THE DEVIL IN MASSACHUSETTS--
Written in 1949, Marion L. Starkey's Devil in Massachusetts
serves as a guide to the Salem witch trials with bits of dialogue and
psychological analysis here and there. Starkey's interest in recreating
the Salem trials probably stems from her extensive research of
psychology completed at Harvard; she tells the reader that she has tried
to review the records in the light of modern psychology, including
Freud, Janet, and studies of both hypnotism and spiritualism. Instead of
presenting a normal book of information describing the trials, Starkey
gives the reader a sort of narration with a beginning, middle and end.
As she says, the story itself is a "Greek tragedy," and she has tried to
show the reader the whole tale without bias ("Who in my day has a right
to be indignant with people in Salem of 1692?"). She explains that much
of the book's content has been taken straight from records; most of the
character analysis is right on, but she admits that she has sometimes
taken a few liberties with the dialogue, adding or creating more in an
attempt to psychologically reconstruct the events of that time.
Nevertheless, The Devil in Massachusetts makes for quite an interesting read.
In the book, the characters are presented one by one, their
background is described, and Starkey then explains their relationship to
the issue at hand. Various diverse personalities are slowly brought to
the gallows by a little pack of "bobby-soxers," as she refers to them.
The people range from an extremely pious grandmother to a pipe-smoking
female tramp; nobody is safe from the Devil. In the courtrooms,
ludicrous evidence is accepted against the alleged witches and wizards:
the girls having seizures and going into convulsions (which is
presumably the fault of the accused), the "Devil's choreography," during
which they copy exactly the moves of the defendants, spectral evidence,
or people having seen shapes of the defendants performing incriminating
things, or even past arguments or grudges that people of the town have
had with the supposed sorcerer(ess). But Starkey presents the
information to the reader from both sides: many of the girls were
adolescent teenagers who had too long been deprived of the joy of a
normal life, and most were ready to "make far more noise in a world than
[they] had ever been permitted to make." Later on in the book, however,
as more and more villagers that are wholly good are accused of
witchcraft, and as more senseless hangings occur, the people in the
ministry begin to realize what is going on. The girls become a lifeless
mass of bodies, incapable of joy or human feeling after they have ruined
the lives of so many. Thus one can see the detached point of view from
which Starkey presents her story.
The book itself is enjoyable, mainly because of the way it is
written. The dialogue that takes place clearly shows the reader the
personalities of the people that inhabit Salem village, and the fact
that much of it was taken from the records is what makes it that much
more fascinating to read. The characters are real and captivate
the reader to learn more about them. The beginning of the events in
Salem have logical causes: a dreary winter, smallpox, repeated Indian
raids on the Massachusetts Bay Colony, uncertainty of the
near-independence once possessed by New England under the charter. As
Starkey puts it, "God had manifestly turned His countenance from a
people unworthy to be chosen as He had once chosen them. The devout were
searching their hearts--and the conduct of their neighbors--for cause
of this withdrawal." Many of the villagers believed the time of the
apocalypse was at hand, but the strictly dutiful Puritans of Salem
continued to live their lives as usual, though with a little uncertainty
of whether they could keep that which they had under the charter.
Starkey therefore makes it perfectly reasonable that a small cluster of
teenage girls would react to such anxiety and dismal life by focusing
their natural high spirits in a force that required just the right
moment for a volatile release of energy. Little did they know that they
would be making history through such a release. The impartial way in
which information is offered leaves the reader at a place where he can
form his own conclusions. Starkey's deeply moving presentation of this
information is plainly put on the table for the reader: this event was
not just mass hysteria on a grandiose scale, it was local history for
Salem, and the reason it is so engaging is because the people are so incredibly real, as real as the people next-door.
Starkey is careful to remind the reader that the events in Salem
of 1692 are not just a fantasy. They really happened, and as such, are
American history. The author also conveys to the reader that once he is
able to comprehend this small group of people in Salem, he can begin to
grasp a collective understanding of all of the witch-hunts. Then the
reader is able to see the obvious allegory that connects the Salem witch
trials with current events such as race, nationality and warring
ideologies. The urge to hunt witches, Starkey notes, has not since
vanished from the world. The Salem witch trials still live on today,
perhaps in different forms, but are a classic example of the fact that
those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
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