Ali Pendev
Ms. Hodde
10AA English, 4th Hour
15 October 2011
Roots of the Tragedy in Salem
Abigail Williams started and continued the tragedy of Salem. First Abigail threatens the girls to not tell the whole truth about what they were doing in the woods (Miller 20). If she had never threatened them to only say they danced, the girls would have told the whole story and get beaten instead of lie and start this tragedy. Another way Abigail starts and continues the tragedy is by blaming Tituba for being a witch. (Miller 45) Tituba has no power as a slave and Abigail knows they will believe her over Tituba so she accuses Tituba for making her drink blood and hurting her in other ways because she has compacted with the devil. Also, Abigail leads the rest of the girls to start blaming innocent, lower class people of witchery. (Miller 50-1) Abigail sets an example when she blames Tituba and then starts blaming random people after so the girls just go along with the pretending and start accusing random lower class people of being witches. Abigail Williams lead the girls to accuse many innocent people and therefore she is responsible for starting and continuing the tragedy of Salem.
Another person responsible for continuing the tragedy is Judge Danforth. One reason he is responsible for continuing it is he arrested 400 people and signed the death warrants of 72 of those people.(Miller 91) If he had not arrested all those people with the little and even no proof against them, the tragedy would not have been continued. Also, Judge Danforth denies people of getting lawers and therefore lowers their chances of proving that they were not bewitched. (Miller 105) If he had allowed lawers to come in and eveluate the proof and try to debate against it they could have proven the accusations false. Lasty, Judge Danforth believed the girls with no proof because he believed that witchery was spirits sent to hurt others and therfore cannot be seen. (Miller 105) Judge Danforth was not very smart in thinking that there was no proof because the spirits were invisible and if he would have listened to Hale, the expert, he could have denied the accusations and not continued the tragedy. Danforth is accountable for continuing the tragedy because was fooled by the pretends of the girls and led to believing in invisible proof since the spirits of witches were invisible.
Third and finally most accountable of all things was the Puritan society for starting and continuing the tragedy of Salem. The Puritan society is responsible for starting