Myths And Heros

Myths and Heros

Was the myth of witches still reality in the USA in 20th century ?

First of all I will present the origin of this myth in 17th century. Secondly I will make the parallele betwin this persecutions in salem and the american persecution in the 20th century.

Now I will introduce the notion of Puritans. There were a group of cristians which have been persecuted from the church in engand. As a result the decided to migrate to america in 1620. There they got more radical control the practice of religion. But after we can see two groups of people in the america of the 17th century: the prosecutors and the prosecuted. The puritans who were persecuted in england started persecutingother people once they got the new world. In fact they belived that the Devil was as real as the God and in the same way, that wamen or old women who live out of the society and the insanes serve Satan are cosederated as witches. Consequently in there opinion witches have to be punished for the pacts they have made with the devil and the acts they made agains the church. Witchcraft was one pf the greatest crimes a person could comit, punishable by death. Therefore the puritans instaure the witch-hunting to track this people and to judge them. The most famous witch trial was this of salem in 1692as we know now the legend of the pyre of salem.

Moreover this period was knone to this abitrar arrestation and the persecutions of inocent peoples.

But we can compare this the persecution in the 20th century in America. It’s began in the coldwar. From the years 1947 a conflict betwin the usa an the urss create a mouvment of persecution in America. In fact some communists had infiltrated the gouvernement of the usa. Therefore the liders of the gouvernement (for exemple the senator mccarthyism) had decided to trac this people and put there name on a list called the black listo r Hollywood list. All peaple are suspected of being communist or having subversuive activities were register on the list and arrested there possessions were seizedand were sentenced to death. There is too persecution because the fbi force the people to dedounce somebody of his circle or not. They want names iven if the person was not guilty to be a communist there are ugually risian, italian or jews people. Or there were too a lot of artista of Hollywood who was persecuted as the Hollywood list. In this perode the opretion on the population was uge. But some people wanted to denounce too this arbutrar arestations. They denounce the irregularities of the trial or the lack of evidence. As an exemple seen in class of sacco and Vanzetti who were victims of this campaign of oppression.

This notion of scapegoating is realy smilar to the witch hunting and shows us a parallel in the history of america.It’s the same situation of fear where the governement want to control his citizens. The governement always need enemies and this is an another kind of witchc hunt against the communists. Like witchies there were sentenced to death despide the fact that there was no strong evidences.

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