. This led to many officials in the men’s lacrosse team being forced to resign. The district attorney was then fired, and charged for “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation”, he was also charged with criminal contempt for tampering with evidence. This is just one of thousands of false accusations, another example of false accusations is the wrongful murder of Jesse Tafero, a 44 year old man who was accused of the murder of two Florida Highway Patrol officers, he was found guilty depsite the lack of evidence, and was executed in 1990. His electric chair malfunctioned three times, resulting in him being tortured for crimes he did not commit. Thankfully, the ones being falsely accused in the Duke Lacrosse Case were found innocent, but unfortunately for Jesse Tafero, he was found guilty and murdered. There are thousands more cases of both men and women falsely accused of crimes, some of which remain in jail falsely to this day.

The foundation of false accusations falls along the basis of lies, and deception. In ‘The Crucible’, Betty Parris lies, and falsely accuses Abigail Williams of “[drinking] a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! [Drinking] a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” (Miller, 18). This leads to Abigail being falsely accused of witchcraft, and deception. This is ultimately a turning point in ‘The Crucible’ and is one of the main factors that leads to the death of John Proctor, as from this point onwards, his character becomes angrier until being accused of witchcraft, and his unfortunate murder. The theme of lies and deceit continue throughout the novel, ultimately killing many innocent people, and harming the lives of Salem, and the people whom occupy it.

A major scandal based upon lies and deceit is the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal of 1998. This took place during President Bill Clinton’s second term in office, exposing an affair he had with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, similar to the affair John Proctor had with Abigail Williams. The affair took place from 1995 to 1997, and was revealed in January of 1998. Clinton was accused of sexual harassment, and as a result, was in the process of being impeached. In late January of 1998, Clinton made a televised speech, stating that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”. Clinton was doing everything he could possibly do in order to maintain his role as president, and his reputation. He was acquitted of all charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, and was held in civil contempt for giving misleading testimony. As he was already being investigated for other scandals, such as the whitewater scandal, he was put on trial for impeachment, however, was voted to remain in office. Bill Clinton’s many lies during not only this case, but his presidency, would have a ripple on the world of politics, and remains as a major remembrance for everyone in the world. Were it not for his lies, deceit, and indifference, the world as we know it would be much different.

These staggering events discussed share common values with today’s society, specifically the topics of false accusations, lies, and doing anything to uphold your reputation, whether it be in ‘The Crucible’ or in modern day life. The Duke Lacrosse case, Jesse Tafero case, and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, are just a few of the many examples of these topics. The world we live in is not so different then the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, which may come as a surprise. However, us as a society have gradually improved over time, yet we still have a lot of work to do. Next time you read about a major scandal, think about its importance to not only those involved, but to the entire world.

Have you ever heard of the town of Salem? It’s a town located in Massachusetts that started the Salem witch trials. Several horrifying things occurred during the time in which the trials were happening. The trials occurred all the way from February 1962 to May 1963. This event was one of the many significant events of the first colonies. The effects on individuals that were involved were very severe. One example including a lady by the name of Abigail Hobbs. Abigail was a normal teenage girl that was arrested and prosecuted for witchcraft.

Social and monetary strains propelled the trials, during the 1690s. During the time when adults inside the town watched the crazed conduct of a few young girls, they decided the young ladies were not witches, but instead they were accused of taking part by the witchcraft of others on the girls. These young girls were badgered by the adults to tell the authorities who the witches are. But instead, the adults were telling the kids to tell authorities that neighbors and other colonists that they may disapprove of or wanted to get back at them. The reason for disapproval is thought to be because of the strict religious rules as well as societal rules that the puritans which are people who regarded the reformation of the church of England.

During the trials there where over two hundred individuals had been accused of being witches by September of 1692. Not everybody that was put on trial for witchcraft was arrested by law enforcement. Between one hundred and forty people and one hundred and fifty people were captured for witchcraft during the search. The amount of people that died out of the one hundred and fifty people during the trials is twenty people. Nineteen of those individuals where hung fourteen of them being female and five of them being male. One individual was tortured to death as well as four more people who died in the holding while awaiting trial. The other caught people where either saw as blameworthy yet pardoned, found innocent, dodged capture or got away from prison or were never prosecuted.

The abundant number of accused witches caused overflow in jails, therefore, the accused witches where kept in multiple different jails in areas of Salem, Boston, and Ipswich. The accused witches were viewed as dangerous prisoners and were held in dungeons to prevent contact with the regular prisoners. The conditions of the prisons were very bad when it comes to the treatment of the prisoners. While imprisoned the accused witches were humiliated repeatedly by being forced to undergo full examinations of their bodies. What the authorities were trying to find is physical evidence such as witch marks, or devil’s marks that the accused individuals were witches. But the physical evidence witch marks that they were looking for in the examination were just birthmarks and moles. That would have led them to believe that whoever it is that they are examination was a witch. During the occurrence of the repeated examinations, the prisoners were stripped nude in front of a crowd of people poking and prodding, if any suspicious marks or moles where located during examinations they were pricked off with needles.

In order to determine if the case was an accusable case, they were taken to the Salem a special court called the Court of Oyer and Terminer, this court hearing is to determine whether to indict the accused. The accused were asked questions by a judge with a jury present, but were not able to have a defense attorney but could take witness statements. For the ones that unfortunate enough to be prosecuted and sentenced to execution by hanging. The location of where the prosecuted witches were executed is on a small hill called Proctor’s Ledge around the middle of Gallows Hill in Salem Town.

Before the Constitution, the Massachusetts government was primarily dominated by conservative puritan leaders. Puritans are opposed to most of the traditions of the Church of England one of them being the use of the Book of Common Prayer. King Charles was not very pleased with the presence of puritans and was very hostile towards them. Therefore, some Puritans and other small religious minorities looked for refuge in the Netherlands but most of them migrated to North America to establish their own society.

The world is just as unscrupulous as its people. Looking back, they are made aware of the haunting payoff of deceit that accompanies an attempt to try to “better” the world. The Crucible is one well-written play that develops the concept of flawed humans. In this play, Arthur Miller depicts the Salem Witch Trials and how they were wrongfully conducted under the purported “law.” The characters manipulated the whole society of the village into believing the drastic idea of witchcraft. Enemies were motivated to carry out their cynical plots and accusations to fulfill their suppressed fantasies. The government authorities focused on minorities and abused their power to clean up Salem’s image. These following actions brewed an outbreak of hysteria. The constant cycle of accusations made it unclear who to believe. All of the following issues: manipulation, abuse of power, and hysteria were justified by the Salemites’ flawed morals, which led them to commit several ruthless acts. The Salem Witch Trials not only prove that cannot trust people, but that the world has been and always will be corrupt. The Crucible authored by Arthur Miller, uncovers the truth about Salem; how the village evoked the Devil through abuse of power, manipulation, and hysteria, as well as insight into the Salemites’ flawed morals and merciless motives.

To start off, the play, heavily influenced by the Salem Witch Trials, was caused by the efforts of manipulation. Manipulation evolved from the subconscious minds of the characters, even if they were not doing this on purpose. Their deep rivalries allowed them to accuse each other. To start off, Abigail stabbed herself in order to accuse Elizabeth Proctor. According to the play, ““Mary Warren: Conjure me? Why no, sir, I am entirely myself I think. Let you ask Susanna Walcott— she saw me sewin’ it in court. Or better still: Ask Abby, Abby sat beside me when I made it” (Miller 76). Dinsticly, the readers are shown the way Abigail’s envy made her manipulate Mary Warren’s doll as well as Goody Proctor. Abigail had a clear motive, which caused her to manipulate the village of Salem (Popkin). Abigail had an affair with John Proctor, who was tied in marriage to Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail wanted John for herself therefore she accused all in her path to “true” love. So, when she saw Mary Warren making a doll, she stabbed herself where the needle was located. To analyze further, there were several underlying issues that motivated the Salemites to accuse their own (Popkin). These motives were a cause of the effect: manipulation.

