Principle or Personal?

During the Cold War, members of the United States government, army, and even citizens were accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy of being Communist and Soviet spies and sympathizers. These trials persisted through the fifties until Senator McCarthy was excoriated by Congress. Similarly, during the seventeenth century, many inhabitants of Salem, Massachusetts were accused of witchcraft, with a total of nineteen hangings during what came to be called the Salem Witch Trials. These trials were conducted in a similar fashion as Senator McCarthy’s hearings, and many of these accusations were not fought because the circumstances of the time made these claims possible. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible sheds new light on the mysterious Salem Witch Trials and why so many of the small community were hanged. Though some Salemites believed the Devil had come to Salem, Miller’s The Crucible depicts the witch trials as motivated by personal interests of greed, jealousy, and pride.

To cover their own personal want, some men of Salem, such as Mr. Putnam and Dr. Walcott, accuse men and women of witchcraft in an attempt to buy their land or receive some compensation once the land-holder is convicted. Mr. Putnam, a key example of the greed in Salem, first demonstrates his when Proctor says that he needs to leave Parris’ house to move wood in Act One. When Proctor tells Putnam that Proctor is dragging wood from the forest by the riverside, Putnam responds, “Why, we are surely gone wild this year. What anarchy is this? That tract is in my bounds, it’s in my bounds, Mr. Proctor” (30). This response prepares the audience for Act Three, for Putnam would later manipulate the judges caught up in the witchcraft craze to accuse a key land holder in an attempt to a...

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...g to other villages, just as an actual crucible would do with glass heated to extreme temperatures. Despite this, mass hysteria has still occurred throughout the history of the United States, from the Senator McCarthy’s Communist trials of the seventies to even modern day, with many Americans drawing suspicions from stereotypes of terrorists. Though today’s suspicions often do not end in hangings, leading figures in society continue to exploit human nature’s emotions to get what these men desire. These influential men are motivated as the men of Salem were; greed drove them to acquire more; jealousy, for revenge; pride, for the sake of being right. Even if these influential men say they act out of principle versus personal reasons, such as those described previously, the opportunities for these men to exploit the people in a state panic will surely not go unused.