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The year is 1692, and Abigail Williams has just cried witch. Under harsh Puritan values, anyone accused and found guilty of witchcraft is to be publicly hung in the town square. The Puritan theocracy, leaving no room for adversity or opposition, has been turned upside down. In Arthur Miller’s drama The Crucible, Miller illustrates the dangers of Puritan theocracy: where personal freedoms are oppressed, cruel and unusual punishments are implemented, and where the leaders can manipulate the holy books and laws to rule with unrestricted power in the name of the divine.
The word theocracy comes from the Greek word “theos” which means God, and the word “cracy” which means law (Dictionary.com). A theocratic government is one “in which a God, or a god, is recognized as the supreme civil ruler and in which the religious authorities rule the state as God’s, or a god’s representatives” (World Book Dictionary). In Salem, the reverend ruled and guided the citizens under the representation of God, and in Miller’s novel The Crucible, Reverend Parris rules the community, acting as God’s channel to the citizens of Salem Village.
Individuality in Puritan society was very dangerous because thinking differently threatens the whole base of the theocratic system. In order to suppress the individuality of the community, the citizens were granted minimal personal freedoms. Basic human rights and freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to think freely, the right to due process, and the right to spend their time freely were not granted to the people of Salem. These freedoms were taken away in order to keep them on the path of the “straight and narrow” and to suppress any individualistic tendencies.
Freedom of speech is a luxu...
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...ap me for contempt of a hearing .
DANFORTH. Oh, it is a proper lawyer! Do you wish me to declare this court in full session here?—or will you give me a good reply?
COREY. I cannot give no name, sir, I cannot…
DANFORTH. You are a foolish old man. Mr. Cheever begin the record. The court is now in session. I ask you, Mr. Corey…
Danforth, using his powers for evil rather than for good, manipulates the rules of the court so that he can condemn more people to witchcraft (Act III).
Threatening to obliterate the theocratic society, individuality and free thinking were oppressed. In Arthur Miller’s novel The Crucible, Miller illustrates the dangers of Puritan theocracy: where personal freedoms are oppressed, cruel and unusual punishments are implemented, and where the leaders can manipulate the holy books and laws to rule with unrestricted power in the name of the divine.
For more than a dozen years, Clarence Earl Gideon lay buried in a nondescript, unmarked grave in Hannibal, Missouri. Most Americans outside of the legal community (and many within it) would neither recognize Gideon's name, nor understand the seismic impact he had on our legal system. Fortunately, Anthony Lewis, the renowned journalist now retired from The New York Times, chronicled Gideon's saga from the filing of his hand-written petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court to the momentous decision of March 18, 1963. Lewis brings to life the story of the man behind the case, the legal machinations of the court appointed lawyer (and others working with him) toiling on Gideon's behalf and the inner-workings of the Supreme Court. By telling the story, Lewis has preserved an important piece of legal and social history and we are all the richer for his doing so.
hysteria brought about by the witchcraft scare in The Crucible leads to the upheaval in people’s differentiation between right and wrong, fogging their sense of true justice.
accusers. He presides over his courtroom as if he has divine right. Judges are supposed to find truth, not invent it. When Mary Warren confessed to Danforth that she, along with the other accusers were sporting, he refused to believe her. To think. that he would obviously ignore her is just beyond my comprehension. he did this simply to save face. To listen to Mary and admit
During the time of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, more than twenty people died an innocent death. All of those innocent people were accused of one thing, witchcraft. During 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts many terrible events happened. A group of Puritans lived in Salem during this time. They had come from England, where they were prosecuted because of their religious beliefs. They chose to come live in America and choose their own way to live. They were very strict people, who did not like to act different from others. They were also very simple people who devoted most of their lives to God. Men hunted for food and were ministers. Women worked at home doing chores like sewing, cooking, cleaning, and making clothes. The Puritans were also very superstitious. They believed that the devil would cause people to do bad things on earth by using the people who worshiped him. Witches sent out their specters and harmed others. Puritans believed by putting heavy chains on a witch, that it would hold down their specter. Puritans also believed that by hanging a witch, all the people the witch cast a spell on would be healed. Hysteria took over the town and caused them to believe that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft. If there was a wind storm and a fence was knocked down, people believed that their neighbors used witchcraft to do it. Everyone from ordinary people to the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. Even a pregnant woman and the most perfect puritan woman were accused. No one in the small town was safe. As one can see, the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria.