Additionally, Abigail did not want to be accused of anti-Puritan crimes, so she accused several Salem women. Puritan life was very strict and did not allow any engagement in fun. Abigail danced and acted as a cult with her friends, therefore she could not possibly tell the only truth. In the text it states, ““Abigail: I want to open myself! They turn to her startled. She is enraptured, as though in a pearly light. I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller 48). Accordingly, Abigail did not want to tell her truth, so she deceived everyone. By accusing women like Sarah Good, Goody Osburn, and Bridget Bishop, she was able to use witchcraft as a way to get rid of her enemies or disliked neighbors. The Salemites were so blinded by their religion that they did not see the devil was Abigail. Not only did she avoid a whipping or punishment but she also was favored in court because children do not lie. Salemites had a fear of witches and were never exposed to the “real world” (Decter). The play showed the horrors of heroic resistance to a society indulged in witchcraft, leading to their ruin (Penn State University Press). The village of Salem was fueled by Abigail’s personal and deep set motives, which lead them to their own reputational ruin. Undoubtedly, manipulation was the major factor behind the downfall of Salem and its Puritan followers.

Also, the people of Salem used their malicious motives to hang their own, not the widely spread idea of witchcraft. Salemites faced several feuds against each other regarding territories, power, and law. Based on the evidence provided, “Proctor and Parris now engage in just such a dispute, showing us their own personal hostility and helpfully bringing in some additional exposition concerning the land war, the rivalry over ministerial appointments, and the issue of Parris’s salary. These are the real, underlying issues that motivate the men of Salem” (Popkin 142). Certainly, religious and land quarrels caused rivalries and Salemites began to display hatred against each other. For example, John Proctor and Parris continuously argued over ministerial appointments. Then, John Proctor was accused by the court. To further analyze, the accused were not favored, therefore the high class people received the most power. They received the most power because of the manipulation they used against the less fortunate. Thomas Putnam owned the majority of the land in Salem, therefore he was never accused and his opinion was very significant. Obviously, the Salemites’ rationales were significantly valued in the court’s rulings. Manipulation was key in accusing.

Moving on, abuse of power was also a factor of the hangings of several people. Judge Danforth wanted to show the Salemites that he was powerful, but he used the power in a wrong way. In the informative text it says, “Man’s attitude is shaped by the contemporary society which worships success, power and money” (Ray 75). Without doubt, Danforth was influenced by success, power, and money. He was the judge of a whole village; similar to a president of a country. He wanted to prove that he was not a fraud and did not falter on his part. While striving for power, he abused it and hurt the lives of innocent people and their families. Danforth did not want people to doubt his power, so he continued accusing. Instead, he hanged people who were actually pure and innocent.

In addition, Proctor was forced to confess in order to earn his life. Danforth agreed to give Proctor his life back if he signed a confession accusing his friends. After Proctor signed the confession he realized this was the wrong thing to do. Proctor states that he has already confessed and he does not need his name up on the church doors for everyone to see. He only has one name and it does not need to have a bad reputation in the village (Miller). To further analyze this evidence, Proctor has confessed he has seen several of his friends and neighbors with the Devil. If John Proctor signed the confession, Danforth would come out to be the “hero” of Salem. He abused his power to earn truthful confessions and did not receive them the right way. The Salem Witch Trials have been heavily compared to the McCarthyism of the 1950s. McCarthyism was a political phenomenon (Decter). The Salem Witch Trials also involved politics and how leaders focused on succeeding and being politically supreme to their own people. Danforth had the power to save the insane minds of Salemites but instead he followed them along.

Moreover, Danforth was guilty of hanging people. He wanted to clear his conscience, so he abused his power. In the article it says, “The Crucible, which draws a parallel between the Salem witch hunts of 1692 and the Communist hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, explores the effects of fear and guilt. It pits individual conscience against entrenched authority” (American Bar Association 76). It should be noted that Salem was in hysteria because of the actions of the deceitful girls. As soon as Abigail ran away because of her own fears, Danforth realized he hanged too many innocent people. He did not own up to his actions and saved himself by hanging even more people after. The confession from John Proctor saved his life and his career. The trials were wild, not logical and were offenses made against justice (Popkin). This proves that Danforth used his power in the wrong way and ruined Salem’s pure, innocent reputation.

Consequently, the factors of manipulation and abuse of power created an epidemic of hysteria. People were frightened by the horrors of witchcraft and accused one another to stop the cycle. Instead, they continued the cycle of hangings. Hale stated that orphans and animals were wandering around the village with nowhere to go. Orphans lost their parents to accusations and animals were everywhere (Miller). Witchcraft led everyone to think that their neighbors may be cursed. The Salmites’ fear was powerful and had the strength to get rid of the negative within them. The Puritans of Salem were never exposed to the diabolical connotations of the world, which caused them to indulge in fear.

Similarly, the Communist scare of the 1950s was compared to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Both involved hysteria and the psychological powers of a person. A person could manipulate, fear, or abuse. Henry Popkin stated, “Also, the witchcraft scare was violent, alarming, and brief, like an epidemic and, again, like the Communist scare of the 1950s” (140). Evidently, the witchcraft scare presented in Salem was similar to the Communist scare in many ways. Both caused people to fear one another and turn each other in. Guilt and fear emerged from the deceitful girls as they were pressured into telling the “truth” and that is how the hysteria affected most Salemites (Calarco). The people of Salem have never seen evil so the fear made an appearance rapidly and unmanageably.

Along with the information above, the social and economic lives of Salemites led them to turn against each other. The result of this was hysteria. Accordingly, “He is caught in a trap compounded of economic, social, and psychological forces and is ultimately destroyed but not defeated” (Ray 75). Plainly, social and economic changes and statuses drive a person’s psychology. Salemites manipulated and abused their privileges to destroy their enemies. When they finally were done accusing, they developed fear that witches and wizards were all around them. For example, John Proctor did not respect Reverend Parris, so Parris worked very hard to get him accused. People did not want their reputations ruined as well as their status of class, so they accused the ones who would be hard to believe.

Apart from this, the people of Salem used the following factors to justify their flawed morals and merciless motives. Salem invited the Devil into their village and evoked its power. Starting off, the girls feared punishment for their anti-Purian crimes, so they manipulated and lied. Their anti-Puritan crimes such as dancing were their ruthless motives provoking them to accuse everyone but themselves. On the word of Joseph N. Calarco, “Layers of fear and guilt emerged from the performances, moving inevitably towards the final explosion of confessions by Titiuba and the children” (358). Unmistakably, the children as well as Tituba were pressured into confessing in order to avoid destroying themselves. Something was wrong in Salem so the Salemites searched it out. Instead they stepped upon witchcraft and went along with it. Salemites were like pure children; who have never experienced sin and evil. Abigail was jealous of Elizabeth Proctor because she was the one who John loved. Her motive led to the motive of the girls who committed crimes with her. Then, Tituba confessed and the constant cycle of accusations began. Their motives were the first steps to their path of bringing the Devil to innocent Salem.

Furthermore, the Salemites justified their flawed religious morals by exploiting people like John Proctor: who saw the world as it really is. According to the text, “… the bigotry of religious fundamentalists and communities torn apart by accusations of child abuse” (Decter 56). Needless to say, religious views and opinions were torn apart because of the accusations of child abuse. In the Puritan religion children were considered holy and could never deceive the adults. Religion was used as a moral and motive to justify the hangings of people. The people who were hanged were the only ones correct and thought quite logically. They believed the accused were with the Devil, meaning they needed to be hanged. The Puritans of Salem were close minded, leaving flawed morals to justify their actions. It was very clear that the Salemites were looking for trouble they could solve. They wanted to be a role model village for other villages, by solving all issues quickly and perfectly. Instead, this led to their very own ruin.

