1. The trial was very odd. There was no real evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I was guilty. The things that were used as evidence made no sense. The only thing the jury had to go by was talk of unrealistic or coincidental occurrences. No one listened when I denied being a witch. I thought the petition would set me free but the girls that accused me quickly turned the tides.
2. Arthur Miller stressed the ideas that could be related to McCarthyism. He was trying to show the relationship between the “Red Scare” and the Witch trials. However, certain things in the trials didn’t make sense as an allegory to McCarthyism and he took out certain characters that didn’t fit his analogy such as Cotton Mather, who was a magistrate on the court during the Salem Witch Trials.
3. At first I thought Linnda Caporael’s theory could definitely explain the illness of the the girls who were called witches. However, when I read the second article I saw a quote from Dr. Peter Hoffer asking why only the girls had been infected by the fungus. The theories that the trials were a result of a cruel prank or revenge seem to make more sense. John Proctor, a victim of the trials, did have an affair with Abigail Williams, who was the first girl to show symptoms of witchcraft. John and his wife were both accused of witchcraft by Abigail.
4. I believe Arthur Miller had a great point about Americans being scared of Communists. People in the time period were ignorant as to what Communism was. They were just scared that America would treat their citizens like the Soviet Union treated people under Communism. They had a twisted idea of what Communism was because of the brash actions of the Soviet Union, such as blockading Berlin. In turn, Americans took outrageous actions in order to try to keep the Communists in America at bay. Friends turned on friends for things like playing soccer or not saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
5. The mass hysteria that was around during the Red Scare was similar to that in the Salem Witch Trials. Americans were fearful of something they had no clue about. The same is true for the Salem Witch Trials. In Salem, nobody had any real evidence that witchcraft existed, but still made accusations. For Americans during the Red Scare, it was the fear of Communists taking over America.
6. During each event, there was a mass hysteria that had arisen from an issue in society. In the "Human Rights Watch" article, during the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and the Holocaust many people died as a result of many people being scared by something; but during the Red Scare and in Japanese internment camps (in America), many citizens of America were not killed, but deprived of their rights in an effort to protect all American citizens.
7. George Santayana's quote means that if we cannot learn from mistakes made by leaders and civilizations before us, we will make the same mistake under other circumstances. Learning from history is knowing what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening again. Arthur Miller reminded people about the consequences of irrational fear based on ignorance.
8. Another example of another "witch hunt" was when Americans put citizens of Japanese descent into internment camps. America was shaken up by the attack on Pearl Harbor. The people were so scared that Japanese spies and terrorist cells existed in America. There was no real proof that either existed. All of it was just irrational fear because of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
9. I liked the activity about the Salem Witch Trials. It let you experience everything an accused “witch” would go through from the beginning to the end. It also expressed the emotions and actions that the accused when through in great detail.
