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Question: Salem Witch Trials HELP!.!?
I have an essay due in January about the Salem Witch Trials!. Our topic is about Conflict & Compromise!.

Can you suggest any possible thesis that would collaborate with the topic!? Can it be about discrimination towards the women!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
I don't think discrimination towards women would fly - there were men who were accused of witchcraft as well during the Salem Witch Trials!.

Just think about the surrounding circumstances - children who were afraid of getting in trouble for cutting up and being silly which led to paranoia about spells being cast - you know the story obviously!.!.!.perhaps a good thesis would be about how strict and staunch the people who lived in those times really were!.!.!.their upbringing, their faith/religion - even though they came to America to seek religious freedom, they still held on to the values instilled in them by the Church of England, etc!.

Hope something I said helps!. Good luck on your paper!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Well, I don't think it can exactly be about discrimination against women, because most of the accusers were women and girls, and some of the accused were men!. It is true that more women than men were accused, women were thought to be spiritually weaker than men and therefore more susceptible to satanic influence, but they were not accused simply because they were women!.

Nor is it true (as a comment above suggests) that it was about the better-off accusing the less well-off!. In fact it was sometimes the opposite, some of those accused were from leading families in Salem, or people in positions of responsibility!. A former minister of Salem, George Burroughs, was accused of being the ringleader of the witches for instance, and he was hanged!. George Jacobs, an eighty-year old Salemite, was a prosperous member of the community who was accused by one of his own servants ("You tax me for a wizard, you might as well tax me for a buzzard" he said when he was arrested)!. Governor Phippps returned from fighting the Indians to find that his own wife had been accused!.

You might argue that there was a conflict between certain sections of the community, which might have been a factor that influenced who was accused!. Prominent among the accusers were members of the Putnam family, and many of those they accused were from families who had been in conflict with the Putnams in various lawsuits etc!. This could have been a motivating factor behind some of the accusations!.

There was also a growing conflict between those who believed the charges, and those who were skeptical!. Nearly everybody in those days believed in the reality of witchcraft, but it was unusual for witches to be convicted on such flimsy evidence as that presented by the girls of Salem, and many people cast doubts on their reliability!. Increase Mather, whose son Cotton had been one of the people most eager to promote the witchcraft trials, wrote a book in which he said that the devil might assume the guise of an honest person and give testimony to destroy another upright resident!. He said that the testimony of "possessed" people should not be taken as proof of witchcraft because them "no Person whatsoever can be in safety!."Www@QuestionHome@Com

SingsinHerSleep has part of it right!.
But an important component of the Salem episode was the fact that most of the "bewitched" girls had suffered trauma and loss during the King Philip's War, and they lived in a repressed culture which offered them no good psychosocial mechanisms for processing that trauma!. To act in bizarre ways and to overturn the normal order of their society was their unconscious way of negotiating a "compromise" with their community's response to the conflict they had experienced!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Actually it wasn't just based on discrimination towards the woman!.
Strangely enough, the Salem Witch Trials is due in large part to land or property!.
Let's just say, for example, your a male Puritan landowner and you want to expand your farm or property!. Well if you don't want to pay to purchase their land, what's the next best option!? That's right!. Accuse their wife of witchcraft or heresy!. There's no way to prove they're innocent so 9 times out of 10 they're guilty and imprisioned, freeing their land for your taking!.
I know it's bizzarre but I'm studying this in my American Literary Tradition class and my teacher is fascinated by the witch trials!. Pretty amazing when you think about it!. So many innocent people tried and for what!? But I guess we have to understand that land was like the shizz back then, it was the only symbol of social significance!.
So, maybe you can research that a bit and incorporate it into your essay!. I mean, that's what most of the conflict arose because of!.

Hope I helped!

Www@QuestionHome@Com

no because some of the accusers were woman and some of the accused were men!. you might do a exam of people and class!. hoe the less fortunate were accused by those more fortunate!. the judges were males but those that started the salem witch trials were upper class spoiled female brats with way to much time on their hands!. Www@QuestionHome@Com