Paraphrasing Original Text Definitions and Questions

1. Parris-40 1. At the time of these events Parris was in his middle forties. In Yellow=facts
widower, not good history he cut a villainous path, and there is very little good to be Green=description and author
with kids, cant said for him. He believed he was being persecuted wherever he commentary
think of kids being went, despite his best efforts to win people and God to his side. In Blue=Knock out punch
anything more than meeting, he felt insulted if someone rose to shut the door without CHARACTERIZATION OF
happy to just be first asking his permission. He was a widower with no interest in PARRIS Why is a preacher during
normal children, or talent with them. He regarded them as young adults, Puritan time being described with
and until this strange crisis he, like the rest of Salem, never such negative words?
conceived that the children were anything but thankful for being
permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly lowered, arms at the sides, Whats the authors purpose in
and mouths shut until bidden to speak. making someone who is supposed
to be good not good?

2. Parris lives in a 2. His house stood in the town - but we today would hardly call it Setting/Environment: Dark and
small town that we a village. The meetinghouse was nearby, and from this point little light getting in. Kimberly Hernandez 9/10/2014 7:46 PM
would see as tiny. outward - toward the bay or inland - there were a few small- Comment [1]: Parris
Its a still kinda wild windowed, dark houses snuggling against the raw Massachusetts Little light=symbol? Not a lot of
area and Europe winter. Salem had been established hardly forty years before. To the clarity or a lot of secrets?
sees them as European world the whole province was a barbaric frontier
crazies. inhabited by a sect of fanatics who, nevertheless, were shipping out Parris is older than his town and its
products of slowly increasing quantity and value. barbaric (definition: uncivilized
and cruel environment---so few
comforts) and peopled by fanatics
3. No fun for the 3. No one can really know what their lives were like. They had no (definition: extremistcrazy folks!
Puritans! novelists - and would not have permitted anyone to read a novel if Why?) Kimberly Hernandez 9/10/2014 8:11 PM
one were handy. Their creed forbade anything resembling a theater Comment [2]: Puritans/People of Salem
or vain enjoyment. They did not celebrate Christmas, and a Why werent they allowed to have
holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even any fun?
more upon prayer.
Praying was what they did when
they had a holiday
4.Hard work kept 4.Which is not to say that nothing broke into this strict and somber
the people right. In way of life. When a new farmhouse was built, friends assembled to
order to survive raise the roof, and there would be special foods cooked and Fun had to be useful?
everyone had to probably some potent cider passed around. There was a good
work hard. No time supply of neer-do-wells in Salem, who dallied at the shovelboard Shovelboarda bar game
to act like a butt. in Bridget Bishops tavern. Probably more than the creed, hard Tavern--bar
work kept the morals of the place from spoiling, for the people
were forced to fight the land like heroes for every grain of corn,
and no man had very much time for fooling around.
5. SUNDAY Lyelie
SNITCHES! The 5.That there were some jokers, however, is indicated by the practice Attendingpay attention to
minding of other of appointing a two-man patrol whose duty was to walk forth in Ordinanceslaws or rules
peoples business. 2 the time of Gods worship to take notice of such as either lye about Predilectionliking or fondness
men walked around the meeting house, without attending to the word and Magistratesjudges
to make sure people ordinances, or that lye at home or in the fields without giving
where at church good account thereof, and to take the names of such persons, and John Proctor probably hated having
and not doing other to present them to the magistrates, whereby they may be other people mind his business.
things. Take their accordingly proceeded against. This predilection for minding
names to judges other peoples business was time-honored among the people of Salem was almost safe so old
and legal action will Salem, and it undoubtedly created many of the suspicions which disciplines (old rules) started to
be taken. were to feed the coming madness. It was also, in my opinion, one rankle (definition: to cause bitter
of the things that a John Proctor would rebel against, for the time feelings)
of the armed camp had almost passed, and since the country was
reasonably - although not wholly - safe, the old disciplines were BUTThe most thing was to stick
beginning to rankle. But, as in all such matters, the issue was not together because together was
6. Woods scary clear-cut, for danger was still a possibility, and in unity still lay the safetybut from what exactly?
full of unknown best promise of safety.
and threatening and
Paris had lost some 6.The edge of the wilderness was close by. The American continent Safety from the woods (animals or
family to the Native stretched endlessly west, and it was full of mystery for them. It people?)
Americans. stood, dark and threatening, over their shoulders night and day, for
out of it Indian tribes marauded from time to time, and Reverend
7. Small Parris had parishioners who had lost relatives to these heathen.
mindedness is why Parochialnarrow-mined or like a
the Puritans 7.The parochial snobbery of these people was partly responsible parish (county? Small town
couldnt convert the for their failure to convert the Indians. Probably they also preferred mentality?)
natives..but to take land from heathens rather than from fellow Christians. At
maybe it was really any rate, very few Indians were converted, and the Salem folk
about the land. believed that the virgin forest was the Devils last preserve, his
Woods as SATAN home base and the citadel of his final stand. To the best of their
LAND knowledge the American forest was the last place on earth that was
not paying homage to God.
