Review: Salem witchcraft hysteria in Kathleen Kent’s ‘Heretic’s Daughter’
St. Petersburg Times: “For centuries, Americans have autopsied the notorious Salem witchcraft trials, in which the worst elements of the national psyche boiled up and overflowed. Sanctimonious Puritans played on community fears to bring down neighbors. Panic fueled by hysteria turned the society into an engine of destruction.
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller paralleled the Salem trials and the anti-Communist witch hunts of the McCarthy era. Now an eloquent first novelist approaches this shameful segment of the past from a personal angle. Kathleen Kent writes in the character of an ancestor: Sarah Carrier, jailed at 11 because hysterical neighbors thought she was a witch.”
(Via St. Petersburg Times.)
Categories
- Archaeology
- Astrology
- Atheism
- Autmnal Equinox
- Books
- Commentary
- Community
- Diversity
- Education
- Entertainment
- Family
- Feminism
- Funny
- Gardening
- Government
- Halloween
- Herbalism
- History
- Kids and Crafts
- Music
- Networking
- Opinion
- Paganism
- Persecution
- Politics
- Religion
- Ritual
- Solstice
- Spirituality
- Tolerance
- Uncategorized
- Weird
- Witchcraft
- Women