The Internet, one of the greatest inventions in mankind’s history, has facilitated a massive rise in globalisation. So much so, one person can release information about a person and millions can read it on the other side of the world in seconds. It is more likely to be misinformation. It can be much like McCarthyism, spreading the good news of democracy by eliminating the apparent threat of communism. The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller in response to highly personal accusations, crystallises the cyclical nature of witch-hunts and the dangers inherent in allowing them to recur. The uncanny similarity between the witch-hunt depicted in The Crucible and the witch-hunt that occurred over the internet following the Boston Bombings is …show more content…
According to the Pew Research centre, 7% of US adults use Reddit. Of that portion, 78% of them use it as their primary news source. Following the attacks, hundreds and thousands of people flooded onto Reddit to pay tribute to the victims but also to fulfil their duty to find the bombers. Their warped mindset came as a result of the unreasonable fear of them carrying out another attack if Reddit could not find them. A subreddit or a forum dedicated to a specific topic on Reddit was created called ‘/r/FindTheBostonBombers’. It grew to 272,000 people constantly browsing it almost overnight. This is evidence that a fanatical desire to eliminate the dangerous enemy captivated the minds of the people of Reddit, beginning the …show more content…
One example is Rebecca Nurse; previously a respected member of the Salem community, imprisoned and hanged simply because of the girls’ unfounded accusations. It is this irrational fear of the Devil destroying the Puritan lifestyle of Salem that controls the minds of the townsfolk, forcing them to conform to the Court’s agenda. The overpowering ideology of Puritanism compels them to condemn anybody who shows any sign of deviation from the strict path that their religion
The Crucible is a dramatic play by Arthur Miller that has a direct tie to McCarthyism and how the witch trials and false accusation was related to the fear of someone being a communist. Generally, the story is about an affair between two primary characters that live in a Theology-ruled village. The secret of the affair was supposed to be assured until things got out when the truth was close to being in the limelight and a huge lie came out instead. This lie led to false accusations of believing that some people were part of witchcraft. Therefore, the situations became much more risky as people got hanged on whether or not they confessed they were a part of the witchery. Through the play, the character Mary Warren is depicted as a shy and powerless girl until she finally gains some control over the lives of people through her lies. This results in being labeled as an antagonist of the story, but she has traits similar to a protagonist which contradicts her character. In the end, Mary Warren is still a villain through her selfish and inconsiderate actions in the play.
The world revolves around hysteria, paranoia, and accusations. All three behaviors can be seen throughout history and everyone has at least felt or acted upon it. There were many different historical events that caused it. Many include the Holocaust, the McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and 9/11. All were such horrific and sorrowful events that unfortunately occurred. These all relate to The Crucible in a particular way. An event that I found interest in is 9/11. In the drama The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the story portrays how there was fear and accusations throughout the play. The Puritans and the Islamic culture were so quite alike it’s comparable. Lots of Puritan people (especially women) feared of being falsely accused of being witches and
In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, conveys what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true. In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch.
Rebecca Nurse and her husband, Francis, were both well-respected people in the town of Salem Miller describes. They owned about three hundred acres, and after a land dispute with the Putnams, they broke away from Salem and founded Topsfield. Miller mentions that the founding of Topsfield upset the old Salemites. This is true - aberration was resented in Puritan society. The essence of Puritanism is in the intensity of the Puritan's commitment to a morality, a form of worship, and a civil society strictly conforming to God's commandments . Certain Puritans were “saved” despite their sins, while the remainder of society led lives strictly following the saved clergy’s interpretations of God’s will. Salem’s minister, Mr. Samuel Parris, was God’s man, as unfit for this title as he may have been. Like Proctor, Rebecca and her husband no longer hungered for religion when Parris became their minister. Their disgust for Mr. Parris cut down on their church appearances. In a judgmental, religious town as Salem was, even an unpleasant minister was no excuse to avoid church. A few Salemites resented the Nurses for their rise in social status as their lands stretched through town.
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, was written during the early 1950s.It was the time of The rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s.All throughout history, accusations of witchcraft have been used as an excuse for the discrimination of people who cultures, traditions, race, and ideas were not easily accepted nor understood by the society even if it was untrue.In today’s society students are taught this because it show’s how important “The Crucible, and McCarthyism were and what changes they went through because of the human condition.It is extremely important and appropriate because it allows students the opportunity to respond in terms of their own experiences .The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism had many similarities. In The Crucible Abigail
In the 1950s, the Red Scare over Communist infiltration grasped America, turning friends against one another and prompting Communist accusations left and right. If accused, you could confess to Communism and accuse others, or face indictment yourself. This concept is quite similar to the Salem witch trials, in which accused witches were put in the same predicament. Written during the Red Scare, Arthur Miller produced a play called The Crucible, which uses the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the Communist hysteria. In this play, rumors of witchcraft stemmed from the boredom of a few teenage girls, and blossomed into an unprecedented hysteria. Accusations became widespread, and, since confession was the only way to avoid a hanging, confessions became widespread as well. When only a small group of stubborn resisters were left, the main character John Proctor had to make a difficult decision on whether he should confess or hang, and ends up hanging along with a few others to help save the integrity of their community. In his play The Crucible, Arthur Miller demonstrates that while some may view self-sacrifice as a pointless loss due to pride, the decision to sacrifice one’s life for the good of his community and the elimination of conformist attitudes is very noble. The enormity of this decision can instill a feeling of guilt and responsibility upon another, as occurs to the protagonist John Proctor, and can cause one’s views and actions to be altered.