Finally, their flawed motives such as personal sin, sexual infidelity, and revenge were justified by witchcraft which was manipulated. Instead of correctly justifying confessions and accusations, they justified their own morals and motives. In the article it says, “However, in the ensuing years, audiences have been drawn to its story of personal sin and guilt, sexual infidelity, revenge, religious mania, and politics” (Penn State University Press). Visibly, Abigail used her motive, jealousy and revenge to accuse Elizabeth Proctor of witchery. Meaning she did not possess good morals, like the average Puritan was supposed to. John was accused of lechery, meaning his morals were flawed as well. If John committed adultery, a young teenage girl should be more trusted, according to the Salem court.

The idea of a planned and deliberate retribution at the heart of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” reflects to some degree the vengeful ideology that inspired the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. Jackson took immense inspiration from tales of the macabre in an otherwise seemingly mundane society—she wrote, for instance, of seeking out the news articles depicting something horrendous like an ax murder for the sake of reviving her spirits after so many life-affirming stories about babies: “The lead article on the woman’s page was about how to adjust the older child to the new baby. I finally found an account of an ax murder on page seventeen, and held my coffee cup up to my face to see if the steam might revive me” (Jackson, Magic, 518-19). Though critics of “The Lottery” have seen it as a startlingly refreshing tale, Nebeker has observed that “beneath the praise of these critics frequently runs a current of uneasiness” (100). That uneasiness has to do with the fact that Jackson reflects in the narrative an irrational yet malicious evil that is used by the townspeople to purge themselves of their bile by venting their spleen on the poor “winner” of the lottery—who, in the story, is Mrs. Hutchinson—a willing participant in the lottery so long as she was never on the losing end of it. Now staring down the rock-hurling firing squad she is like the poor girls persecuted during the Salem Witch Trials, which were as much about placing “blame” for some guilt arising out of the Puritanical social consciousness of New England: the judges landed the blame on the girls accused of witchery and their lives were forfeited. The motive of the townspeople in Jackson’s story is never revealed outside the fact that it is a tradition, which makes it all the more unnerving: the society in “The Lottery” is engaging in a malicious and violent event literally without any reason given—as though there were something evil in human nature that the people were simply giving voice to.

In a Puritanical society, the idea of rooting out evil is the foundational idea. The experience of the Puritans of New England was based on that idea—that the New England Puritans could liberate themselves from the ills of society by living pure lives (Bailey). Hawthorne gave the lie to that idea when he wrote The Scarlet Letter, which told the story of a Puritan minister who has an illegitimate child with a member of his congregation. Hawthorne’s point was that the evils of society run through the hearts of every living human being because that is where God and the Devil are fighting—as Dostoevsky put it (Walsh). Jackson does not focus on this religious or moralistic aspect of the fight. Rather, she simply exposes the hideous irony of living in a Puritanical society: underneath the veneer of niceness, life-affirming principles, and stories about babies there will always be buried a story about an ax murder.

Ridding themselves of the ax murder was the doomed goal of the Puritans. The Salem Witch Trials was there attempt to project their own corruption onto others, accuse them, and execute them—hoping that their own sins and crimes would be buried with the convicted. In “The Lottery” Jackson skips the foreplay and gets right to the chase: she is not interested in the psychology of the average Puritan attempting to justify himself while accusing another of some misdeed. She is interested in the fundamental manner in which members of society project their own sins onto others and then have no problem casting the stones at the “sinner” as though the sinner were an object of atonement—a pure lamb selected to bear the burdens of the righteous and take their guilt to the grave.

Of course, Mrs. Hutchinson is not a Christ-figure in “The Lottery.” She is an unwilling participant when it comes to her turn to accepting the blows—but the obvious analogy served up by Jackson is that “he who is without sin should cast the first stone”—and the irony is this: all the townspeople are casting stones at poor Mrs. Hutchinson, who is left grieving her fate: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her (Jackson, “The Lottery,” 228).

There is something extraordinarily Biblical about Jackson’s story, as Hattenhauer points out—and that is what facilitates the connection between it and the story of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Puritans were an exercise in attempting to do in society what no other group of people had ever before been able to do—purge themselves of the evil. Whereas Christ commanded His followers to judge not lest they be judged, the Puritans judged openly, feeling this was the only way to keep the evil away from themselves, to purge themselves of evil influences, and to maintain a holier than thou existence.

Jackson’s story can thus be seen as a reflection of the lie that Hawthorne exposed at the heart of Puritan America: the self-righteous, hypocritical belief in the purity of one’s own intention while accusing one’s neighbor of having a mote in his eye. Whereas Christ offered Himself up as the Eternal Victim, taking upon himself the sins of the world, Jackson’s townspeople have at the poor victim Mrs. Hutchinson and stone her to death. No one is redeemed because there is no sense of understanding the salvation that Christ offered. Jackson’s townspeople may as well be a group of pagans or heathens. They express no religious beliefs in their lottery: all they express is the need to give their evil impulse an outlet. Jackson essentially described the first “purge” in literature—but it was certainly not the first one in history or in Puritan America. The Salem Witch Trials could be considered the first historical purge—a variation on the idea of retribution being visited upon another.

Many novelists have tackled the historical events of the infamous Salem witch trials of Massachusetts, one of the novelists being Stacy Schiff. She is well known for winning the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Cleopatra. When I saw that Stacy Schiff wrote a novel on the Salem Witch trials, I was immediately drawn and intrigued to read her perception of the historical events found written in our history books and portrayed on the movie screens. Stacy Schiff’s book The Witches, Salem 1692, published in 2015, was given the capability to benefit from hindsight, due to having a variety of sources she was able to research and integrate into her writing; statistics, government documents, and primary pictures and documents. Schiff’s informative research is captivating, and her writing talents rejuvenate the old but compelling story of the 1692 Salem witch hunt. I found it very interesting that Schiff herself was born in Massachusetts which may have been the reason for her interest in this topic. Her passion for the topic is evident in her writing and deep dive into the state’s history. After reading this novel, I now understand why the Salem Witch trials were such a fascinating and significant period in time.

The Salem Witch Trials in the early 17th century was a crucial part of American history. The Trials were a series of accusations and executions based on the epoch of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. It was a time of panic where the only way to escape prosecution was to confess and name others; hundreds of residents had come forward to accuse their neighbors, children, and parents of witchcraft. Schiff grabs the reader’s attention by highlighting the deaths of the nineteen women, alongside five men and two dogs who were accused of witchcraft. The youngest person executed was five; the eldest nearly eighty. One man was even pressed to death by substantial weights for declining to enter a plea. This period represents one of the moments when women played the central role in American history, considering many of the accused were women or young girls.

Schiff also details how religion was pivotal and dictated the way of life within the colonies. The citizens of Salem were dissenters from the Church of England. The Puritans had a very strong emphasis on religion which is why they came to America to practice the “truest form of Christianity”. Puritans were fundamentalists who believed that every word in the Bible was the literal word of GOD should be meticulously and precisely followed. People did not understand what mental illness was, which caused the irrational fear of the devil turning women into witches. Salem’s citizens believed the devil would approach the witches and give them power in exchange for their allegiance and evil deeds. Their zealousness and literal interpretations gave them a sense of righteousness. They believed that only they knew what was morally and ethically correct. Being strong-minded in their beliefs, the Puritans thought that every time something bad happened such as animals or crops dying, that God was disappointed in them, or worse, that the devil was near. They used the witches as an excuse for why these terrible things were happening because having an explanation was better than the unknown reality. Schiff writes, “the story of what happens when a set of unanswerable questions meets a set of unquestioned answers.” In other words, situations or events, we deemed witchcraft due to a lack of understanding or ignorance. It was clear in this time that the religious background of the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts made it easy to be tricked and convinced of wrongdoing. They were ready to accuse anyone or anything that went against their beliefs regardless of proof.