8. Puritans felt Innateinborn and natural
hated on, but then 8.For these reasons, among others, they carried about an air of Persecutionsuffering and
turned around and innate resistance, even of persecution. Their fathers had, of course, harassment Kimberly Hernandez 9/10/2014 8:32 PM
decided to hate on been persecuted in England. So now they and their church found it Comment [3]: No fun, minding other
the freedom of necessary to deny any other sect its freedom; lest their New Why not breed sympathy if you peoples business, small town stupidity, and
othersto keep Jerusalem be defiled and corrupted by wrong ways and deceitful went through the SAME bad being scared of the woods
their beliefs safe. ideas. treatment? What kind of people are
9. Good things you really?
about their belief 9.They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the
that they were the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and They (Puritans) believed they could
light of the world. it has helped and hurt us. It helped them with the discipline it gave save the world from darkness? Kimberly Hernandez 9/10/2014 8:37 PM
them. They were a dedicated folk, by and large, and they had to be How it helpeddedication to hard Comment [4]: Americans?
to survive the life they had chosen or been born into in this work; disciplinethe only way to
10. Jamestown country. survive in the new world wilderness
failed because it was
individuals looking 10.The proof of their beliefs value to them may be taken from the Jamestown VA vs Puritans (1962)
for pay day. opposite character of the first Jamestown settlement, farther south,
Puritans succeeded in Virginia. The Englishmen who landed there were motivated Jamestownprofit; not religious;
because they mainly by a hunt for profit. They had thought to pick off the individuals; but they got wrecked!
huddled up to keep wealth of the new country and then return rich to England. They
Ingratiatingseeking to please
the relgion stuff were a band of individualists, and a much more ingratiating group someone (who? King?)
going. No fun, than the Massachusetts men. But Virginia destroyed them.
harshness and other Massachusetts tried to kill off the Puritans, but they combined; they Autocraticruled by one person with
strictness made set up a communal society which, in the beginning, was little more absolute authority
them hard core than an armed camp with an autocratic and very devoted
enough to survive leadership. It was, however, an autocracy by consent, for they were Perpetuationto keep going
where others united from top to bottom by a commonly held ideology whose
punked out. perpetuation was the reason and justification for all their Puritanscombined; to perpetuate
sufferings. So their self-denial, their purposefulness, their suspicion ideology (system of social beliefsso
religious in this case too)
of all vain pursuits, their hard-handed justice, were altogether
11. Salem Puritans perfect instruments for the conquest of this space so antagonistic
not as hard core as to man. Revolution that made royals not the
those that came GOVwhich country (not France)
before. World 11.But the people of Salem in 1692 were not quite the dedicated
change makes folk that arrived on the Mayflower. A vast differentiation had taken Juntasmall legislative body; new
people think that place, and in their own time a revolution had unseated the royal rulers after a coup
evil is lurking. government and substituted a junta which was at this moment in
power. The times, to their eyes, must have been out of joint, and to Insolubleunbreakable or impossible
to solve
the common folk must have seemed as insoluble and complicated
Change comes from dark places
as do ours today. It is not hard to see how easily many could have because it was confusing?
been led to believe that the time of confusion had been brought
upon them by deep and darkling forces. No hint of such
 speculation appears on the court record, but social disorder in any Social issues eventually make people
age breeds such mystical suspicions, and when, as in Salem, turn to superstition
12. Salems issue wonders are brought forth from below the social surface, it is too
was that it was the much to expect people to hold back very long from laying on the Problems in Salem started as a paradox
(something contradictory to its own
juncture of victims with all the force of their frustrations.
self) that we are still stuck in
changing FROM a
uptight society 12. The Salem tragedy, which is about to begin in these pages, Puritans made a theocracy to unite the
based on no fun developed from a paradox. It is a paradox in whose grip we still community but any organization by its
and order to keep live, and there is no prospect yet that we will discover its resolution. nature excludes people.
people safe TO a Simply, it was this: for good purposes, even high purposes, the
world that was people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and
more based on religious power whose function was to keep the community
individual freedom together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to Repression (being kept down by force)
since the place destruction by material or ideological enemies. It was forged for a to keep order in society felt too heavy
for what was necessary for the things
wasnt AS necessary purpose and accomplished that purpose. But all
that threatened order.
dangerous. organization is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and
prohibition, just as two objects cannot occupy the same space. Manifestationthe act of showing
Evidently the time came in New England when the repressions of something
order were heavier than seemed warranted by the dangers against Witch hunt as a sign of panic when
which the order was organized. The witch-hunt was a perverse Individual freedom challenged unity
13. When you look manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the
past the terrible balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.
actions of certain Social contract means you have to
people you can only 13. When one rises above the individual villainy displayed, one can repress some of yourself, but how
feel sorry for them. only pity them all, just as we shall be pitied someday. It is still much?
Repression is always impossible for man to organize his social life without repressions,
necessary but how and the balance has yet to be struck between order and freedom.
much? Lust confession disguised as
14.The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was witch accusation (so you were like
14. Witch trials as a also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone saving the community so it was for
time to AIR so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of country and doing Gods work)
DIRTY accusations against the victims. It suddenly became possible - and
LAUNDRY patriotic and holy - for a man to say that Martha Corey had come
>guilt and sin into his bedroom at night, and that, while his wife was sleeping at
through his side, Martha laid herself down on his chest and nearly
//ACCUSING suffocated him. Of course it was her spirit only, but his
PEOPLE// satisfaction at confessing himself was no lighter than if it had been
Martha herself. One could not ordinarily speak such things in Hate, greed (for land), and
15. MOST public. revenge could be aired out through
IMPORTANT this witch-hunt.
PARAGRAPH 15.Long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly expressed, wanting land and arguing over it
These people are and vengeance taken, despite the Bibles charitable injunctions. now became about right and wrong
dressing up their Land lust which had been expressed before by constant bickering in a moral/ethical wayseriously
short comings in over boundaries and deeds, could now be elevated to the arena of what is wrong with these people?
the fight between morality; one could cry witch against ones neighbor and feel
good and evil! Its perfectly justified in the bargain. Old scores could be settled on a
all about revenge plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord; suspicions
not trying to seek and the envy of the miserable toward the happy could and did burst
out the devil. out in the general revenge.
PEOPLE TAKE
RESPONSIBILITY