The people of Salem also thought that the forest was a place where the devil dwelt. This is because the Indians living within these forests were not Christians and were thus not “paying homage” to God.
The community of Salem is mainly a farming community. The people work hard to earn a living on their land. The amount of effort put into their living can be seen when Proctor says to Hale,
I labour the Earth from dawn to dusk to blink at night
The society of Salem did not only feel threatened by the Indians, but also by the chilling winter. As a result, they had to struggle to survive.
Salem was a strict theocracy – a form of government by god through a priestly order. This type of government prevented the people from doing a lot of natural things, for which a hunger grew as time went on. The theocracy in Salem meant that everybody had no choice but to go to Church. No books apart from the bible was allowed to be read in Salem. The people of Salem were influenced to such an extent that they were told what to do and what to think by the Church, hence there was no individualism. Furthermore, the community had to act as a unity in order to survive the hostile environment. Therefore there could be no philosophy of individualism, as they would not have survived.
However in the course of the play, the community featured fragments. This disintegration of Salem is the result of many things but mainly because of the society’s belief in witches. This allowed a hysteria to develop. The first crucial event that led to Salem’s hysteria is when the girls are caught dancing in the woods. This is forbidden in the community due to their strict beliefs, as shown in the warning Mary gives,
…Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things!
When these girls are caught by Parris, the two small girls, Betty and Ruth, go into a trance which would now be called “psychosomatic”, but in the seventeenth-century and especially in Salem, it would have been named as the devil’s work.
The clergy’s run court had a great deal to do with community fragmentation, mainly because of its irrational nature and how it dealt with supernatural cases like witchcraft. The girls who had caused this hysteria, were given the power to accuse anyone of being the devil’s accomplices without themselves being questioned. This freedom to accuse is easily corrupted and used against their enemies for personal gain. They cry out,
I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!
This fiasco is explained in Miller’s commentary,
In naming people, the girls were probably projecting their own guilt on to the innocent.
Another reason the court proved so unwittingly successful in destroying Salem is that, it allowed long-held hatreds of neighbours to be openly expressed and revenge taken. This can be seen in Miller’s commentary,
Land-lust which had been expressed before constant bickering over boundaries and deeds, could now be elevated to the arena of morality; one could cry witch against one’s neighbour and feel perfectly justified in the bargain.
Thomas Putnam for example exploits the hysteria by making his daughter cry witch against George Jacobs so he can buy his land. This was pointed out by Giles to Danforth in the court,
There is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbours for that land!
Furthermore, Goody Putnam jealously accuses Rebecca Nurse of murdering her babies because Rebecca has never lost a child while Putnam lost all but one. These clear schemes go unnoticed by this unjust court, as the accused are sentenced to their undeserved fate
The immorality of the court has stretched to such extent, that if a member of Salem’s community believed that the court was unjust, then they would be accused of trying to overthrow the court and were clapped in jail.
The Salem tragedy in the end was caused not by persecution, oppression or tyranny from the outside but from the greed, jealousy and priestly arrogance of the people within Salem.