Schiff also chronicles the court’s chief justice, William Stoughton. Stoughton was very eager to prosecute anyone who he believed had a trace of witchcraft. He would often prosecute against the advice of other officials. Along with the Salem judge, John Hathorne who was the one who led the initial investigations with inquisitional enthusiasm. The two men did not attempt to separate the young girls from society or question them individually. They did check to the dentistry records to match the victim’s bite mark to the perpetrator, even though it would ludicrous to consider evidence because of the witches’ lack of teeth. Stoughton is so distraught when one of the defendants is found not guilty by the jury that he immediately reopened the case and succeeded in reaching an indictment. Many innocent people were being prosecuted at the hands of powerful men like Stoughton who would acquiesce to the publics’ fear by making up events than face the facts of matter.

It was also disturbing that young children were admitting to crimes not knowing the consequences of their actions. Today, we are aware that kids do not have the capacity to make confessions under pressure-filled situations. Children don’t know any better and want to make adults happy which is why if they are enticed enough, as they were in the Salem Witch trials, they will admit to something they did not do because they feel it is what is expected of them. Which is why Schiff mentions how seven-year-old girl confessed that she had been a witch since she was six, although she wasn’t even sure of her contemporary age. She testified against her mother in court, explaining that she saw her mother in the presence of a black cat, which was condemning evidence of witchcraft in that time. Her mother was then sentenced to death, and the girl was shackled and forced to watch her mother’s execution. Schiff captures the feelings and emotions of what the accused had gone through, leaving the reader feeling uneasy, knowing that today the outcome could have been different. Back then people believed the worst and jumped to conclusions, while today the justice system revolves around being innocent until being proven guilty.

Schiff mentions various factors that contributed to the Salem Witch trials. A few of the main issues were adolescent hysteria. Children were making up stories that were believed by adults even though there was no proof. People also were turning on each other to keep themselves safe from accusation. Neighbors and family members sold each other out which negated any sense of community. You could not trust anybody, and everyone always had their guard up. Another issue that Schiff recalled was the strict views on appropriate behavior for women. There were many reasons that women were under fire but one thing that is still relevant today is the normalcies placed on the female gender. However, the author never investigates these complications in any depth. As a result, her book lacked a sense of focus on specific issues and they all began to fade together.

Overall, the Salem Witch Trials were a controversial time in which people were more concerned with the motivation behind the trials and execution rather than the accounts of the actual events. Historians all over the world explained their findings of what occurred while contradicting and criticizing their peers. Stacy Schiff did careful and detailed and research but falls flat while describing the events in chronological order. This novel succeeds as a work of capturing popular nonfiction, but it will only serve as a light reading for those already familiar with the subject.

The Salem Witch Trials era during the late 1600s was a time where suspicion and the belief in the supernatural cultivated. To get an understanding of the Salem Witch Trials, one must first understand its origins. The Salem Witch Trials commenced around the early months of 1692 when a group of young residents in Salem Village, Massachusetts, professed to be possessed by the devil and accused a number of local women of witchcraft. To add on, in the course of this time the Massachusetts Bay colony was undergoing turmoil with little to no political guidance.

There had been a new village pastor, Samuel Parris, and people had different views on his standing. Due to this, there had been a social divide between the leading families of the Massachusetts Bay. In the group of girls demonstrating strange behaviors and fits, two of them were relatives of Samuel Paris. After this, they were urged to identify the person who had bewitched them.

There were a number of cases that were heard, but all in all, nineteen people were hung and five others died in custody. There was a trend of who was prosecuted and executed the most during this time period. After studying the Salem cases, it is undeniable that women were executed and targeted more than men. The men that faced accusations of witchcraft were somehow associated with accused women. Historian, John Demos, acclaimed that the puritan men who were tried for witchcraft were usually the husbands or brothers of reported female witches. In the calamitous year of 1692, fourteen out of the nineteen people that were found guilty and executed were women. The main question is why women were the main target of the accusations in Salem Village, Massachusetts. Women were targeted because of how vulnerable they were; women held a mostly powerless position within the deeply religious Puritan community, and the cases were usually a woman reporting another woman.

A woman’s vulnerability in the puritan community was a huge factor in why they were accused more often than men. In the Puritan community, people viewed that women should make babies, take care of their children, clean the household, and practice Christian servitude to their husbands. Due to their very vast religious beliefs, Puritans base their lives on events in the bible. Puritans connected women to Eve, a woman in the bible that disobeyed God, because they felt like they were more susceptible to the constructs of the devil. So when women were accused of being a witch, it wasn’t hard for people to believe it was real. To add on, women were expected to “stay in their place”, an act of any confidence or determination would’ve been a red flag for the prosecutors. A red flag, meaning that they were conducting witchcraft practices.

“I am innocent of a witch.’ After this comment, Bridget apparently rolled her eyes towards heaven. Immediately, all the girls rolled theirs, and it seemed to the court that a devil was on the loose. After this examination, Bishop was asked if she was not troubled to see the afflicted girls so tormented. She answered no. When asked if she thought they were bewitched, she answered that she did not know what to think about them.

During her testimony, Bridget Bishop, an accused woman, showed confidence and assertiveness towards every question posed by the judge. To restate, women were expected to “stay in their place, so when Briget answered her questions the way she did, people were certain she was a witch. In addition, the questions that the jury asked the convicted women were also bombarding, redundant, ignorant, and somewhat forceful. When the convicted women answered the questions asked, the jury would add another futile question just to throw off the woman’s train of thought, or even disregard the women’s answer.

Why you seem to act Witchcraft before us, by the motion of your body, which #[has in] seems to have influence violence upon the afflicted.-I know nothing of it. I am innocent to a Witch. I know not what a Witch is.-How do you know then that you are not a witch? #[and yet know not what a Witch is?]-I do not #[understand] know what you say.-How can you know, you are no Witch, & yet not know what a Witch is:-I am clear: if I were any such person you should know it.-You may threaten, but you can do no more than you are per- mitted.-I am innocent of a Witch.

This conversation between Bridget Bishop and the juror explains how the juror uses “loopholes” or dense questions to disregard Brdget’s answer. There was not a way for women to justly prove their innocence. It was somewhat easy to trap these women with questions and false accusations simply because they had no power and could not do anything about it. ‘Is perfectly clear-cut on witchcraft, as perhaps he had to be to purge himself in his own mind of the sins of his ancestors. In his stories the Salem outburst was a `terrible delusion,’ a `universal madness,’ in which `innocent persons’ `died wrongfully’ ‘ . This viewpoint of Nathaniel Hawthorne, American novelist born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, explains how women were taken advantage of being hysterically accused of witchcraft.

It was usually women that reported witchcraft in Salem. When women reported witchcraft they would most likely say that it was the doing of another woman. “Tituba, another woman accused of being a witch, and who accused others of being witches.” Women made it worse for themselves by accusing each other, creating a stereotype that ruined their credibility in Salem. These women usually had ulterior motives when reporting on other women. For Bridget Bishop, her avant garde style and practices made her an easy target for accusations, because she wasn’t the “model woman” in the Puritan community . As was mentioned before, a group of young residents reported that they were possessed by the likes of witchcraft, these residents were girls. The person they accused was indeed Bridget Bishop.

Bishop was famous for an outfit that consisted of a black cap and a red bodice (corset, upper part of a dress) looped with laces of various colors, which she had dyed to order by the local fabric dyer Samuel Shattuck. She was also known for her strong temper, an unacceptable quality in women of that day…On April 18, 1692, Bishop was summoned to be examined in a preliminary hearing at Salem Village. ‘Bewitched’ teenage girls in the village had named her as a witch and held her responsible for their violent fits and spectral hauntings.