The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
Arthur Miller expresses the concept of oppression being present in every society through the characters of The Crucible. "It is still impossible for man to organize his social life without repressions." As discussed, personal motives, disputes and misuses of power, as well as distorted religious beliefs are the roots of the maltreatment in Salem. Miller’s statement and message is valid and applicable in every society, and for every
—. The Spirit of the Laws. Ed. J.V. Prichard. Trans. Thomas Nugent. London: Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1914.
The main idea of manipulation and a person’s agenda masked with false hysteria was fully represented by the character Abigail who decided to accuse John Proctor’s wife The Crucible by Arthur Miller was then created to emphasize this idea and to use the witch trials to mock the public of its irrationality and hysteria during the Red Scare. In other words, Miller use The Crucible as an allegory of McCarthyism for the United States after it blacklisted and accused multiple communists. With its publication, reason fell back through in the majority of society’s ideals. The term ‘witch’ was finally regarded as both evil and good.
In Miller’s The Crucible the main conflict is centered around a group of girls who trick the town into thinking there is witchcraft in the village forcing the judges in the village to trial all of those who are accused of witchcraft. During this time of conflict and confusion grudges and greed are revealed by those who accuse friends and neighbors for their own personal gain. This chaos formed and continued do to Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and the Judge Thomas Danforth.
Culver, Keith Charles. Readings in the philosophy of law. 1999. Reprint. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2008. Print.
Remy, Richard C., Gary E. Clayton, and John J. Patrick. "Supreme Court Cases." Civics Today. Columbus, Ohio: Glencoe, 2008. 796. Print.
How would you feel if you were suddenly woken up in the middle of the night, with a group of people knocking at your door, claiming that you’re under arrest for being a witch? You would be taken away from your family and friends, and if you don’t confess to a crime that you never did, you would be killed. This idea is the main basis of conflict in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. This deals with the Salem Witch Trials, and highlights it the personal issues that people would have went through being apart of a Puritanical society. Miller wrote the play as an “act of desperation,” ( “Why I,” 2) since he realized could relate the Red Scare to the Witch Trials. Miller was trying to use The Crucible to send a message to the public that what they were
Sometimes people are so narrow-minded that they do not see the whole picture. People see what they want to see because they cannot handle the actuality or do not like the truth. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Danforth refuses to come to the truth that the witch trials in Salem were the result of a cover-up, and that the court hung a handful of innocent people because of a lie. Miller once said, “The tragedy of The Crucible is the everlasting conflict between people so fanatically wedded to this orthodoxy that they could not cope with the evidence of their senses.” In other words, the tragedy of The Crucible involved the theocracy’s failure to control Salem’s witchcraft mania. At the time, Salem was governed by a theocracy, in which the ministers also had judicial power over society. Because the judges were ministers, religion took precedence over realism and pragmatism; they were unable to come to their senses and realize that the accusations of witchcraft were out of human emotions.
In Salem, the governmental system is theocracy. In a theocracy, the church makes and enforces the laws, which were created through divine guidance. In such a case, the church officials take a high ranking in society. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, it is this government that helps propel the action in the play forward.
Fear should not be the way to look for answers when situations arise that can’t be explained. People tend to confuse fear and paranoia with reason and often make rash decisions, because they let their fear run rampant. The role of reason and logic in Puritan societies is often overshadowed by paranoia and fear. In “ The Crucible,” written by Arthur Miller his characters illustrate the development of these traits, and societies reactions to those characters. The characters in “ The Crucible,” aren’t rational thinkers and jump to conclusions, they have problems with being honest, and each character sees the world differently.