Question | Answer |
Who wrote the play The Crucible? | Arthur Miller |
What are the three characteristics of the Puritan Plain Style of writing? | 1.) short words
2.) references to ordinary, everyday objects
3.) direct statements |
Who was Cotton Mather? | He was a Harvard-educated Puritan minister who reported on the Salem witchcraft trials in his book Wonders of the Invisible World. |
What is "spectral evidence"? | This is witness testimony stating that a person accused of witchcraft had sent out his/her ghostly spirit to torment the victim. Because witchcraft was a crime that could only be seen by the "witch" and victim, this was accepted proof in Puritan court. |
True or False: The Puritans founded Harvard College. | True |
True or False: The Puritans believed that only men should learn to read and write. | False, they strongly believed in a basic education for both men and women. |
True or False: The Puritans produced a lot of fictional novels, short stories, and plays. | False. Fiction was considered lying, and was therefore a sin. |
True or False: Cotton Mather wrote the play The Crucible after witnessing the events of the Salem witchcraft trials. | False. Although Cotton Mather did report on the Salem witchcraft trials in his book "Wonders of the Invisible World," the play The Crucible was not written until the 1950s. |
What is McCarthyism? | McCarthyism refers to the search for suspected Communists and Communist sympathizers in the United States in the 1950s. Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, this search was often carried out without evidence beyond being named by another accused person. |
True or False: The Puritans' main reason for coming to America was that they were seeking religious freedom. | True |
The Puritans practiced a theocracy. What is a theocracy? | This is a system of government in which there was no separation between church and state; the laws of the church were the laws of the society and the church leaders were the government leaders. |
What was the Great Awakening? | This was a series of religious revivals in the 1740s in which Puritan ministers tried to scare people back to the strict practice of Puritanism. |
In what year did the Salem witchcraft trials take place? | 1692 |
True or False: The Salem witchcraft trials were the only trials in America which resulted in citizens being executed as witches. | False. Although the trials in Salem involved the greatest number of deaths and ultimately led to a change in the Puritan way of life witchcraft trials and executions had been carried out in other Puritan communities in the colonies as well. |
Who was Ann Bradstreet? | She was a Puritan poet who wrote devotional poetry including "To My Dear and Loving Husband." Although much of her poetry was about what is was to be a good Puritan, she was technically breaking with the traditional woman's role by publishing poetry. |
Who is Edward Taylor? | He was a Puritan poet who wrote devotional poetry including "Huswifery," in which he uses a spinning wheel and loom as symbols to present the message that a good Puritan should dedicate his whole self to God in order to get to heaven. |
What were some of the acceptable ways of proving someone was a witch in Puritan society? | Several were:
*floating a witch (a witch floats; an innocent person sinks)
*searching for a witch's mark
*torturing a confession out of the person |
How was The Crucible's Abigail Williams different from the historical Abigail Williams | Arthur Miller made her older in the play to better fit in with the fictional central adultery theme in his story. |
How many people were executed as witches during the Salem witchcraft trials? | 19 people were executed as witches. A 20th man was tortured to death because he would not put in a plea or either guilty or innocent. |
For someone accused of witchcraft, what was the one sure way to avoid being hung? | The one sure way to avoid being hung was to confess to witchcraft and name names of other witches |
Knowing that refusing to confess to witchcraft would result in hanging and confessing would save their lives, why would some Puritans accused of witchcraft refuse to confess? | The Puritans believed that lying was a sin that could lead to the soul going to hell. Logically, it seemed that they prefered to die doing the right thing than to damage their souls by lying. So many choosing death to confession cast doubt on the trials |