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The Crucible


            SUPPLEMENTARY READING: BOOK ANALYSIS.
             In "The Crucible", a play about the Salem witch trials of 1692, by Arthur Miller, the author showed how a reverend, Rev. Parris, displayed hypocrisy. Since priest are generally considered good, honest people, Arthur Miller shows how Rev. Parris lies to the community, he puts his ministry in front of his daughter's life, and tries to help himself before helping the community. Even when his daughter is sick and he is unsure what is wrong with her, he puts himself and his job before her. .
             Sometime during February of the exceptionally cold winter of 1692, young Betty Parris became strangely ill. She twisted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis, but there were other theories. Cotton Mather had recently published a popular book, "Memorable Providences," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty's behavior in some ways mirrored that of the afflicted person described in Mather's book. It was easy to believe in 1692 in Salem, with an Indian war raging less than seventy miles away that the devil was close at hand. .
             Talk of witchcraft increased when other playmates of Betty, including eleven-year-old Ann Putnam, seventeen-year-old Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott, began to show signs of similar unusual behavior. When his own nostrums failed to affect a cure, William Griggs, a doctor called to examine the girls, suggested that the girls' problems might have a supernatural origin. The widespread belief that witches targeted children made the doctor's diagnosis seem increasing likely. .
             In the meantime, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren. The girls contorted into grotesque poses, fell down into frozen postures, and complained of biting and pinching sensations.


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