Most historians, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, assumed the girls did this so the debate on their relative Samuel Parris being the new village pastor of Salem Village would cease. All in all, women accused other women of being a witch for their own benefits and motives.

Women were the main targets of the Salem Witch Trials, because they essentially started the whole problem in the first place. Other leading factors to why they were singled out, leads straight to their decision of accusing each other. Their weak role in society enabled for a more intense and prolonged era of witch case hearings as well. Men were the jurors and judges; if any of them felt as if the women “stepped out of their place,” they’d immediately send them to prison or even have them executed. Some judges would even dismiss their evidence in their court hearing. The Salem Witch Trials can be viewed as a systematic oppression that was imposed by the oppressed. It is really ironic, because one wouldn’t expect the cause of a group’s oppression to be the doing of the group itself. In the end, the Salem Witch Trials wouldn’t have existed if the women of Salem didn’t accuse each other for their own intentions.

The timeless American play, ‘The Crucible’, by Arthur Miller, dramatizes the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. The series of unmerited trials and hangings took place in colonial Massachusetts. The event was an instance of mass hysteria, a phenomenon found in groups of people where they share a common delusion or symptom, often as a result of general fear or anxiety. In many cases, there is a scapegoat involved where a person or a select group of people are unjustly blamed for some sort of bad situation. In ‘The Crucible’, innocent people are accused of witchcraft and attempting to undermine the court. Consequently, upright citizens of the community are blamed for the unusual fits and illnesses occurring within the town and hanged as a result. Salem was subject to an appalling case of mass hysteria. A modern case of mass psychogenic illness is the anti-vaccination movement. Just as innocent citizens were scapegoated in ‘The Crucible’, modern vaccinations are blamed for numerous developmental issues without evidence to support this.

In both cases of mass hysteria in ‘The Crucible’ and today with vaccines, the ones creating a scapegoat do so because of their lack of knowledge regarding the issue. Back in colonial Massachusetts, puritans were very religious and believed that humans could make deals with the devil in order to harness his power to harm others. When a group of young girls are caught dancing in the woods, Betty, the reverend’s daughter, falls sick the next day and begins having unusual fits. Initially, the girls swore that they only danced in the woods. When a rumor of witchcraft began circulating within the town, the girls changed their stance and say that they have been bewitched. They knew that if they were accused of witchcraft, they would hang if they did not confess. If they confessed to being bewitched instead, they knew that they would receive a much more merciful punishment. In this instance, the people of Salem did not understand why the girls went to dance in the woods or why Betty started acting strange seemingly as a result. Due to this confusion, people resorted to declaring witchcraft for what they did not understand. Anyone could be at risk of being accused because there is no evidence to prove a person guilty of witchcraft. This made the fear of witches in colonial Massachusetts a very susceptible setting for scapegoating.

Today, people supporting the anti-vaccination movement are commonly known as anti-vaxxers, and they are unknowingly repeating similar mistakes made during the Salem Witch Trials. Since the creation of vaccinations, people have questioned the real effects of them, allowing false information to convince them that this medical procedure is actually causing developmental issues in children. The opposition against vaccines has been seen in the masses during several occasions throughout history. The most extensive case of this was in 1998, following the publication of a paper written by Andrew Wakefield. In this paper, Andrew Wakefield suggests that there is a connection between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism in children. About a year later, numerous studies were published disproving any association between vaccines and autism. Although his research was deemed false, word about the supposed dangers of vaccines had already spread worldwide. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the MMR vaccination rates persistently droppe throughout the early 2000s. The UK experienced 56 measles cases in 1998, but as a direct result of the vaccine hysteria, that number rose to 449 during the first five months of 2006 with the first measles related death since 1992 occurring as well. By 2008, measles was declared endemic in the UK. Outbreaks were happening all across the globe. Ireland had 1,500 cases and three deaths in 2000 as a result. France faced more than 22,000 cases between 2008 and 2011 (Muacevic and Adler, 2018). As this vaccination hysteria continues to grow and becomes more and more detrimental to the health of people all over the world, we could potentially be in a position where measles outbreaks can not be suppressed.

Similarities can be found between the Salem Witch Trials of the late seventeenth century and the anti-vaccine sentiment occurring today. Scapegoats such as innocent citizens and harmless (more accurately, beneficial) vaccines were blamed for issues that people did not understand. In regards to the witch hunts, unusual illnesses and erratic behavior were believed to be caused by witchcraft. Today, many people attribute a wide range of health problems to vaccinations. It is a very human tendency to try and find a cause to all problems, and when there doesn’t seem to be one, we tend to blame such problems on a vulnerable target; one that can not stand up for itself. Clearly, much adversity had resulted from this natural instinct. Innocent people were hanged in Salem and today people are becoming severely sick and even dying from once eradicated diseases. This was all prompted by generalized fear and anxiety found in the masses. Just as citizens in Salem were turning against their neighbors due to fear of the devil and witchcraft, people today refuse to vaccinate their children in fear that they will develop disorders such as autism. In both scenarios, the people doing the blaming were the misinformed. Doctors back in the late 1600s did not have the access to information we have today, so they pinned the cause on witchcraft. Current parents have access to numerous resources on the internet, not all of which are reliable. You can easily find false information concerning the harmful effects of vaccines through the internet because you do not need any medical qualifications to publish your unsupported views online.

The figure of the witch comes from a long history that precedes the United States by many millennia. The witch can be traced back to the mythology of Ancient Greece in which female association with magic is almost always portrayed as destructive or threatening. Examples of this include Circe, Medea, and, most famously, Medusa. The classicist, Mary Beard, states that Medusa’s severed head remains ‘one of the most potent ancient symbols of male mastery over the destructive dangers that the very possibility of female power represented’ (Beard, pp71). The concept of witchcraft originates from the Old Testament such as in Leviticus 17–26 also known as the Holiness Laws, which prescribes the death penalty as punishment for witchcraft. This can also be seen in Exodus 22:18, which states ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. However, belief in witchcraft did not enter mainstream society until the mid-15th century when witch hysteria truly took hold in Europe. This hysteria has been attributed to the publication of the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ in 1487. This treatise advocated that the crime of witchcraft should be elevated to the criminal status of heresy for which the punishment was execution, typically by being burned at the stake. As the Age of Enlightenment spread across Europe the belief in witchcraft was replaced by a staunch belief in rationality and empiricism. However, as quickly as this hysteria declined in Europe, it grew in the Puritan colonies of America. The most infamous case of the witch hysteria in the New World is the Salem witch trials that took place in the 1690s in Salem, Massachusetts. The vulnerability felt by the Puritan colonies as a result of the unfamiliar territory, the fear of attack from Natives, and the threat of disease such as the Massachusetts smallpox epidemic of 1633 contributed to the tension that was instrumental in creating an environment in which scapegoating could flourish. Puritanism is based on a specific set of theological and philosophical beliefs. One of these strands of Puritanism is the belief that the wilderness is a godless place and that God only resides within a human settlement. The wilderness was also seen as a place where whiteness had yet to arrive and it was God’s will for the Puritans to settle the New World and thus bring god to a godless place. In this way, the genocide of the Native Americans becomes theological rather than political. Puritans also had a strong belief in the concept of predestination as described by the theologian John Calvin. The Puritan belief was that due to the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, all people were born as sinners and therefore were deserving of damnation but through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross the elect may receive salvation. Therefore, one must live a Christian life of extreme piety and hope to be one of the chosen. These ideas, however, breed contradiction at a societal level as it becomes increasingly hard to reconcile certain ideas, for example, that of law and order with extreme theological beliefs. Furthermore, a contradiction was created in the social inferiority of women within the public sphere whilst there was a supposed spiritual equality of man and woman in marriage. Therefore, the figure of the witch emerges as an externalization of these tensions and contradictions within society. The Puritans inherit the Christian and European figure of the witch and use it in an American context in an attempt to resolve power struggles and reinforce a natural sense of power. This natural sense of power is the patriarchal hierarchy which uses the figure of the witch to control female power and sexuality.

