Warring ideologies amidst social change
Brother against brother and social turmoil
Paradigm change and cyclical history
Increase and Cotton Mather & Arthur Miller
Miller’s parallel of enforced public confession
The broken theocracy and misplaced intentions
In the annals of recorded history, the Massachusetts colonies witch trials, in which individuals were convicted and hanged for allegedly being witches, remains a symbol of the dangers of conflicting religious beliefs, of too rapid change in communities without the capacity to handle it, mass hysteria and fear, and the ability of powerful members of the status quo to literally decide who and who not should be convicted and condemned to die, regardless of how outrageous the charges or scant the evidence. However, in order to get to the underlying causes of such a mass phenomenon, we must look at many of the particulars involved in the situation and era. In order to have mass hysteria, fear and suspicion must exist. In 1692 such fear and suspicion did exist in Massachusetts. One of these was a battle of ideologies. Puritanism was experiencing a decline in popularity and adherence by the younger generations. Society was growing more and more secular. As trade grew so did the intermixing of cultures and ideologies. Society was growing in new and different ways and remained in a state of turmoil from internal political and external Indian threats.
Adding to these natural progressions of a developing “state”, brother was suspicious of brother because of the recently revoked Royal Charter. During this time, land titles were nullified before a new system of granting land rights could be instituted. Thus, no one knew for sure if their land were safe, or what a new system of land titles might encompass in the way of reassignment of space. In the transition period, neighbors looked upon one another with a certain level of suspicion. After the rebellion i...