Analysis Paper - Richard Godbeer, The Salem Witch Hunt
The Salem witch trails were undoubtedly one of the most notorious historical moments in America's colonial past. Accusations of witchcraft were common across the colonies and in Europe in the seventeenth century. But what happened in Salem, as Richard Godbeer notes, was "an exceptional manifestation of beliefs and fears that were commonplace in this period."
Instructions
The objective of this assignment is to examine some commonplace aspects of Salem colonial society by analyzing a handful of primary source documents in Godbeer's The Salem Witch Hunt.
Your job is to pick THREE primary sources (no more, no less) from the book and write a paper that analyzes the three primary sources as they relate to ONE of the themes below.
- The supernatural: How did people in Salem view the super natural world? In what ways did the supernatural interact or not interact with the living world? How did these beliefs influence their views of witchcraft in their community? In what ways do the primary sources you've picked shed light on these questions?
- Puritanism: What role did Puritanism play in the Salem witch hunt and trails? To what extent did people in Salem's Puritan worldview shape their understanding of witchcraft and the witch hunt in their community? How did their Puritan values influence the way that they decided to deal with the problem of witchcraft in their community? In what ways do the primary sources you've picked shed light on these questions?
- Gender: After reading the book, it should become obvious to you that nearly all the people accused of witchcraft were women. What do these primary sources reveal about gender roles and the dynamics between men and women in Salem in the late 1600s? How do the documents shed light on why women were more likely to be accused of witchcraft than men? In what ways do the primary sources you've picked shed light on these questions?
This is a primary source analysis paper which means that practically the entire paper needs to be focused on what the primary sources say about the theme you've picked. To develop you analysis, you should actively and critically think about how the primary sources shed light on the worldview of the people who lived in Salem. This paper is not a research paper where you try to describe the events of the past. Nor is it a paper in which you try to piece together a story by cherry-picking information from the primary sources.
Assignment link -
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1esunnevtde8cc4/Assignment%20Reading.rar?dl=0