Stories have always been used as a method of policing the ideologies of society and the story of the witch is no different. Critics such as Silvia Federici believe that the figure of the witch was a method of ostracising women who did not follow the burgeoning capitalist system. The politics of populism and fear were used to create a theological debate in which women who did not surrender to the prescribed conditions of early capitalism were accused of being in league with the devil. As well as the clear misogyny in witchcraft accusations, the class also played an important role in the accusations. The first three women to be accused of witchcraft (Tituba, Sarah Goode, and Sarah Osborne) were all social undesirables. Tituba was the first woman to be accused by Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, most likely due to her ethnic differences from the rest of the villagers as she was a West Indian slave. Tituba was the slave of Reverend Samuel Parris, who was the father and uncle of the afflicted girls. Federici describes the Salem witch trials as the ‘unleashing of a campaign of terror against women, unmatched by any other persecution’ (Federici, pp165). Federici argues that in the transition from feudalism to early capitalism women needed to become free domestic workers and a means of reproduction. In this way, for Federici ‘the body has been for women in capitalist society what the factory has been for male waged workers: the primary ground of their exploitation and resistance’ (Federici, p. 16). The fear of female sexuality and male impotence is shown in the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ which states that ‘when a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.’ Furthermore, ‘The ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ alleged that witches would engage in orgies with the devil and that, in the absence of the devil, she may use her broomstick as a metaphorical or even literal dildo. Therefore, witches are socially useless in the capitalist system as they are neither partaking in reproductive intercourse nor domestic chores. This could also be another reason for the disgust at the depiction of the witch as an old crone as it brings up the concept of menopause which is another state of futility for women as they can no longer reproduce.

In the 2015 film ‘The Witch’, Robert Eggers aims to create an archetypal New England Puritanical nightmare: ‘If I could upload a Puritan’s nightmare directly into the audience’s mind’s eye that would be the goal’ (Vice). Eggers grew up in the region of New England in which the film is set and therefore is intimately familiar with the dilapidated farmhouses and ominously thick forests that are typical of the area. The film opens with a family being excommunicated from the Puritan commonwealth due to an unknown disagreement with its leaders and are forced to find a new home in a small farmstead surrounded by forests. The ex-communication of the family from the commonwealth offers a clear parallel with the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as they too have been exiled from the land of plenty to a life of trials and tribulations. The eldest daughter, Thomasin, is immediately set apart from the rest of the family as she is the last to leave the commonwealth and she looks back. In the film, William states ‘We will conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us’ but in saying this it is as though it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the harsh elements destroy their crops and the eerie forest surrounding them seems to creep ever nearer. The wilderness also represents a specific threat to the Puritans as it was deemed a godless and uncivilized place. The environment that surrounds the family in their new home becomes almost a character in and of itself. Most notably, the forest becomes aligned with Thomasin’s feminine power and the ‘cavernous anatomical female body’ (Russo, pp1). The exile of the family to the wilderness allows Thomasin to fulfill the role of the feminine grotesque as described by Mary Russo. Russo states that the ‘grotesque body is connected to the rest of the world’ (pp63) and the female is specifically associated with ‘the earthly, the material’ (Russo, pp1). In her ground-breaking text ‘The Monstrous-Feminine’, Barbara Creed states that, rather than the typical portrayal of the feminine as victims in the horror genre, all that is monstrous is a prototype of the feminine reproductive body. Creed depicts the witch as a familiar female monster; she is invariably represented as an old, ugly crone’ (Creed, pp2). This offers a parallel of Bakhtin’s depiction of ‘the senile pregnant hag … decaying, deformed, laughing’ which he deems the epitome of the feminine grotesque. In this way, after the film when Thomasin joins the coven of witches and floats while laughing ecstatically, it suggests that she is now embodying the feminine grotesque. Furthermore, ‘the grotesque becomes associated with all that is exiled to the margins of propriety and acceptability’ (Routledge, pp215). The family is excommunicated from the safety of the Puritan settlement but Thomasin becomes further exiled until she is pushed to the periphery of the family. It is while she is at this periphery that Thomasin finds autonomy as when she journeys back into the woods there is now a clearing. This suggests that there is now no reason for her to fear the forest and by extension her female power. Thus, the acceptance of her place within the feminine grotesque is what finally frees Thomasin from the overbearing control of her family and patriarchal society.

The figure of the witch can be seen as a representative of the dark side of the feminine principles. One might call her the anti-mother. In Eggers’ ‘The Witch’, the locus of the anxieties of the family is Thomasin’s nascent sexuality. ‘The Witch’ shows the threat of coming of age and the moment the girl becomes a woman. Thomasin’s uncontrolled sexuality is as much of a threat to the family unit as the witch who lurks in the forest as seen through Caleb’s incestual leering at Thomasin’s breast as she sleeps. The film uses several disturbing images of sexuality and motherhood such as the splattering of bloody milk which has a clear reference to menstruation, the broken egg with a dead chicken fetus, and the crow suckling at the breast of the mother. The threatening forest that is home to the witches also is reminiscent of vagina dentata. The idea of vagina dentata plays into Freudian castration anxiety which is shown both literally and symbolically in the film. When Samuel is kidnapped by the witch it is implied that she castrates him. Thus, the witch acts as a castrator as she castrates the youngest male child in the family and kills the eldest male child through sexual intercourse. Caleb encounters the witch, in the guise of a young and beautiful woman, in the forest and returns days later, naked and suffering from an unknown ailment. Caleb’s seizure-like illness descends into an orgasmic moment of mock religious ecstasy in which the words of a prayer by John Winthrop are seemingly perverted due to Caleb’s bewitched state: ‘O my Lord, my love, how wholly delectable thou art! Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Thomasin acts as a metaphorical castrator of her father as she mocks him for his failures saying ‘All you can do is chop wood!’ William’s masculinity is called into question throughout the film as he seems to be dominated by his wife, who at one point even slaps him across the face. Furthermore, it also seems as though he is being usurped by Caleb as he cannot provide for the family and the traps they set seem to only work for Caleb. The motif of chopping wood acts as proof of William’s masculinity and a symbol of his masculine responsibility as the supposed provider for the family. In the end, William is gored by Black Phillip and the pile of wood he has been chopping throughout the film collapses on top of him. Thus, he is symbolically killed by his masculine pride. The film systematically removes all symbols of male dominance and threats to Thomasin’s sexuality until the film’s climax in which Thomasin kills her mother to finally sever all ties from her family. Thomasin is the last woman standing and is now her authority. Thomasin chooses to take ownership of her body and sell herself to the devil rather than allowing her family to sell her as her mother attempts earlier in the film. Thomasin accepts the kinship of equally liberated women and is now free from all forms of male oppression. The coven offers Thomasin the safety in numbers that was present in the commonwealth but this time with a matriarchal hierarchy that will not attempt to limit or control her feminine power. In an echoing of Adam and Eve’s nakedness, Thomasin sheds her clothes as she sheds her old life. Her nakedness also highlights her acceptance and excitement at her sexuality. The last shot of the film shows Thomasin as she floats among the trees and laughs in an orgasmic state of pure liberation.

