The Salem Witch Trials

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that the Salem witchcraft hysteria centered upon the needs of the males to both assert and maintain their dominance within every element of their community. The paper discusses how, during that period, all misfortunes were blamed on witches and this allowed for the immediate suspicion of anyone and anything that fell outside of the norm. The paper then shows how the witch-trials, therefore, allowed for people opposed to the status quo to be branded as witches based entirely upon their opposition. The paper explains that since women, dissidents and social outcasts could now be painted as witches, there could be an assertion of absolute cultural, religious financial and political power within the New England elite.

From the Paper:

"The entirety of the Salem witchcraft hysteria centered upon the needs of the males to both assert and maintain their dominance within every element of their community. For the Puritans, evil and the evidence of evil was as real and as visible as the evidence of God. While the concept of devils, demons, demonic possession, and witches have long since gone out of our religious discourse, at one time in the New World, they were part of the daily lives of the Puritan communities. Using these beliefs to their benefit, the male community leaders of Salem and other Puritan settlements in Massachusetts asserted their control over the local economy, the social order, the behavior of the people, and reinforced their superior positions through the manipulation of their religious faith."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Ehrenreich, Barbara. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women. Anchor, 1989.
• Hall, David. Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693, Second Edition. Duke University Press, 2005.
• Hill, Frances. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Da Capo Press, 2002.
• Institute for the Advanced Study of the Humanities. Salem Witch Trials: Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. Online. Internet. Avail: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:8090/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=salem/texts/names.xml&style=salem/xsl/dynaxml.xsl&group.num=G01&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes. Info Acc 5 Nov, 2007.
• Laplante, Eve. American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans. HarperOne, 2004.

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