Posted on 04/19/2016 2:39:58 PM PDT by OddLane
Just a note:
We often think of the men who conducted the Salem witch trials. They were the judges and jurors.
But they weren't the accusers.
The accusers were a nine year old girl, an eleven year old girl, and a twelve year old girl.
It's important to remember that. Young people, especially young girls in a male-dominated society, may feel powerless. And may feel more acutely any ambient paranoia in a community.
Immature people of all genders and ages might be prone to this.
Lodging a hysterical accusation suddenly makes the powerless powerful, and the marginally noticed suddenly the center of attention...
(Excerpt) Read more at minx.cc:1080 ...
[Lodging a hysterical accusation suddenly makes the powerless powerful, and the marginally noticed suddenly the center of attention...]
True.
I read that the hysteria outbreak may have been triggered by a barley toxin. It’s supposedly been traced to certain fields where the cut grain got wet in unexpected showers and then got moldy, producing the toxin that brought on convulsions and hallucinations. I think the mold is called “ergot”.
People thought they were either under an evil spell, or possessed. The panic soon inspired wild accusations and denunciations as people tried to deflect the blame to others.
The young adolescent girls were at the epicenter. And their imaginations had been heightened by an Afro-Caribbean serving woman who’d -— unbeknownst to their parents —— been entertaining them with ghost stories all winter long.
As the ergotism subsided, so did the “ witchcraft” outbreak.
There’s also a 2011 Korean adaptation, which sounds interesting. I’m not a huge fan of Miller-either as a person or a playwright. The one exception being A View from the Bridge, which I think is his best-for me, the only readable, work.
Arthur Miller always seemed to be in the August Wilson class of playwrights, i.e. the media/cultural guardians elevated him to Olympian heights purely for political, not artistic, considerations. Unlike Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet and the like.
So this could be the bernie phenom?
The most important thing when someone uses the Salem trials to make an anti-religious point is to remind them that they didn’t occur in the United States, but a British colony. They are as much US history as the French and Indian wars; something that happened in our geographical territory prior to the founding of this country.
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