A popular theory regarding ‘The Witch’ is that the witch is a physical manifestation of the absolute Puritan fear of feminine power. In this way, the ideological threat of the abject becomes a corporeal reality. The witch’s body is that of the haggard crone of Bakhtin’s feminine grotesque and is physically repulsive to the viewer. Thus, the audience feels a sense of the Puritan abjectness toward the witch. The most popular interpretation of the abject is Julia Kristeva’s interpretation which states that the abject is that which ‘disturbs identity, system, order’ (Kristeva, pp4). Barbara Creed catalogs several typical elements of the abject, almost all of which feature in ‘The Witch’: ‘sexual immorality and perversion; corporeal alteration, decay, and death; human sacrifice, murder, the corpse; bodily wastes; the feminine body and incest.’ (Creed, pp69). In ‘Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine’, Creed posits that one way in which the genre of horror uses the abject is that in horror the maternal figure is often constructed as the abject. By constructing the mother as abject it suggests that maternity is in some ways monstrous: ‘We must abject the maternal, the object which has created us, to construct an identity. This means that on a subconscious level, the maternal is horrifying’ (Lyons, pp169). ‘The Witch’ depicts maternal horror through the disturbing scene in which the grief-stricken Katherine believes that she is breastfeeding Samuel but in reality, a crow pecks at her breast. Creed also states that for Kristeva ‘the mother-child relation [is] one marked by conflict’ (Creed, pp72). This conflicted mother-child relationship is clearly shown in ‘The Witch’. Kristeva states that this conflict comes from the child attempting to abject the mother whilst the mother refuses to let go. Conversely, in ‘The Witch’ it is as though Katherine seeks to abject Thomasin, as she repeatedly discusses with her husband the prospect of selling Thomasin to another family. In Puritan society, it was typical for mothers and daughters to be separated once the daughter reached adolescence as it was believed it would allow them both to grow closer to God. Since this separation does not take place Thomasin grows closer to the devil instead. Kristeva calls into question the interaction between the discourse of Christianity and the discourse of maternity as she suggests it leads to misplaced abjection. In Kristeva’s interpretation of abjection, she describes the need to abject the maternal container, which she defines as the mother’s body about weaning. However, as the maternal function is not separate from representations of women in Western culture this leads to women being abjected within society. ‘The Witch’ perverts traditional views of motherhood by portraying a dysfunctional home. Due to the family’s excommunication, Katherine is ‘alone and burdened by maternity in isolation’ and the ‘conventional institutions that supposedly ‘protect’ women, such as the family, fail.’ (maifeminism). In this way, the story of Katherine and Thomasin acts as a warning about the types of motherhood that ‘exist outside of socially (and patriarchally) defined ideals’ (maifeminism). The film can be viewed as a Puritan cautionary tale in which a family is rightly punished for not following Puritan conventions as a ‘woman’s abjection helps to found the patriarchal symbolic order.’ (Creed, pp152). As the film is set sixty years before the Salem witch trials it can be seen as a scary story told to frighten women into submission and thus creates a foundation for the fear that justifies the murder of ‘witches’.

The figure of the witch comes from a long history that precedes the United States by many millennia. The witch can be traced back to the mythology of Ancient Greece in which female association with magic is almost always portrayed as destructive or threatening. Examples of this include Circe, Medea, and, most famously, Medusa. The classicist, Mary Beard, states that Medusa’s severed head remains ‘one of the most potent ancient symbols of male mastery over the destructive dangers that the very possibility of female power represented’ (Beard, pp71). The concept of witchcraft originates from the Old Testament such as in Leviticus 17–26 also known as the Holiness Laws, which prescribes the death penalty as punishment for witchcraft. This can also be seen in Exodus 22:18, which states ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. However, belief in witchcraft did not enter mainstream society until the mid-15th century when witch hysteria truly took hold in Europe. This hysteria has been attributed to the publication of the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ in 1487. This treatise advocated that the crime of witchcraft should be elevated to the criminal status of heresy for which the punishment was execution, typically by being burned at the stake. As the Age of Enlightenment spread across Europe the belief in witchcraft was replaced by a staunch belief in rationality and empiricism. However, as quickly as this hysteria declined in Europe, it grew in the Puritan colonies of America. The most infamous case of the witch hysteria in the New World is the Salem witch trials that took place in the 1690s in Salem, Massachusetts. The vulnerability felt by the Puritan colonies as a result of the unfamiliar territory, the fear of attack from Natives, and the threat of disease such as the Massachusetts smallpox epidemic of 1633 contributed to the tension that was instrumental in creating an environment in which scapegoating could flourish. Puritanism is based on a specific set of theological and philosophical beliefs. One of these strands of Puritanism is the belief that the wilderness is a godless place and that God only resides within a human settlement. The wilderness was also seen as a place where whiteness had yet to arrive and it was God’s will for the Puritans to settle the New World and thus bring god to a godless place. In this way, the genocide of the Native Americans becomes theological rather than political. Puritans also had a strong belief in the concept of predestination as described by the theologian John Calvin. The Puritan belief was that due to the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, all people were born as sinners and therefore were deserving of damnation but through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross the elect may receive salvation. Therefore, one must live a Christian life of extreme piety and hope to be one of the chosen. These ideas, however, breed contradiction at a societal level as it becomes increasingly hard to reconcile certain ideas, for example, that of law and order with extreme theological beliefs. Furthermore, a contradiction was created in the social inferiority of women within the public sphere whilst there was a supposed spiritual equality of man and woman in marriage. Therefore, the figure of the witch emerges as an externalization of these tensions and contradictions within society. The Puritans inherit the Christian and European figure of the witch and use it in an American context in an attempt to resolve power struggles and reinforce a natural sense of power. This natural sense of power is the patriarchal hierarchy which uses the figure of the witch to control female power and sexuality.

Stories have always been used as a method of policing the ideologies of society and the story of the witch is no different. Critics such as Silvia Federici believe that the figure of the witch was a method of ostracising women who did not follow the burgeoning capitalist system. The politics of populism and fear were used to create a theological debate in which women who did not surrender to the prescribed conditions of early capitalism were accused of being in league with the devil. As well as the clear misogyny in witchcraft accusations, the class also played an important role in the accusations. The first three women to be accused of witchcraft (Tituba, Sarah Goode, and Sarah Osborne) were all social undesirables. Tituba was the first woman to be accused by Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, most likely due to her ethnic differences from the rest of the villagers as she was a West Indian slave. Tituba was the slave of Reverend Samuel Parris, who was the father and uncle of the afflicted girls. Federici describes the Salem witch trials as the ‘unleashing of a campaign of terror against women, unmatched by any other persecution’ (Federici, pp165). Federici argues that in the transition from feudalism to early capitalism women needed to become free domestic workers and a means of reproduction. In this way, for Federici ‘the body has been for women in capitalist society what the factory has been for male waged workers: the primary ground of their exploitation and resistance’ (Federici, p. 16). The fear of female sexuality and male impotence is shown in the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ which states that ‘when a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.’ Furthermore, ‘The ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ alleged that witches would engage in orgies with the devil and that, in the absence of the devil, she may use her broomstick as a metaphorical or even literal dildo. Therefore, witches are socially useless in the capitalist system as they are neither partaking in reproductive intercourse nor domestic chores. This could also be another reason for the disgust at the depiction of the witch as an old crone as it brings up the concept of menopause which is another state of futility for women as they can no longer reproduce.

