The Crucible Essay: The Crucible as a Warning The witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts in the early sixteen hundreds was a time of uneasiness and suspicion. Anyone could easily turn in his or her neighbor on the ground of witchcraft. Someone could merely say their neighbor’s spirit had attacked them during the night, which no man can prove. Nevertheless, as a God-fearing community, they could not think of denying the evidence, because to deny the existence of Evil is to deny the existence of Goodness, which is God. The most important scene in the play was act two, scene three, where John Proctor is able to talk with his wife, Elizabeth, one last time. He decides that he will “confess” to the crime of witchcraft, thereby avoiding being hung. However, to accept what he said, the judge also requires him to sign a written confession which states that he confessed to the crime of witchcraft. Judge Danforth would post it on the church door, to use Proctor as an example to get other people to confess. That upset Proctor greatly, because people would look down on him with disdain, and it would blacken forever his name. What was most important to him was to make a stand against the insanity of the town, for himself and for God, and using that as a last resort to make people aware of what was happening. This last stand for righteousness is an example of proctor’s great character and rationale. Arthur Miller wrote his play, The Crucible, a story about the Salem witch trials, and the panic resulting from it, as an allegory to show people the insanity of the McCarthy hearings. He wrote it as an allegory so that, if tried by McCarthy, he could say, “it’s just a play about the witch trials in Salem. How do you get this communist idea from it?” The story illustrates how people react to mass hysteria, created by a person or group of people desiring fame, as people did during the McCarthy hearings. Arthur Miller, acting as a great visionary, warned us that if we did not become aware of history repeating itself, our society would be in danger. At the same time, he had to do this in a matter that would not get him arrested, hence the witch-trial mechanization.
Free Essays – The Politics of The Crucible Crucible Essays
The Politics of The Crucible In Salem during the time of the witch trials everyone is either politically motivated to believe the girls wild antics are the work of the devil, or they are so gullible that they think no child could ever impishly scorn the holiness of the church. Those are the two main reasons the girls get away with accusing people of witchcraft at first, later new reasons are introduced. After the first victims of the girls malignant joke are hung two new reasons to continue accusing people arrive. The new reason that most of the girls continue to accuse people is because if they don’t then it would be the girls’ fault, not Satan’s that the “witches” died. One girl doesn’t fit the mold of just trying to save herself, and that girl is Abigail. Abigail doesn’t want to be blamed for the deaths of innocent people, but she also has her own twisted agenda of vengeance and greed that forces her to continue accusing people. For one thing she lusts after John Proctor, and she thinks that if Elisabeth is dead he will love her. Also she was somewhat of a henchman to Mrs. Putnam, and Dr. Parris, for she is eliminating Parris’s enemies, and she accuses Rebecca Nurse for Mrs. Putnam. Of course Parris doesn’t know her murder of innocent people is for him, but she does it out of a somewhat obsessive sense of faith to him. Of course the other girls aren’t totally innocent, but they don’t have much of a choice. If they were to speak out like Mary Williams, the others would accuse them of witchcraft, just like they did to Mary. In my eyes the main reasons for the continued accusations were fear for their own life, and in Abigail a need to have John Proctor love her, and to serve Parris. When the girls involved in that madness grow up I believe that most of them will be normal if somewhat less naive about children than the average housewife. As for Abigail I see her as committing suicide, when someone else catches her at her little games.
