...Fear can lead good people to do horrific acts, especially when religion is involved. For example, in the play The Crucible the girls who was following Abigail knew dancing was considered in Salem as an act of the devil. When they got caught dancing in the forest, they began to think about their punishments in this case, were whippens, jail, or even worse death. They decided to keep following Abigail's lead and began to claim that the devil and these images of the people from Salem tried to make them do horrible things. Soon Abigail started to take advantage of this power and used it for evil. Millers play The Crucible shows us how vengeance and land can determine weather some one lives or dies. It also shows how many accusations can lead...
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...Throughout history fear has invoked society into violence, division ,and also hatred. Fear does not discriminate, it can be shown in every nationality, race and gender. Fear takes form in many different ways. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller fear was in a form of assumption and accusation.During the 1800’s, The Ku Klux Klan was one of the biggest cults based of fear along with hysteria during the depression. In the 1990’s The Red Scare was parallel to The Crucible based on accusing citizen of communism. The most powerful motivator in society is fear, because it develops a change in society. The Crucible along with The Ku Klux Klan intersect with each other. In both incidents fear was used as an crucial instrument. This was the main reason...
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...In Arthur Millers play, The Crucible, many themes are displayed through his writing. One of the main themes in his piece is the idea of conformity. There are so many situations that people conform in, some of which include; trying to fit in, not knowing what is the right thing to do, and often time people conform due to fear. Fear is something that can cause you to make both good and bad decisions. In The Crucible, fear is one of the main reasons for conformity, there are many reasons for why this happens and all of those are explained in the play. While depending on the situation while conform, or choose not to conform, based on the conditions they are in. In some situations we will often accuse others of actions they did not do in order...
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...11 September 2016 The Crucible VS The Red Scare The Crucible by Arthur Miller and The Red Scare relate because of the way the trials were held. The Crucible just like The Red Scare has something to do with convicting, killing innocent people and imprisoning. In the Salem witch trial, people were in trepidation of witch craft the same way that Americans were in apprehension of communism. Around this time and between The Cold War, Joseph McCarthy was a first-term senator from Wisconsin and he had won the election in 1946 after a campaign, which he then criticized all of his opponent’s failure to enlist during WWII. By the end of time, McCarthy lost some allies. He kept his job and lost his power. He died in 1957 at 48 years old. The Red Scare has always been said to be the most effective of WWI. The Salem witch trials didn’t have any type of cause and there were even some reports of more witchcraft in other towns. Arthur Miller had become very fascinated with the environment and how it affected society as a whole. Arthur also wrote an essay in 1996 called “Why I Wrote The Crucible; Authors answer...
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...“witches” because of their unpopular or unorthodox views. In the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller, specifically talks about Witch-hunts where power, profit, and fear lead to accusations of witchcraft that spread like wildfire, resulting in the execution of 18 innocent people. Nowadays mental illness is the scapegoat to blame for mass shootings and gun violence, fueled by corrupt politicians whose goals are profit and power, as well as creating fear in the minds of citizens across the nation. In this essay we will compare the similarities in profit, power, and fear between “The Crucible” based on the Salem Witch Trials from the 1500’s and the stigma surrounding Mental Illness in today's society. Power: In the book The Crucible, the judge maintains power by telling people what they believe the people want hear regardless if eighteen innocent people would lose their lives. Nowadays mental illness is blamed for mass shootings and gun violence by...
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... The Crucible analysis “We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterday”- Persius. There have been moments in history where people were too consumed in fear that they broke many of their morals and due to powerful situations people behaved differently than their normal self. A play called the Crucible was written in 1953 by Author Miller to portray the unfairness at that time due to people being accused of witches with little to no evidence and then hanged. This event was called the Salem witch trials, which took place in the province of Massachusetts Bay. This play is an allegory to the McCarthy Hearings that took place from 1950 to 1956. The McCarthy hearings occurred in 1947; President Truman ordered background checks of every civilian in service to the government due to a fear of people within the United States being a communist spy. The fear of communism intensified when a high ranked official Alger Hiss was convicted of being a communist spy. Senator Joseph McCarthy stepped in and convinced/alarm people within the U.S that there were Communist and Communist sympathizers that would try to overthrow the government. As a result, he formed a special Congressional committee to investigate Americans who were suspected of Communist activities and this movement was named McCarthyism. The Crucible is a play that is universal and enduring because it uses allegory and archetypes to teach readers that fear and panic are the worst forms of chaos...
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...You may be asking yourself what does fear mean?? There a lot of manys for FEAR. The word fear mean something that can get you in trouble or you in dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Inside of you can feel that something bad will happen because of that fear you have inside of you. In the Crucible there are a lot of examples of fear that have been shown. To began, In the crucible there a lot of fear. From all the lies people start saying and then they end up believing the lies they have told. Like John Proctor one of the character from the crucible show fear. Proctor have been in a secret romance with Abigail Williams and he is scared that people with find out. If people start to find out then his reputation will get ruined, and...
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...The Crucible, Red Scare, and Palmer Raids are all connected under fear and lies. Throughout the events that occur, multiple lies are created which cause mass amounts of fear and chaos. This chaos weakens the place, causing its inhabitants to lose sight of the truth. As time passes, the severity increases leading to greater consequences. A mass of fear can all be created by one person. The Palmer Raids were a series of raids by the United States Department of Justice intended to capture, arrest and deport radical leftists. The raids took place under the command of A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United States from 1919 to 1921, in November 1919 and January 1920. The Palmer Raids and these massive arrests occurred on the main basis...
