Jun 30, · Medical sociologist Dr. Robert Bartholomew states, in an article on blogger.com, that the Salem Witch Trials were “undoubtedly” a case of conversion disorder, during which “psychological conflict and distress are converted into aches and pains that have no physical origin.” Plan dissertation roman d'apprentissage research trials for paper on salem Thesis statement witch an essay on mutual respect. words essay on water crisis Essay writing on india in hindi college essay for virginia tech the art of writing interesting essays. An example of a linguistic essay Sep 28, · Thesis Statement: words. Name: Topic: Salem Witch Trials of Research Questions: 1. 2. 3. Thesis Statement: This is usually one to two sentences that summarizes the point of the paper. It states the argument of the paper and includes your conclusions. Sources: 1. Proper citation according to Chicago Manual of Style format
ESSAY Thesis Statement: words. Name: Topic: Salem Witch Trials of Research Qu
The exact cause of the Salem Witch Trials has long remained a mystery. Like many historical events, figuring out what happened is one thing but trying to figure out why it happened is much harder. Most historians agree though that there were probably many causes behind the Salem Witch Trials, according to Emerson W. Baker in his book A Storm of Witchcraft:, salem witch trials dissertation.
Although colonists had been accused of witchcraft before in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it had never escalated to the level that Salem did, with hundreds of people locked up in jail and dozens executed.
Why did Salem get so bad? What we do know is that witches and the Devil were a very real concern to the Salem Villagers, salem witch trials dissertation, as they were to many colonists.
Once the idea took hold in the colony, things seemed to quickly got out of hand. Conversion disorder is a mental condition in which the sufferer experiences neurological symptoms which may occur due to a psychological conflict.
Conversion disorder is also collectively known as mass hysteria. Medical sociologist Dr. Robert Bartholomew states, in an article on Boston. Trial of George Jacobs of Salem for Witchcraft, painting by Tompkins Harrison Matteson, circa Professor Emerson W.
Baker also suggests conversion disorder as a possibility in his book A Story of Witchcraft:. Baker goes on to explain that many of the afflicted girls, such as Abigail Hobbs, Mercy Lewis, Susannah Sheldon and Sarah Churchwell, were all war refugees who had previously lived in Maine and had been personally affected by the war to the point salem witch trials dissertation some of them may have been experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Inin an article in the scientific journal Science, Linda R. Ergot is a fungus Claviceps purpurea that infects rye and other cereal grains and contains a byproduct known as ergotamine, which is related to LSD. Ergot tends to grow in warm, damp weather and those conditions were present in the growing season.
Not everyone agrees with this theory though. Many experts question the very existence of Artic hysteria, which results in such behavior as people stripping off their clothes and running naked across the wild tundra.
The accounts mention no such streaking in Salem, and while the supposed symptoms of witchcraft began in January, more people showed symptoms in the spring and summer…Encephalitis, the result of an infection transmitted by mosquito bite, does not really seem plausible, given that the first symptoms of bewitchment appeared during winter.
None of these suggested diseases fit because a close reading of the testimony suggests that the symptoms were intermittent. The afflicted had stretches when they acted perfectly normal, intersperse with acute fits. Historical records indicate that witch hunts occur more frequently during cold periods. In her paper, Oster explains that as the climate varied from year to year during this cold period, the higher numbers of witchcraft accusations occurred during the coldest temperatures.
Strikingly cold winters and dry summers were common in these decades. The result was not just personal discomfort but increasing crop failures. Starting in the s, many towns that had once produced an agricultural surplus no longer did so. Mixed farming began to give way to pastures and orchards. Once Massachusetts had exported foodstuffs; by the s it was an importer of corn, wheat, and other cereal crops.
Several scholars have noted the high correlation between eras of extreme weather in the Little Ice Age and outbreaks of witchcraft in Europe; Salem continues this pattern. Salem was very divided due to disagreements between the villagers about local politics, religion and economics. One of the many issues that divided the villagers was who should be the Salem Village minister. Salem Village had gone through three ministers in sixteen years, due to disputes over who was deemed qualified enough to have the position, and at the time of the trials they were arguing about the current minister Samuel Parris.
