Salem Possessed Essay Questions

Why do the authors think that Rebecca Nurse was “ideal” as a substitute for Mary Veren Putnam when it came to making accusations of witchcraft?

One of the theories entertained by the authors is that the real “targets” of the Salem hysteria were powerful political opponents who could not be accused so easily as the outsiders who actually wound up being accused. The theory goes that this was an act of social displacement in which a person targets someone else on whom to take out their anger rather than the person making them angry. Mary presented a complicated case because she was actually part of the Salem Village faction to which the accusers belonged, but to which she did not, having been born to a wealthy family in Salem Town. Rebecca Nurse was considered an ideal “substitute” because she, like Mary, attended the church in Salem Town rather than be part of Rev. Parris’ Salem Village congregation. Both women had money and respect, but were also older and in poor health. What likely sealed Rebecca’s fate, however, is that her own mother had beaten a witchcraft accusation many years earlier.

Thanks in large part to Arthur Miller, the most famous names associated with Salem include John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, Abigail Williams, Rev. Parris and Cotton Mather, but is there anything that also makes John Burroughs worthy of such fame or infamy?

Rev. John Burroughs actually held the same position as Rev. Parris at one time. As minister of the Salem Village church, however, he had a disagreement with the community over payment of his salary which caused him to step down. Also at play were theological differences with the congregation and, perhaps most importantly, a debt owed to John Putnam at least substantial enough for him to not only file a suit, but when Burroughs next arrived in town, have him arrested. Ultimately, Burroughs was accused—on some of the flimsiest eyewitness accounts entered into evidence in the trial—found guilty, and sentenced to death. In addition to being the only minister who was killed for being a witch, Burroughs also stands out for his final act of defiance: reciting the Lord’s Prayer perfectly and in full on the execution block despite it being widely accepted that a witch could not recite it.

To what complex psychological state of self-identity do the authors attribute the rise of Rev. Parris to the face of the Salem witchcraft hysteria?

When Rev. Parris arrived to be ordained as the new minister of the Salem Village, he left behind a string of economic failures stretching from Barbados to Boston. His tenure as minister was marked by economic difficulties as well and near-scandal as well. As a result, Parris had developed a rather complicated psychological reaction to wealth: even as he was preaching fire and brimstone against it, he was perversely craving it. Recognition of this hypocrisy had the effect of equally splitting the target of his contempt: half toward those whom he considered enemies for blocking his path to greater wealth and half directed inward toward himself. Whether the increasingly intense and extreme sermons directed against the “Judases” and devils of the world were primarily written about himself or about those enemies mattered not as the congregation only heard one thing: someone close was coming for them and that someone was working in the service of the devil. It was Parris and his sermons more than even the young girls who whipped the Salem witchcraft accusations into the Salem witch trial hysteria.

How do Boyer and Nissenbaum depict the Puritans involved in the Trials?

Boyer and Nissenbaum are fair in their treatment of the Puritans involved in the Trials, even when those Puritans were engaged in deeply problematic behavior. They explain, not excuse, and the Puritans are ultimately depicted as very human. M. Barbara Akin writes that the major forces of "dislocation and upheaval" naturally "arouse the human reaction to want to do something, anything to stem the tide of events. The Salem Puritans are here presented as very human, very understandable and very recognizable people; more like ourselves, perhaps, than we care to admit."

Why were the changes happening in Salem Village so difficult for Puritans to accept?

The Puritans believed that the community was more important than the individual, that this group of "elect" was a single body. Any threat to that body was to be met with strong resistance, and an assertion of individual will in particular was deeply problematic. Built in to this Puritan society was "an enforcement procedure as well: the constant scrutiny and regulation of all facets of individual behavior in order to nip in the bud deviations that threatened the interests of the community as a whole" (104-5). And as capitalism places a premium on individual will, drive, and success, it was the antithesis to what the church saw as healthy.