Salem Possessed
In the past, the word Salem has always been somewhat synonymous with the infamous witch trials. Rather than overlook the ordinary people living in the towns in which Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum write, they instead take the instance of the witch trials of 1692 and springboard from them into a detailed inquisition into the entire history of the small village of Salem. In their own words, Boyer and Nissenbaum have exploited the focal events of 1692 somewhat as a stranger might make use of a lightning flash in the night. That is to say, the authors strive to show how the witch trials were not simply a completely spontaneous event, but rather a long, horrible process by which individuals were singled out, tried, and executed in order to vent emotions of hostility towards change. Boyer and Nissenbaum proposed that one difference between the accusers and the accused was a difference of economic status. The way in which the authors go about this, however, is in a somewhat difficult to comprehend style that goes back and forth between the years, forcing one to rethink all the facts thus far each time a new chapter is introduced. In addition, the authors tend to focus mostly on the social and economic aspects of witchcraft, with l . . .
Another topic of discussion was how the village’s economical status was one of the causes of the witch trials; namely, that the appearance of ‘witches’ coincided primarily with those areas in which property conflicts had arisen. That is where the public’s knowledge of the Salem witch trials generally comes to an end. By going strictly from church records and personal accounts, the authors have brought a whole new light to what was once percieved as a purely tyrannical act of prejudice against seemingly random people, letting the public know that it was in fact a calculated attack on many ‘radical’ individuals. The main point that Boyer and Nissenbaum are trying to make is that many of Salem’s problems take root in the economic revolution that New England in its entirety was making in moving towards becoming a mercantilist society. Salem Possessed tends to leap around from point to point forcing one to review the facts he or she already knows in order to make any sort of connection between any one chapter and the remainder of the book. Both Salem Town and some Salem Villagers still attended the same church, but either side was somewhat hesitant to converse with the other one. And, while the book did occasionally fall short on offering a complete picture of the events, it was still a fairly succinct guide to the economic factors involved with the village of Salem and its fifteen minutes, as it were, and as such would be reccommended to history buffs around the world. In 1672, Salem Village was created as an offshoot of Salem Town, simply because the farmers were tired of making the trek to and from the city center and wished to set up their own parish. Keeping this in mind, it is no shock that many of those that were in various stages of prosperity were also those that were accused of witchcraft. In the year 1692, the small farming village of Salem, Massachusetts saw a social phenomenon that would propel the village into the history books: the calamity that was witchcraft. The witch trials were initiated whenever three young girls, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam were caught performing fortune telling rituals in the woods, trying to gather information on what type of man would be best for them. In truth, a chronological order in a book of this magnitude would be somewhat difficult to follow as well, but some overall resemblance of continuity would have been nicer than the story from several different points of view. Salem Town in itself became a major target, simply because it was slowly but surely transforming into a prosperous urban center. Phips was perhaps hoping to distill any public interest in the trials by acting as if it had been just one big misunderstanding; this, of course, was a completely ineffective gesture.
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