Comparison of the French Revolution and the Salem Witch Trials

Coincidence and certainty —– comparison of the French Revolution and the Salem Witch Trials As we have learned on the class, these two distinguished historical events, the French Revolution and the Salem Witch Trials have obvious similarities and certain differences, we pay attention to them because these are two of the miserable man-made chaos in human history (although French Revolution has great positive importances to France and the whole world, there was unnegeletable chaos and massacres, that’s what I what to illustrate above).

In my point of view, after analysing different aspects of their backgrounds , we can say that besides the differences, there are also reasonable similarities between both of the events. To compare and contrast the French Revolution and the Salem Witch Trials, I would like to separate the topic into several parts associated with the events to illustrate my idea. Differences: 1, The Salem Witch Trials happened on 1692, while the French Revolution exploded on 1789, which means that these two events have a time gap of almost one hundred years. , Meanwhile, The Salem Witch Trials happened in Massachusetts, America, and the French Revolution at first bursted in Paris, France, and then spreaded around the whole country, the location is another difference. 3, Massachusetts, at that time was a colony of Great Britain, the overall social economy remained undeveloped as agricultural-based villages, no more to say the capitalization and modernization; while France in 1789 had already become one of the strongest country in Europe with a great economy development. , 1692 in Massachusetts, society was in the control of the colonists from Great Britain, villagers were kept in a primitive agricultural life, the main conflict in that region, in my opinion, was the gap between the rich and the poor among the villagers. 1789 in France, people were divided into three stages, first stage consisted of bishops and priests, second stage consisted of aristocrat and royalty, and the third one consisted of bourgeois and peasants, while Bourgeois had become the most effective and active status in France by their talents and hardworking, they didn’t enjoy any privileges and political rights; peasants ere under tough taxations and suffered from poverty. So the conflicts between the third stages and the first two stages were getting more and more serious. 5, 1692 in Massachusetts, most people were uneducated, thus inevitably had superstitious beliefs such as ghost and witch, effected by these kinds of beliefs, they were easily aroused and provoked, caused panic, then they could help going mad and doing crazy things. 789 in France, most people had been influenced by “the enlightement”, more and more people believed the thoughts of liberty, equality and fraternity, thus disappointed with the social fact. Similarity: 1, Among people who got involved into these two events, there were large amount of uneducated and poor persons: villagers in Massachusetts, and peasants in France. 2, I want to use the word “conformity” to explain the chaos and massacres of both events psycologically.

Why were there so many innocent people sentenced to death penalty at last? Why did persons who used to be kind become brutal and blinded accused the others? I believe that on one hand, people have a trend to believe something which is believed by the majority, which has driven people in Massachusetts to accuse others of witches without any reasonable evidence and made people in France believe that some people were guilty to be traiters.

On the other hand, when under a disordered situation, people lost their own sense of judgement and justice, in order to protect themselves from being accused guilty, they had to set up others to prove that they themselves were innocent. 3, Both of the events, fierce and terrible as they became, were finally terminated, with in my opinion, shows that human history has a strong ability of self-recovery and development. The society changes after great chaos and people learn and make progresses, that’s how we grow up.