The Real Salem Witch Trials

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The Real Salem Witch Trials

Although Arthur Miller fabricated many vital aspects of The Salem Witch Trials in ‘The Crucible’, much of what we learn in the play is, in fact, real. There were young girls making wild accusations, paranoia and suspicion amongst neighbours, mass hysteria, merciless villagers, trials, arrests, pardons and hangings. In this essay I will explore the real people affected by these events in Salem, who they were and what they were like, along with the aftermath created by such tragedy and madness.

The events took place between 1692 and 1693. Salem was a small town occupied by puritan folk. They were an extremely religious and disciplined people. The children did not play, nor did they read for simple enjoyment. There were no hobbies, no jewellery or make-up for teenage girls to experiment with. The women did not bare skin in any way or form. They did not meet to gossip and giggle. The men did not play sport, or stay home from church if they were tired after a hard day working in the fields. The civilians worked hard and prayed hard, and that was all.

In mid-January 1692, Abigail Williams was twelve years old. Miller increased her age to seventeen in ‘The Crucible’, possibly because it was a more appropriate to have an affair, but there has been speculation that it was due to the fact he was having an affair with Marilyn Monroe at the time. Abigail, as in the play, did live with her uncle Reverend Samuel Parris and her nine year old cousin Betty Parris. Their friend Anne Putnam, also aged twelve, was the daughter of two influential townspeople, Thomas and Anne. It was at this time that the three girls began to show signs of illness. Reverend Hale wrote how the girls ‘were bitten and pinched by invisible agents’ and how this was ‘beyond the power of any epileptic fit or natural disease. In Hale’s 1702 book ‘Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft’, he reveals how he knew one of the afflicted girls had experimented with voodoo and fortune-telling in order to find out the occupation of her future husband. He does not disclose the girl’s name.

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Abigail, Anne and Betty were a part of a group known as the ‘Circle Girls’, along with six other young women. They would meet in the Parris household to listen to the songs play the games of the Caribbean house slave, Tituba. The girls’ falling ill was the catalyst for the hysteria that was to ensue. After the doctor’s diagnosis, the word witchcraft began to circulate and people began to panic. On February 29th 1692, most likely afraid of getting in trouble, Anne accused Tituba, Sarah Osborne, an elderly woman who married her servant, and Sarah Good, a homeless beggar, of ...

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