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The Devil in Massachusetts: a Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trial Marion L. Starkey Garden City, New York. : Anchor books, 1949 Pp. 1, 311 The Devil in Massachusetts: a Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trial by Marion L. Starkey is an historical narrative of people and events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. The format of the book is narrative with dialogue from actual trial records. The trial records applied with a modern psychiatric knowledge surrounding the witchcraft hysteria. Starkey recreates the sense of pity and terror that surrounded Salem and the suffering that many endured.
The Devil in Massachusetts presents an account of the accusers, accused, prosecutors and defenders surrounding the trials at Salem. The book begins with the theory that two young and very deceiving girls began to explore witchcraft because they thought their lives consisted only of working but they lived like princesses. The girls egg on the Negro slave women of the Parris household to teach them some witchcraft. This was not hard to do since Tituba often babysat the young girls.
Tituba introduced the girls to several tricks and spells similar to the voodoo she learned at home in Barbados. Starkey notes that the relation of the children and Tituba based on tradition rather then record. The only Evidence to these accounts is from the court record of the examination (pg. 272). When three neighborhood girls hear of Tituba power, they join the two young girls in a witchcraft circle. The neighborhood girls being a bit older than the other two are seeking fortune telling from Tituba since they are unmarried and frowned upon in the puritan society. Everything seems fine until one of the younger girls, Betty leashes out with compulsive attacks and the doctor could not find a physical explanation.
A few days later, the other girls begin having these same attacks. When a new doctor examines the girls, he notes that the attacks are from a spell. Starkey states that no detailed accounts of the afflictions exist but she bases her information on early course of similar afflictions of the Goodwin children in Boston, an acute analysis made by Putnam of Corwins report of Tituba's examination and general characteristics of early phases of hysteria as described by Sigmund Freud's Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses (pg. 274). The book continues by exploring the accused witch's of Salem that seem to be endless. With instructions the girls confessed to whom, was putting them under the spell; Betty exclaimed it was Tituba and two other village women.
Starkey points out that none of these women attend church. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne claim to be innocent of any witchcraft all the way up until their death when hanged. When Tituba was on trial she explained that the devil made her do and that Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and three others where involved. Two other accused witches Martha and her husband Giles.
Giles died due to being tortured, when he would not confess to the charges larger stones placed on him until he died. When the trials began, many accused others of witchcraft and this lead to them accusing even more. The new news of the entire witchcraft epidemic in Salem left many disturbed and trying to eliminate the bad of the town. Marion Starkey wrote the book similar to a novel but being non-fiction and she states that it is an American history. The book is very easy to read and interesting at the same time. One bad point is the narrative, if Starkey had not left a section filled with notes explaining why she included certain things, one could question the honesty of the book.
Although at times it seems as though the dialog of the book is not exact to the written records it still gives an accurate account of the events compared with other historical books. In the preface of the book, Starkey states that this dialogue is not of my invention: it is copied out of the records (pg. 18) Starkey is a historian who did much of her research for the book from the Massachusetts historical society and the Massachusetts Archives. One thing to note is that the book consists of few grammar errors. The book allows the reader to reflect on the life of the Salem people and understand the happenings. One example is the reflection of the lives of teenage girls in the puritan society. Sent by God to marry and have a family, lacking the happiness of teen hood.
Thus, explaining a possible reason to why the girls chose to practice witchcraft and lead to the death of twenty towns people. At the end of the book, the Bibliography lists primary and secondary sources. Starkey notes her primary sources mostly are from Essex County Archives. Marion Starkey is a credited author who has written other books such as The visionary girls: Witchcraft in Salem Village, The Tall man from Boston, , The Cherokee nation, The land where our Fathers died: The settling of the Eastern shores, 1607 - 1735 and Lace cuffs and Leather aprons: Popular struggles in the Federalist Era, 1783 - 1800.
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Research essay sample on Salem Witch Sarah Osborne