What do you fear in our twenty-first century society? Terrorism, inequality, losing your home, or injustice? Salem, Massachusetts during the seventeenth century feared injustices among the government. Individuals hid and lied to keep safe from being condemned as witches. This era of history is known as the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible explores the Salem Witch Trials while following the lives of several individuals. The fear and mistrust among the seventeenth century Salem society can be directly related to today’s twenty-first century society. Americans have lost hope and belief in their government creating individuals who are scared to stand up for what is right. Glancing into our twenty-first century world comparisons can be made among the Salem Witch Trial era. Today, compared to seventeenth century, realization of fear of governmental policies, erratic and chaotic life styles, and the condemnation of individuals standing up for what is right become evident and similar in both societies.
During the 1690’s in Salem, Massachusetts, one of the most disgraceful events in American history took place. 20 innocent people were sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft (Kortuem). At the time there was a witch scare sweeping across the North East of America in a time we know today as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was one of the most shameful events in American history. In fact, it was compared to another event by a man named Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was a playwright from New York who wrote many famous plays like Death of a Salesman, All my Sons, and of course The Crucible (Kortuem). In The Crucible, Miller was comparing the McCarthy Hearings at the time to the events hundreds of years earlier in the
Every event in history can be attributed to a collective of emotions. In 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls claimed to have seen other villagers working for the devil and began accusing people of practicing witchcraft. This soon created a sense of mass hysteria throughout the town that resulted in the death of twenty people and the imprisonment of over two hundred. We now refer to these events as the Salem witch trials. In the 1950’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted similar trials accusing people in prominent positions of being Communists. McCarthy implemented unfair investigative techniques, similar to those used in the Salem witch trials. Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible”, creates a story around the known details of the Salem witch trials and focuses on the relationship
The Salem Witch Trials. This period in history is known for its witch craziness and it
Rebecca Nurse was known to all as a saintly woman. She followed God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength. The Lord was her savior and protector. But because of mass hysteria, Mrs. Nurse was incriminated of exploiting witchcraft. This aghast most people because the most religious person they knew had been a witch. This was false. Rebecca Nurse was not a witch and had not demonstrated witchcraft by any means. She was innocent. She, like John Proctor, was solicited by Reverend Hale to confess but to no avail. Rebecca Nurse had held an immaculate reputation, and she was not about to let it get defamed by some false accusation. Rebecca Nurse, again like John Proctor, was hung for her falsely accused treacherous actions. This again is a prime example of what people will go through in order to keep a reputation that is accepted by
While social media can be an exceptional tool for connecting with others and gaining valuable information, it also can be easily transformed into a playground for senseless arguments and cyberbullying. Just as Abigail Williams used elaborate accusations towards innocent people for her benefit, people engage in plenty of finger-pointing and fear-mongering daily. The shame and fear generated by this is not far from the craze of McCarthyism from half a century ago. Furthermore, social media can be a catalyst for the destruction of privacy: there is no limit to how much one can share. Everyone in “The Crucible” has inner humiliations that haunt their minds, from John Proctor’s adultery to Reverend Hale’s inner moral conflict towards Salem’s trials. Today, with one click, these personal demons can easily be set free.
Today, most people know witch hunts as something that happened in Salem, Massachusetts in 1693, but what most people do not know is that they are still happening today and causing major violence in communities around the world. The Crucible is a book that shares the events that happened during the time of the Salem witch trials; although centuries have passed by, qualities of modern witch hunts can be seen throughout this book. Which brings us to the question, how do modern day witch hunts compare to the witch hunt shown in The Crucible?
Many people believe that the infamous witch trials ended, however, facts prove otherwise. Long ago, there were believed to be witches in a place called Salem Massachusetts. The book The Crucible written by Arthur Miller in the year 1953, is a retelling of the horrific events that took place many years earlier that took the lives of 20 people. These people were hunted down for whatever evidence, fake or real, that would convict them. The new witches of today may have different labels or may not do do actual witchcraft, but they do get hunted down for reasons that are quite unfair. The goal is to bring these “witches” into the light so it may see what the people or you, the reader, are truly doing out of fear and anger what shouldn’t be done at all. The witch trials never ended and are almost identical to the ones today, which are are just as horrific as they were then with terrorists and racism abounding and modern day fears as well as the original mass hysteria in tow.
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.