Many novelists have tackled the historical events of the infamous Salem witch trials of Massachusetts, one of the novelists being Stacy Schiff. She is well known for winning the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Cleopatra. When I saw that Stacy Schiff wrote a novel on the Salem Witch trials, I was immediately drawn and intrigued to read her perception of the historical events found written in our history books and portrayed on the movie screens. Stacy Schiff’s book The Witches, Salem 1692, published in 2015, was given the capability to benefit from hindsight, due to having a variety of sources she was able to research and integrate into her writing; statistics, government documents, and primary pictures and documents. Schiff’s informative research is captivating, and her writing talents rejuvenate the old but compelling story of the 1692 Salem witch hunt. I found it very interesting that Schiff herself was born in Massachusetts which may have been the reason for her interest in this topic. Her passion for the topic is evident in her writing and deep dive into the state’s history. After reading this novel, I now understand why the Salem Witch trials were such a fascinating and significant period in time.
The Salem Witch Trials in the early 17th century was a crucial part of American history. The Trials were a series of accusations and executions based on the epoch of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. It was a time of panic where the only way to escape prosecution was to confess and name others; hundreds of residents had come forward to accuse their neighbors, children, and parents of witchcraft. Schiff grabs the reader’s attention by highlighting the deaths of the nineteen women, alongside five men and two dogs who were accused of witchcraft. The youngest person executed was five; the eldest nearly eighty. One man was even pressed to death by substantial weights for declining to enter a plea. This period represents one of the moments when women played the central role in American history, considering many of the accused were women or young girls.
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Schiff also details how religion was pivotal and dictated the way of life within the colonies. The citizens of Salem were dissenters from the Church of England. The Puritans had a very strong emphasis on religion which is why they came to America to practice the “truest form of Christianity”. Puritans were fundamentalists who believed that every word in the Bible was the literal word of GOD should be meticulously and precisely followed. People did not understand what mental illness was, which caused the irrational fear of the devil turning women into witches. Salem's citizens believed the devil would approach the witches and give them power in exchange for their allegiance and evil deeds. Their zealousness and literal interpretations gave them a sense of righteousness. They believed that only they knew what was morally and ethically correct. Being strong-minded in their beliefs, the Puritans thought that every time something bad happened such as animals or crops dying, that God was disappointed in them, or worse, that the devil was near. They used the witches as an excuse for why these terrible things were happening because having an explanation was better than the unknown reality. Schiff writes, “the story of what happens when a set of unanswerable questions meets a set of unquestioned answers.” In other words, situations or events, we deemed witchcraft due to a lack of understanding or ignorance. It was clear in this time that the religious background of the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts made it easy to be tricked and convinced of wrongdoing. They were ready to accuse anyone or anything that went against their beliefs regardless of proof.
Schiff also chronicles the court's chief justice, William Stoughton. Stoughton was very eager to prosecute anyone who he believed had a trace of witchcraft. He would often prosecute against the advice of other officials. Along with the Salem judge, John Hathorne who was the one who led the initial investigations with inquisitional enthusiasm. The two men did not attempt to separate the young girls from society or question them individually. They did check to the dentistry records to match the victim's bite mark to the perpetrator, even though it would ludicrous to consider evidence because of the witches’ lack of teeth. Stoughton is so distraught when one of the defendants is found not guilty by the jury that he immediately reopened the case and succeeded in reaching an indictment. Many innocent people were being prosecuted at the hands of powerful men like Stoughton who would acquiesce to the publics' fear by making up events than face the facts of matter.
It was also disturbing that young children were admitting to crimes not knowing the consequences of their actions. Today, we are aware that kids do not have the capacity to make confessions under pressure-filled situations. Children don’t know any better and want to make adults happy which is why if they are enticed enough, as they were in the Salem Witch trials, they will admit to something they did not do because they feel it is what is expected of them. Which is why Schiff mentions how seven-year-old girl confessed that she had been a witch since she was six, although she wasn’t even sure of her contemporary age. She testified against her mother in court, explaining that she saw her mother in the presence of a black cat, which was condemning evidence of witchcraft in that time. Her mother was then sentenced to death, and the girl was shackled and forced to watch her mother’s execution. Schiff captures the feelings and emotions of what the accused had gone through, leaving the reader feeling uneasy, knowing that today the outcome could have been different. Back then people believed the worst and jumped to conclusions, while today the justice system revolves around being innocent until being proven guilty.
Schiff mentions various factors that contributed to the Salem Witch trials. A few of the main issues were adolescent hysteria. Children were making up stories that were believed by adults even though there was no proof. People also were turning on each other to keep themselves safe from accusation. Neighbors and family members sold each other out which negated any sense of community. You could not trust anybody, and everyone always had their guard up. Another issue that Schiff recalled was the strict views on appropriate behavior for women. There were many reasons that women were under fire but one thing that is still relevant today is the normalcies placed on the female gender. However, the author never investigates these complications in any depth. As a result, her book lacked a sense of focus on specific issues and they all began to fade together.
Overall, the Salem Witch Trials were a controversial time in which people were more concerned with the motivation behind the trials and execution rather than the accounts of the actual events. Historians all over the world explained their findings of what occurred while contradicting and criticizing their peers. Stacy Schiff did careful and detailed and research but falls flat while describing the events in chronological order. This novel succeeds as a work of capturing popular nonfiction, but it will only serve as a light reading for those already familiar with the subject.
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