Scarlet Letter Blog 9/4/09

So, the Salem witch trials were, in a word, INSANE. A few little girls with big imaginations started calling women witches, and it was all downhill from there. The women accused of being witches were outcasts of the community and people that the higher ups would like to get rid of anyways so, why not call them witches?! Everyone brought to trial for witchcraft was convicted (big surprise!). They even interviewed a four year old who gave a mixed confession; I know, hard to believe a four year old couldn’t give a solid interview, who because of this immature interview implicated her OWN MOTHER. This is an early account of these extremist Christian NUTS (see: Westboro Baptist Church and their fabulous website: www.godhatesfags.com ). It is truly terrifying to see what people can do when their fear is used in conjunction with religion to carry out their sick wishes. After “the touch test” (where the accusing girls were blindfolded and then led to the accused where upon touching them the girls would flop into these Oscar-nominated fits on the ground), “the witch cake” has to be my favorite test used by the courts and judicial system to determine whether the accused is a “witch” or not. “The witch cake” consisted of a cake made of rye meal and the URINE OF THE ACCUSER which was then of course fed to a dog. Then, the witch would hurt when the dog ate it because particles of the witch would be in the accuser’s urine due to the fact that the urine contained pieces of the witch that were put into the girls by the witch to cause them pain. Clear and consistent logic here. It gets blurry but, the gist is when the witch infested urine is chomped into by the dog it would hurt the witch and the accuser. The thinking at this time was both very logical and practical. I bet these girls put on another awesome performance once the dog got to chow time. My understanding of all this witch hunt nonsense is that these people were just plain bored and wanted to get rid of these outsiders that didn’t fit into their mold. I believe a little or a lot of bloodlust played into this whole ordeal too. Bored? Let’s hang some people, why not. The entirety of the trials is really sad to hear and to understand that this actually happened is hard to comprehend. As it relates to Hester Prynne in Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter,” Hester herself was an outsider who was singled out by the community for death based on religious believes. Hester might as well have been accused of witchcraft. Bringing religious beliefs as far as corporal punishment is ludicrous to me and totally intolerable. Due to Hester being an outsider and not in the favor of the majority, it is very conceivable that Pearl’s peers could have started having fits in front of Hester and then fed the dogs some of that cake at Hester’s expense.