Mendacity In Salem Essay, Research Paper

Mendacity in Salem

Every act of dishonesty has at least two victims: the one we think is the victim and the perpetrator as well. Relating this to Salem in the year 1692, you can definitely say that many acts of deceit were committed. Humankind needed a scapegoat to blame for the occurrence of unfavorable incidents. Blaming adverse conditions on the devil is the easy and obvious way out of any situation right?

The people of Salem never conceived that children were anything but thankful for being permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly lowered, arms at the sides and mouths shut until bidden to speak. The people did not celebrate Christmas and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer. They were extremely religious and prayer was something that was done very frequently. The people of Salem developed a theocracy ( a combination of state and religion ) The function of a theocracy was to keep the community together and prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies.

Salem lived in hypocrisy in 1692. These Puritans were supposed to be very religious yet so many lies were fabricated. Lies made just to cover oneself up from the act of doing something that was bad. The devil was a way to elude responsibility and to ignore the consequences of its actions. All one had to do was say that the devil was the cause of the situation and wash his hands of the entire problem. Using this method of accusation, long hatreds for neighbors could now be openly expressed and vengeance could easily been taken. One could cry witch against one s neighbor and if convicted, the innocent one could be easily killed. The ways of decision were extremely unfair and very careless. Seems you didn t need much evidence to accuse someone of being a witch. It s amazing how ridiculous their court system was.

Being deeply religious is fine, but being a hypocrite is not. The Puritans lived by a very strict and inflexible code of morality and behavior. By being dishonest and accusing others of witchcraft is a sin. Their community lived in a sort of boy who cried wolf lifestyle and with no proof to substantiate anything, unfair decisions were made.