Rivalries between different families in Salem had also begun to sprout up in the town as did land disputes and other disagreements which was all coupled with the fact that many colonists were also uneasy because the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its charter revoked and then replaced in with a new charter that gave the crown much more control over the colony. In their book Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum attribute the witch trials to this political, economic, and religious discord in Salem Village:.
Boyer and Nissenbaum go on to provide examples, salem witch trials dissertation, such as the fact that Daniel Andrew and Philip English were accused shortly after they defeated one of the Putnams in an election salem witch trials dissertation Salem Town selectmen.
They salem witch trials dissertation point out that Rebecca Nurse was accused shortly after her husband, Francis, became a member of a village committee that took office in October of that was vehemently against Salem witch trials dissertation Village minister Samuel Parris, whom the Putnams were supporters of.
Charles Upham suggested this as a major cause and Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum have provided a brilliant analysis of the Salem community to support that argument. Indian warfare and the uncertainties related to the arrival of a new charter and new Governor in the two years before the witchhunt also added to the level of social stress. But other towns in frontier Massachusetts that experienced the same socio-economic-political difficulties did not spark a similar witchscare.
Several communities suffering from less stress did suffer from contact with Salem salem witch trials dissertation the witchscare virus spread. This contagion too was a unique aspect of the episode. Baker suggests though that fraud may have been a bigger problem in the witch trials than we realize:. Not surprisingly, there is no agreement on the answer, salem witch trials dissertation. Most historians acknowledge that some fakery took place at Salem.
A close reading of the surviving court records and related documents suggests that more fraud took place than many cared to admit after the trials ended, salem witch trials dissertation.
In Charles W, salem witch trials dissertation. Many of the accused also stated that they believed that the afflicted girls were lying or only pretending to be ill.
One of the accused, John Alden, later gave an account of his trial during which he described a moment that he believed to reveal fraud:. The salem witch trials dissertation demanded of them several times, who it was of all the people in the room that hurt them?
One of these accusers pointed several times at one Captain Hill, there present, but spake nothing; the same accuser had a man standing at her back to hold her up; he stooped down to her ear, then she cried out. Aldin, Aldin afflicted her; one of the magistrates asked her if she had ever seen Aldin, she answered no, he asked her how she knew it was Aldin?
She said, the man told her so. Salem witch trials dissertation the girl made this claim though, a salem witch trials dissertation man stood up in the court and explained that the knife was actually his and that he broke it himself the day before, according Winfield S.
Nevins in his book Witchcraft in Salem Village in He produced the remaining part of the knife. It was then apparent that the girl had picked up the point which he threw and put it in the bosom of her dress, whence she drew it to corroborate her statement that some one had stabbed her. She had deliberately falsified, and used the knife-point to reinforce the falsehood. If she was false in this statement, why not all of it?
If one girl falsified, how do we know whom to believe? Bernard Rosenthal also points out in his book, Salem Story, several incidents where the afflicted girls appeared to be lying or faking their symptoms, salem witch trials dissertation, such as when both Ann Putnam and Abigail Williams claimed George Jacobs was sticking them with pins and then presented pins as evidence or when both girls testified that they were together when they saw salem witch trials dissertation apparition of Mary Easty, salem witch trials dissertation, which makes it unlikely that the vision was a result of a hallucination or psychological disorder since they both claimed to have seen it at the same time.
Witch Pins, Court House, Salem. Photo published in New England Magazine, vol. Another example is various instances when the afflicted girls hands were found to be tied with rope while in court or when they were sometimes found bound and tied to hooks, according to Rosenthal:. Not only did some of the villagers believe the afflicted girls were lying, but they also felt that the Salem village minister, Reverend Samuel Parrislied during the trials in order to punish his dissenters and critics.
Some historians have also blamed Reverend Samuel Parris for the witch trials, claiming he was the one who suggested to the Salem villagers that there were witches in Salem during a series of foreboding sermons in the winter ofaccording to Samuel P. Fowler in his book An Account of the Life of Rev. Samuel Parris:. Parris at Salem Village, it being one of the causes, which led to the most bitter parochial quarrel, that ever existed in New-England, and in the opinion of some persons, salem witch trials dissertation, was the chief or primary cause of that world-wide famous delusion, salem witch trials dissertation, the Salem Witchcraft.
