Witches, the Devil and the Existence of Evil (Part One) Exercise 1 In some ways the children have the most power in the play, but only the judges have authority. Compare these passages from Act 1. Extract 1 PUTNAM: I have never heard you worried so on this society, Mr Proctor. I do not think I saw you at Sabbath meeting since snow flew. PROCTOR: I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly mention God anymore. PARRIS (now aroused): Why, that’s a drastic charge! REBECCA: It’s somewhat true; there are many that quail to bring their children – PARRIS: I do not preach for children Rebecca. It is not the children who are unmindful of their obligations toward this ministry. REBECCA: Are there really those unmindful? PARRIS: I should say the better half of Salem village – Extract 2 REBECCA: …Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief … A child’s spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back. …………. PARRIS: A wide opinion’s running through in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong. The first passage presents children as needing to be protected from the harsh teaching of hell and damnation, as vulnerable members of the community, needing to be protected from the religious fanaticism of Parris. In the second passage, spoken in humour, children are portrayed as being a match for the Devil! Taking into account all their malevolent scheming, try and summarise your views on the portrayal of children in the play. In society nowadays, children are often seen as vulnerable and in need of special protection (Child Line is available; the United Nations has a special Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most ratified of all such conventions). Exercise 2 Imagine you are making a documentary programme arguing that Hale, Danforth and Parris have been misunderstood figures. Your programme will be designed to give a new angle and an alternative understanding to the usually critical appraisal of Salem Christianity. If you were to be controversial, you could write the documentary from a perspective that Christian belief was actually a defence against the forces of the Devil and that Salem was about a real struggle between good and evil. You could suggest that Christianity today has forgotten too much about the existence of evil in the world and is too ‘wishy-washy’, and that this is the reason many Christian churches are so empty. | 