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...were primarily caused by gender and class tensions, Puritan world views, and the Indian Wars. These causes are explored in the texts “The Historiography of Salem Witch Trials”, “Witchcraft”, “Puritan Beliefs and the Salem Witchcraft Trials”, but most importantly in Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible”. “The Crucible” deals with women and young girls in 17th Century Salem, MA. These women were being accused of practicing witchcraft and dealing with the devil. The gender and class tensions along with Puritan world views combined to create this hysteria that led to these women going to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to public hanging. The Indian Wars were not the main focus in “The Crucible” because it was also meant to be a commentary on the McCarthy trials in the 1950s during the Cold War. Gender tensions contributed to to the accusations of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, as demonstrated in the film “The Crucible”. One example of this was the scene in (“The Crucible”) where the girls ask Tituba to help them get a husband with casting spells. There were many fears among the adolescent girls and that...
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...system. Courts are put in place to protect us, and when their justice has rotted from the inside, it leads to chaotic and brutal societies. One of these societies, Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, is described in the play, “The Crucible.” Written in the McCarthy era, this play highlights the injustices during the Red Scare in America. As history continues to unfold, more links can be drawn between the message of “The Crucible” and today’s discrimination. The allegorical qualities of Arthur Miller’s, “The Crucible,” relate strongly to McCarthyism, but still have relevant connections to...
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...13 February 2016 Reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller was a thrilling and mesmerizing experience. Every aspect of the play was entertaining. The story of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is less about the tale of the witch hunt and trials. Subsequently, it is more about how the witch hunt and trials take an effect on the communities. Throughout the course of time, when a situation that causes a mass hysteria, people will force themselves to conform in order to place themselves in a safe spot. For instance, during the Salem witch trials, people admitted to “crimes” that they never actually committed, or began accusing others who were once allies (ex. neighbors, friends, etc.) in order to keep themselves in the clear and safe from being hanged or jailed. If one was doing what they could in order to maintain the safety of the community, they earned themselves a safe spot. It was the individuals who were not pointing fingers in order to help out the “witches” that were soon assumed to be subject to the Devil’s influence and were eventually either jailed or hanged (sometimes both). Arthur Miller utilizes John Proctor’s protagonist character in order to show not just what he believed was the right thing to do in a situation such as this one, but to show how difficult it is to sometimes play the role of a nonconformist tackling a much larger group of people. Also, The Crucible shows how mass hysteria can eventually allude to violence. The Crucible was not only a terrific story of...
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...guilt for an event that never happened. During the Red Scare this is what was occurring all around. In The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor was accused by Abigail William because of her hatred towards Elizabeth. In the Red Scare they targeted celebrities because they thought they were high targeted and could possibly be a communist. The Red Scare influenced the book “The Crucible” by reflecting the United States government with the court of Salem, people who were accused and arrested for being a Communist, in addition to fear with how scare tactics impacted societies. The Red Scare influenced the book “The Crucible” by reflecting the United States government with the Court of Salem. During the Red Scare, the United States government and the communist Soviet Union became engaged in a series of largely political problems with economic clashes. Both the Soviet Union and the United States’ intense rivalry caused tension between these two superpowers which raised concerns in the United States that communists were inside America might have been working as Soviet spies. These Soviet spies were said to perhaps, pose a threat to the U.S security. As for the Court of Salem, a group of young girls claimed to be...
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...In "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller it tells of witchcraft which causes mass hysteria throughout the towns people. Instaces like "The Crucible" have happened through the 20th and 21th century, but one in paticular would be "War of Worlds". "War of Worlds" by Orson Welles was a radio story about aliens invading earth that caused a panic to those who listened due to people believeing the story as if an actual outbreak. In "The Crucible" the epidemic was a result miscommunication and bad decision making. The belief of witchcraft had made the town peoples accuse all who looked sucipious and the result being not hurt feelings but, rather death sentences. Similar to "The Crucible" the "War of Worlds" was mistakenly processed as an actual emergency of a national level rather than for entertainment. This caused an outbreak of misinformed individuals and this resulted in unpleasant events....
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...1.Abigail is not a victim of her society because she inflicts pain on others and causes problems. Aware of her own actions and the way she chooses to communicate "I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!" (Miller 19) She comes across as a violent angry teenage girl which could in fact be caused by the outside forces. Abigail's parents death had a major impact "I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine,…" (Miller 19) With seeing the death of her parents not only left her scared and angry towards the Indians but the world as well for leaving her an orphan. With no father or mother figure in her life she did not have much love as child therefore she found it somewhere with someone else being John Proctor...
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...Fear can influence decisions and corrupt ones morality. The fear of death, judgment and isolation all have the capability to make good people do bad things. Arthur Miller portrays this phenomenon in his book The Crucible. In The Crucible there are distinct examples of fear debilitating ones ability to make the right decision. Mary Warrens fear of death resulted in many deaths. John Proctor’s fear of judgment kept him from revealing the truth. Lastly, the fear of the unknown, in the mind of the townspeople, set off a series of devastating events that transpired throughout the book. Furthermore, fear darkened their conscience, and as a result, self preservation became prioritized above all else. Mary Warren, naturally a honest women, wanted to confess to the dancing and conjuring spirits in the woods. However, Abigail disagreed and threatened to kill her and, consequently, fear overtook Mary until she was Abigail’s slave, or rather, a slave to fear (Miller, pg.19). Mary knew the truth, the truth that could have saved lives, but withheld it. She lied and became dishonest, for the reason that she was afraid of being hung as a witch herself. Therefore, she accused John Proctor, an upstanding man, and in doing so, she put him to death (Miller, pg.118). She was terrified of death, and Abigail made that horror something real that she couldn't overcome. So in turn, she took the pressure off herself and took a mans life to preserve her own. Abigail was a dishonest and deceitful...
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