The Crucible – Pity
It's shocking how people die for no reason. It was happening in Salem in 1692 for the witch trials. Rebecca Nurse was a woman with good reputation, and because of spectral evidence she was sentenced with death. The only way to escape from death was to accept that she was a witch. This is still happening now. Osama Bin Laden was the reason for 7000 people's death in New York. We have to look at the society of Salem and pity them because of the repressions that made order and freedom imbalanced, as we are going to be pitied some day.
We cannot just feel pity for an individual; we have to feel pity for all who were involved in the Salem witch trials because they were involved in it for the same reason, fear. The people in Salem started the hysteria because of fear.
Abigail William and Betty Parris started this because they were scared of the consequences by being caught dancing in the forest, which was the Devil's house and a sin. When Betty noticed that her dad had seen her she was so scared that she fainted. Betty was pretending that she was fainted for days because she did not want to face any consequences. The other girls did the same thing for fear.
The rumors of witchcraft started because of the ignorance of the Putnams'. We have to feel sorry for people who are ignorant because they do not think how much damage something is going to do. They were so ignorant that even Ann Putnam sent her daughter, Ruth, to invocate her babies' spirits. The Putnams' only wanted more land to get their name recognized. Who we might feel sorry the most is Abby because she would go all the way to get what she wanted without caring if other people got hurt. At first she started using this as a sport but later the fear of being called a witch came up to her and she had to blame other innocent people to save her own life. When she saw that people believed her she was scared to go back on her word and face the consequences, also decided to blame Elizabeth Proctor to take her place. Abigail used this as an act of vengeance. John Proctor deserves pity because although he committed adultery he later regret it and confessed it to God and his wife to save his soul. We should feel pity for Governor Deputy Danforth because he was not smart enough to stop the hangings when he could. Even though many times he had doubt he would not postpone the hangings because for him it was not fair for the others that had died for the same reason. His order led to these hangings.
In Salem in 1693 there was no balance between order and freedom. There were a lot of repressions that imbalanced this banner that made order weigh the most. Religious governors were the ones that decided the laws in Salem. Back then doing enjoying and mysterious things was a sin to the public called witchcraft. The forest was said to be the house of the Prince of Air, the Devil, and anyone seen there could be called of talking to the Devil or practicing witchcraft. If you committed the crime of witchcraft you would pay with death. It was your decision if you wanted to live in sin, jailed the rest of your life or die with pride and dignity. There was no freedom in Salem it was all about repressions. You had to go to church every Sunday, know the Ten Commandments, respect the ministers, do not have the right of a lawyer, the judges believed in spectral evidence, and you were guilty until proven innocent. This meaning if you do any kind of enjoying things you would be called a witch. Too much order in Salem was supposed to keep it tight between their cultures but it resulted the contrary form this and Salem disappeared, neighbors were accusing each other of witchcraft to save themselves and led to the end.
We have the same right to be pitied as the people in Salem did. It's like a chain that does not has an end because the laws and technology keep improving to give more freedom. People in the future are going to look at us and feel sorry for what we have done. For example, the September 11 was a major "fear" premeditated accident in the U.S. People in the future are going to think that we were so ignorant to let that happen when we could have avoided it. We are putting people in jail and we only suspect them we have no evidence on them if they are guilty. Also they are going to think how stupid we are to destroy the environment to make more "intelligence." We can find ways to improve our technology and not destroy other things that we are going to need in the future. People are going to pity because they are going to feel that if they were in our positions they probably do and react the same way we did. If we would have had more restrictions there would be no way to destroy the environment and let others destroy our country.
There is still no balance in the country. Now it is the opposite, freedom is heavier than order on the balance. The September 11 hijack was well planned so it was easy for those terrorists to do what they did. If we have not had so much freedom there would be no way for the terrorists to drive and get weapons in the planes. Our government decided to give us more freedom so we could have more rights; the right to be proved innocent, the right to go to school, the right to choose our religion, etc. These rights were made for the purpose for us to feel equal and balance the situation. What they did not do well was the repressions. We did not get enough repressions for us to be scared to violate the laws. This is why we took advantages of freedom, which led to libertinage. We know that if we do something there is no harsh punishment and we will do it again if they do not make us regret it. They also thought that if we get more freedom we could be more united because we will all feel the same way but these came back the wrong way. Instead of getting this country together we and other outsiders are destroying it. We now do more drugs, do not respect the law; outsiders do not like us because they are not as libertines and powerful as us. There has never been equal balance either in Salem or the U.S. Maybe there is never going to be an equal balance for a long time.
If we had had pity for others because we have improved, our next generation is going to pity us because they have to improve more than us. We always feel sorry for the people when we see how much damage they have done, but we know that if we were in their situation we would do the same thing because of the lack of either balance or freedom. There has not been balance between order and freedom since the United States was formed, but we are always trying to balance this banner to be united. We need to strike for a banner between order and freedom to organize our ways of living. Like this we would be secure and live almost a perfect life.
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