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Review
| Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials by Marc Aronson. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2003. 288 pages. $18.95.
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| A useful addition to the voluminous literature on the Salem witch trials, this new book for readers twelve and older by Marc Aronson has benefited from much new material published in the last ten years. Especially important is the new study by Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil's Snare (Knopf, 2002), that puts the trials into the larger context of New England's seventeenth-century Indian wars. Aronson relies heavily on that material as well as on the older familiar works by John Demos, Carol Karlsen, Bernard Rosenthal, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum among others. He cogently summarizes their theses and presents scholarly critiques of them. Teachers will appreciate the timeline of events and the Epilogue and Notes and Comments sections that deal with the myths, legends and misinterpretations that have grown up around the trials. He has debunked, for instance, the theories that the madness of the trials had anything to do with ergot poisoning or that Tituba was an African rather than an Indian slave, popular ideas that still have some adherents. Aronson also gives students suggested readings to pursue further research. His Appendix on the relation of the trials to Arthur Miller's Crucible is a boon for classroom teachers. |
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Aronson offers young readers a series of questions to ponder throughout his work, focusing not only on the motives of the accusers, but also on those of the witnesses, judges, juries, skeptics and other protagonists. He cites contemporary events as a means of encouraging students to think about the relevance of this remote period. His narrative includes his "modernized" versions and interpretations of portions of some of the hearings and trials. He sees the trials as "a group of individuals act[ing] as a pack to attack and destroy others (xiii)." The "truth of the crowd versus that of the individual was a recurring issue in the Salem trials (109)." In the midst of the "crushing noise and orchestrated pageantry (161)," or "the wild crowd (118)," the accused was only a small voice overwhelmed by the forces lined up against him or her. When the amalgam of forces, "personal, local and colonywide (203)," was challenged by "skeptics, martyrs and ministers," it broke apart and the hangings ended. |
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I only have a few quibbles. In the Introduction, the author refers to the possibility that a midwife could be accused as a witch, but that was extremely unlikely. Recent scholarship has shown that midwives were too valuable to communities to suffer that fate. Secondly, the Prologue does not make it clear that English Puritans were a minority sect among Anglicans and that the Church of England was the Anglican Church. Finally, the pictures have no captions and are often difficult to see and of poor quality, although this could be the result of having only the advance reviewer copy at hand. Aronson's readers will recognize that the entire truth about the Salem episode may always remain a mystery, but he has provided an excellent means for young readers to begin to probe that mystery for themselves. |
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| University of West Georgia |
Charles W. Clark |
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