While humanity's view of witchcraft has changed from hostile in the Middle Ages to playful amusement in the Harry Potter era, the fact remains that humanity has an undeniable fascination with witchcraft. Similar to world religions, witchcraft serves as an explanation for what we cannot understand. Animals' response when confronted with the unknown is fear, but as more complex creatures, humans match our instinctive fear with intense curiosity. Our most celebrated authors and playwrights explore different aspects of witchcraft, as well as the validity of famous accusations of alliance with the devil, in the plays Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Zabillet by Penelope Duckworth, The Crucible by Arthur Miller and the novel, I, Tituba , Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé. I say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayWhen William Shakespeare wrote the Scottish play in the early 1600s, King James I was on the English throne and urged his kingdom to pay special attention to witchcraft. King James was deeply superstitious and in his book Daemonologie he writes as if the reader is involved in a dialogue between two men arguing about the legitimacy of witchcraft and all that it entails. One of the chapter titles, "The Contract of the Devils with Magicians: The Division into Two Parts: What is the Difference Between the Miracles of God and the Devils" (King James I) reflects the common belief of Shakespeare's time, that the supernatural forces existed both good and evil and that witches were the agents of evil. Shakespeare himself never explicitly stated that the three women who prophesied Macbeth's doom in the play were witches, and it can be argued that the younger playwright, Thomas Middleton, involved in the 1616 adaptation of Macbeth, was responsible for any recognition of the witchcraft. . In an investigation composed by Marcus Dahl, Marina Tarlinskaya and Brian Vickers, Macbeth is studied line by line in an attempt to discover how much of the text is Shakespeare's work and how much is a revision by Middleton. The report's many conclusions generally agree that Shakespeare did not intend to emphasize witchcraft in the play, and that Thomas Middleton, who himself wrote a play entitled The Witch, slightly modified the play's original message with his additions. Implying that Shakespeare did not intend for the three women to be seen as evil is the fact that the main character, Macbeth, is the person who plans and carries out the evil acts committed in the play. The three fortune tellers simply predict the future. With the support of his wife, Macbeth killed the King of Scotland while he was a guest with Macbeth. Fearing discovery, Macbeth committed a series of murders to cover up his actions. He was the one who perpetuated the evil, not the three women who told him about his future. Although influenced by King James' obsession with witchcraft, Shakespeare's true intent for the play was to comment on the events of the time, which consisted of a nationwide fear of the supernatural and one of England's first witch hunts . a century before Shakespeare's Macbeth was written, the beloved French heroine, Joan of Arc, was burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft and heresy. The play Zabillet, by Penelope Duckworth, illustrates the retrial which took place twenty years after Joan's death. Joan's mother, Zabillet, insisted on a new trial and Joan was found innocent and a victim of the church's corrupt practices. Because she was a woman and held no power, Zabillet had to work hard to gain support for the retrial. The word ofa woman had little to no power against a man's word, and only with the overwhelming support of men and women on Joan's side did the trial become a success. Although the accusations of Joan's association with witchcraft proved false, evil was still present in the actions of church officials who condemned Joan and threatened her with torture and psychological warfare to force her to comply with their demands. These officials feared that their actions against Joan would be discovered and, in an effort to save their image, tried to arrange a new trial. The most outspoken official was a man named Bernard, who tried to influence the jury members to give in to personal prejudices. Her actions perpetuated the evil committed initially against Joan, but the judge who presided over the retrial was fair and Joan's name was cleared. Two centuries later, women were still fighting to be heard. The play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, tells the story of the Salem witch trials that occurred following widespread hysteria in the Puritan village of Salem, Massachusetts. Since nearly all of Salem's residents were deeply rooted in the Puritan lifestyle, they also sincerely believed that the Devil was real and continually tried to tempt them into his evil deeds. Due to lack of physical activity and food shortages, Salem women often became frail and ill. Some women resorted to learning the healing properties of local herbs and soon acquired a reputation as healers. However, the fear of the unknown once again captured the minds of the masses, and these women were accused of obtaining their healing powers from the devil. However, the only evil present in the colony was the spite and infatuation with power of a group of young girls led by Abigail Williams. These girls began having trance attacks and accused women with shaky reputations of being witches. WS Nevins of the Salem Observer commented on the power these young girls had, saying: “The terrible witchcraft delusion in Salem in 1692 was caused almost entirely by children. If it had not been for half a dozen girls, those men and women would not have been hanged on Gallows Hill", (Rosenthal). In the play, Abigail Williams is spurred by the desire for revenge against Goody Proctor, who threw her out from prison. home when she discovered that her husband, John, was having an affair with Abigail. Despite their innocence, many women were sentenced to the gallows because of false testimony given against them by frightened people devout Puritans and distorted the testimony of many witnesses. These judges, along with Abigail's determination to send Goody Proctor to her grave, perpetuated the evil of the trials until John Proctor was hanged for his attempts to save his wife. Although the trials appear to show progress in men's trust in women since the judges took the word of Abigail and the girls over that of John Proctor, the reality of the situation was that the Puritan church was using the girls to further their cause. John Proctor had long been a thorn in the church's side because he did not go to church, and the witch trials provided a way for the church to make an example of John Proctor. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to portray the prejudices of the Salem witch trials and show how easily people were corrupted and condemned out of fear of the unknown. The novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, by Maryse Condé is a fictional account of the life of the character Tituba, a black slave from Barbados who was one of many women.