In the 2015 film ‘The Witch’, Robert Eggers aims to create an archetypal New England Puritanical nightmare: ‘If I could upload a Puritan’s nightmare directly into the audience’s mind’s eye that would be the goal’ (Vice). Eggers grew up in the region of New England in which the film is set and therefore is intimately familiar with the dilapidated farmhouses and ominously thick forests that are typical of the area. The film opens with a family being excommunicated from the Puritan commonwealth due to an unknown disagreement with its leaders and are forced to find a new home in a small farmstead surrounded by forests. The ex-communication of the family from the commonwealth offers a clear parallel with the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as they too have been exiled from the land of plenty to a life of trials and tribulations. The eldest daughter, Thomasin, is immediately set apart from the rest of the family as she is the last to leave the commonwealth and she looks back. In the film, William states ‘We will conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us’ but in saying this it is as though it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the harsh elements destroy their crops and the eerie forest surrounding them seems to creep ever nearer. The wilderness also represents a specific threat to the Puritans as it was deemed a godless and uncivilized place. The environment that surrounds the family in their new home becomes almost a character in and of itself. Most notably, the forest becomes aligned with Thomasin’s feminine power and the ‘cavernous anatomical female body’ (Russo, pp1). The exile of the family to the wilderness allows Thomasin to fulfill the role of the feminine grotesque as described by Mary Russo. Russo states that the ‘grotesque body is connected to the rest of the world’ (pp63) and the female is specifically associated with ‘the earthly, the material’ (Russo, pp1). In her ground-breaking text ‘The Monstrous-Feminine’, Barbara Creed states that, rather than the typical portrayal of the feminine as victims in the horror genre, all that is monstrous is a prototype of the feminine reproductive body. Creed depicts the witch as a familiar female monster; she is invariably represented as an old, ugly crone’ (Creed, pp2). This offers a parallel of Bakhtin’s depiction of ‘the senile pregnant hag … decaying, deformed, laughing’ which he deems the epitome of the feminine grotesque. In this way, after the film when Thomasin joins the coven of witches and floats while laughing ecstatically, it suggests that she is now embodying the feminine grotesque. Furthermore, ‘the grotesque becomes associated with all that is exiled to the margins of propriety and acceptability’ (Routledge, pp215). The family is excommunicated from the safety of the Puritan settlement but Thomasin becomes further exiled until she is pushed to the periphery of the family. It is while she is at this periphery that Thomasin finds autonomy as when she journeys back into the woods there is now a clearing. This suggests that there is now no reason for her to fear the forest and by extension her female power. Thus, the acceptance of her place within the feminine grotesque is what finally frees Thomasin from the overbearing control of her family and patriarchal society.

The figure of the witch can be seen as a representative of the dark side of the feminine principles. One might call her the anti-mother. In Eggers’ ‘The Witch’, the locus of the anxieties of the family is Thomasin’s nascent sexuality. ‘The Witch’ shows the threat of coming of age and the moment the girl becomes a woman. Thomasin’s uncontrolled sexuality is as much of a threat to the family unit as the witch who lurks in the forest as seen through Caleb’s incestual leering at Thomasin’s breast as she sleeps. The film uses several disturbing images of sexuality and motherhood such as the splattering of bloody milk which has a clear reference to menstruation, the broken egg with a dead chicken fetus, and the crow suckling at the breast of the mother. The threatening forest that is home to the witches also is reminiscent of vagina dentata. The idea of vagina dentata plays into Freudian castration anxiety which is shown both literally and symbolically in the film. When Samuel is kidnapped by the witch it is implied that she castrates him. Thus, the witch acts as a castrator as she castrates the youngest male child in the family and kills the eldest male child through sexual intercourse. Caleb encounters the witch, in the guise of a young and beautiful woman, in the forest and returns days later, naked and suffering from an unknown ailment. Caleb’s seizure-like illness descends into an orgasmic moment of mock religious ecstasy in which the words of a prayer by John Winthrop are seemingly perverted due to Caleb’s bewitched state: ‘O my Lord, my love, how wholly delectable thou art! Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Thomasin acts as a metaphorical castrator of her father as she mocks him for his failures saying ‘All you can do is chop wood!’ William’s masculinity is called into question throughout the film as he seems to be dominated by his wife, who at one point even slaps him across the face. Furthermore, it also seems as though he is being usurped by Caleb as he cannot provide for the family and the traps they set seem to only work for Caleb. The motif of chopping wood acts as proof of William’s masculinity and a symbol of his masculine responsibility as the supposed provider for the family. In the end, William is gored by Black Phillip and the pile of wood he has been chopping throughout the film collapses on top of him. Thus, he is symbolically killed by his masculine pride. The film systematically removes all symbols of male dominance and threats to Thomasin’s sexuality until the film’s climax in which Thomasin kills her mother to finally sever all ties from her family. Thomasin is the last woman standing and is now her authority. Thomasin chooses to take ownership of her body and sell herself to the devil rather than allowing her family to sell her as her mother attempts earlier in the film. Thomasin accepts the kinship of equally liberated women and is now free from all forms of male oppression. The coven offers Thomasin the safety in numbers that was present in the commonwealth but this time with a matriarchal hierarchy that will not attempt to limit or control her feminine power. In an echoing of Adam and Eve’s nakedness, Thomasin sheds her clothes as she sheds her old life. Her nakedness also highlights her acceptance and excitement at her sexuality. The last shot of the film shows Thomasin as she floats among the trees and laughs in an orgasmic state of pure liberation.

A popular theory regarding ‘The Witch’ is that the witch is a physical manifestation of the absolute Puritan fear of feminine power. In this way, the ideological threat of the abject becomes a corporeal reality. The witch’s body is that of the haggard crone of Bakhtin’s feminine grotesque and is physically repulsive to the viewer. Thus, the audience feels a sense of the Puritan abjectness toward the witch. The most popular interpretation of the abject is Julia Kristeva’s interpretation which states that the abject is that which ‘disturbs identity, system, order’ (Kristeva, pp4). Barbara Creed catalogs several typical elements of the abject, almost all of which feature in ‘The Witch’: ‘sexual immorality and perversion; corporeal alteration, decay, and death; human sacrifice, murder, the corpse; bodily wastes; the feminine body and incest.’ (Creed, pp69). In ‘Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine’, Creed posits that one way in which the genre of horror uses the abject is that in horror the maternal figure is often constructed as the abject. By constructing the mother as abject it suggests that maternity is in some ways monstrous: ‘We must abject the maternal, the object which has created us, to construct an identity. This means that on a subconscious level, the maternal is horrifying’ (Lyons, pp169). ‘The Witch’ depicts maternal horror through the disturbing scene in which the grief-stricken Katherine believes that she is breastfeeding Samuel but in reality, a crow pecks at her breast. Creed also states that for Kristeva ‘the mother-child relation [is] one marked by conflict’ (Creed, pp72). This conflicted mother-child relationship is clearly shown in ‘The Witch’. Kristeva states that this conflict comes from the child attempting to abject the mother whilst the mother refuses to let go. Conversely, in ‘The Witch’ it is as though Katherine seeks to abject Thomasin, as she repeatedly discusses with her husband the prospect of selling Thomasin to another family. In Puritan society, it was typical for mothers and daughters to be separated once the daughter reached adolescence as it was believed it would allow them both to grow closer to God. Since this separation does not take place Thomasin grows closer to the devil instead. Kristeva calls into question the interaction between the discourse of Christianity and the discourse of maternity as she suggests it leads to misplaced abjection. In Kristeva’s interpretation of abjection, she describes the need to abject the maternal container, which she defines as the mother’s body about weaning. However, as the maternal function is not separate from representations of women in Western culture this leads to women being abjected within society. ‘The Witch’ perverts traditional views of motherhood by portraying a dysfunctional home. Due to the family’s excommunication, Katherine is ‘alone and burdened by maternity in isolation’ and the ‘conventional institutions that supposedly ‘protect’ women, such as the family, fail.’ (maifeminism). In this way, the story of Katherine and Thomasin acts as a warning about the types of motherhood that ‘exist outside of socially (and patriarchally) defined ideals’ (maifeminism). The film can be viewed as a Puritan cautionary tale in which a family is rightly punished for not following Puritan conventions as a ‘woman’s abjection helps to found the patriarchal symbolic order.’ (Creed, pp152). As the film is set sixty years before the Salem witch trials it can be seen as a scary story told to frighten women into submission and thus creates a foundation for the fear that justifies the murder of ‘witches’.