Nor, salem witch trials dissertation, certainly, was he responsible for the factional conflict which underlay it. Nevertheless, his was a crucial role. He had a keen mind and a way with words, and Sunday after Sunday, in the little village meetinghouse, by the alchemy of typology and allegory, he took the nagging fears and conflicting impulses of his hearers and wove them into a pattern overwhelming in its scope, a universal drama in which Christ and Satan, Heaven and Hell, struggled for supremacy.
After the trials were over, many of the Salem villagers felt Parris was responsible and some even protested by refusing to attend church while Parris was still minister there. In February ofthese dissenters even presented a list of reasons they refused to attend the church, in which they accused Parris of dishonest and deceitful behavior during the trials and criticized his unchristian-like sermons:.
After two years of quarreling with parishioners, Parris was eventually dismissed sometime around Although he was dismissed from his position, Parris refused to leave the Salem Village parsonage and after nine months the congregation sued him. During the lawsuit, the villagers again accused Parris of lying during the Salem Witch Trials, according to court records:.
And though they did fall at such a time, yet it could not be known that they did it, much less be certain of it; yet he did swear positively against the lives of such as he could not have any knowledge but they might be innocent, salem witch trials dissertation. Parris responded by counter suing for the back pay the villagers had refused to pay him while he was minister. He eventually won the lawsuit and left Salem village shortly after. English folk magic, which was the use of spells, ointments and potions to cure everyday ailments or solve problems, was often practiced in the Massachusetts Bay Colony even though it was frowned upon by most Puritans.
I knew one of the afflicted persons, who as I was credibly salem witch trials dissertation did try with an egg and a glass to find her future husbands calling; till there came up a coffin, that is, a spectre in likeness of a coffin. And she was afterward followed with diabolical molestation to her death; and so died a single person. A just warning to others, to take heed of handling the Devils weapons, lest they get a wound nearby, salem witch trials dissertation.
Another I was called to pray with, being under some fits and vexations of Satan. And upon examination I found she had tried the same charm: and after her confession of it and manifestation of repentance for it, and our prayers to God for her, she was speedily released from those bonds of Satan. Cotton Mather, in his book Wonders of the Invisible World, also blamed folk magic as the cause of the Salem Witch Trials, stating that these practices invited the Devil into Salem:.
The children of New England have secretly done many things that have been pleasing to the Devil. They say that in some towns it has been a usual thing for people to cure hurts with spells, or to use detestable conjurations with sieves, keys, peas, and nails, to learn the things for which they have an impious curiosity.
The legal proceedings of the Salem Witch Trials began with the arrest of three women on March 1, Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne. According to Elaine G. Breslaw in her book Tituba, the Reluctant Witch of Salem, this was a pivotal moment in the trials:, salem witch trials dissertation. To learn more about the Salem Witch Trials, check out this article on the best books about the Salem Witch Trials.
Sources: Rosenthal, Bernard. Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of Cambridge University Press, Nevins, salem witch trials dissertation, Winfield S, salem witch trials dissertation.
ASMR Whispered Spooky Series: The Salem Witch Trials
, time: 16:50Salem Witch Trials Research Paper Topics | Topics Base
Jun 30, · Medical sociologist Dr. Robert Bartholomew states, in an article on blogger.com, that the Salem Witch Trials were “undoubtedly” a case of conversion disorder, during which “psychological conflict and distress are converted into aches and pains that have no physical origin.” Between the months of June to September of , the infamous witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts resulted in the deaths of twenty men and women as a result of witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations and dozens were jailed for months during the progress of the trials Plan dissertation roman d'apprentissage research trials for paper on salem Thesis statement witch an essay on mutual respect. words essay on water crisis Essay writing on india in hindi college essay for virginia tech the art of writing interesting essays. An example of a linguistic essay
No comments:
Post a Comment