Witch Hunt Web Quest

 

1. When I was experiencing the trial myself, I never felt safe. When they made me wait in the jail cell with the dangling chains around me, I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach that you can only get when you know that nothing good can happen. Going through this trial, I knew that the odds were not good for me. I felt like no matter what happened, whether it was in my favor or not, I would still perish.
2. One of the differences between The Crucible and the real historical witch trials is that in the Crucible there was, of course, a love story. Even though this wasn't historically accurate, Miller was using using his creative mind and thought that as long as everyone knew this and did not think that it was real, it was okay. One difference they talked about that I did not think was as big of a deal then they took it to be, was that the "witches" were burned not hung. When it comes down to it they were killed, doesn't matter how, but the fact that they were.
3. After reading the two articles, I do think that the theory of Ergot poisoning is the best theory. Caporael didn't come up with this idea over night, she obviously did a bunch of research and put in tons of time to develop this idea. All her research makes sense, the wet summer, the rye, the symptoms of Ergot. I also agree with her that not all the girls, excluding the first two, were ergot poisoned, that they were pulling a prank and it went terribly wrong. I do honestly believe that the first two girls, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, really did have ergot poisoning but the other girl were just playing around with the idea to get out of their boring lives.
4. McCarthyism is the act of blaming someone else or blacklisting them. This was created and mostly used toward alleged communist that were in the US at the time of the Red Scare. During the Salem witch trials, the girls who were "bewitched" would accuse someone of being a witch which is like McCarthyism.
5. During both the red scare and the Salem witch trials everyone went into a large panic and started to blame others like McCarthyism. They were both afraid that either the communist or the "witches" would hurt them or take them over.
6. One similarity that all these events have with the Salem witch trials is that someone is getting blamed for what is going on. During the Holocaust, everyone blamed Hitler and the Nazis for the wrong doings at the concentration camps (although they were the cause). And During WW2 when we put the "Children in Camps" they blamed us Americans and we blamed Japan. During the Red Scare everyone blamed Russia and the Communist for the scare.
7. If we did not learn how these disasters in history happened and why they were so bad, we may not ever be able to learn how to move around these problems if they were ever to reoccur and we make the same mistakes. One thing that could cause a repeat in history is if we don't study how a war breaks out then we might make that same mistake and it would happen all over again.
8. The biggest Witch hunts were the Red Scare and the Salem trials, although there were several during the 15 and 16 century there are non hat are as well known as those two.
9. The most interesting thing that I learned from this activity was that the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare were so similar. I also enjoyed learning how the girls from the Witch Trials got ill.