The True Killer in the Salem Witch Trials
God may be the supreme creator, but religion is the ultimate destroyer. In The Crucible by the Arthur Miller, religion plays a major role in the Puritan society. The Puritans live in constant fear of the church and of each other. Although religion can bring a community together to work for a greater good, the high moral standards that citizens are supposed to uphold is often what causes people to look down on others and sparks tension amongst the Puritans. The fears of being unholy, sinning, and having their name blackened by society are what kept the Salem witch trials alive, a tragedy that resulted in the death of numerous innocent people.
Fearing all things seen as unholy is what set into motion
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The accusations were “opportunity … to express publicly... guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims,” (7) which was, understandably, the reason the charges of witchcraft continued to be brought about. Blaming someone else was a relatively easy was to absolve oneself of guilt. Being able to “cover” sins instead of feeling the instilled negative feelings that accompanied having sinned, made people feel better about themselves. Having a scapegoat for any wrongdoing allowed the accusers to not feel like they had wronged because everything bad was someone else’s fault. The accusers could pass of anything they felt guilty about as an accusation and even though lying was not morally correct, the sins they admitted were much worse. Because of the strict moral code that everyone in the community lived by, sinning was something that everyone pretended not to do for fear of being seen as inferior and blackening their …show more content…
One of the main reasons Abigail was not stopped from naming more people witches is because when Proctor tried to accuse her of adultery, Elizabeth, his wife, denies his being an adulterer. She says, “in agony: My husband - is a goodly man” (113) because she is afraid of soiling his good reputation. The agony that she feels is because she is torn between lying in court and protecting her husband social status. The state laws, coming primarily from biblical moral codes, are also social laws and breaking any one of the tree would blacken one's name, so Elizabeth refuses to admit that Proctor cheated. But by protecting his social status, she inadvertently allows the accusations to continue which ironically ends up killing her husband. Because the Puritan community was so heavily influenced by religion and social status was so important, Abigail continued to accuse others of being witches.
This combination of fears, unholyness, sin, and loss of social status each stemming from the others, created a vicious cloud of anxiety and suspicion within the town. And ultimately, with no other way to lessen the tension that grew from the pressure of religious standards, the witch trials were a much needed, but terribly unfortunate, outlet for the Puritans. If they had not had such strict principles in their
Most of the accusations were made against innocent people for reasons of economic conditions, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies. Of course there was also the fact that people weren’t aware of the certain mental illnesses caused by their environment. For example the one of the first people to be accused of witchcraft was a young girl named Betty Paris who one day became very ill with convulsive erogtism. Ergot is a fungus that invades growing kernels of rye, so it is very likely that she got sick from simply eating bread. Since people were scientifically unable to explain her sudden seizures and hallucinations she was accused of witchcraft.
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, exhibits the theocratic Salem village as chaotic and hysterical due to events that suggest the use of witchcraft. God’s orders and wills were really important in the village, however, the presence of the Seven Deadly Sins in this play were quite strong. The most relevant sin represented by the characters was pride.
The Crucible is an incredibly influential play no only in the fact that it displays many important themes, but it also portrays how a theocracy impacts societal actions. The Salem witch trials were the culmination of the problems with theocracy. The actions of society, not only are impacted by their personal thoughts, but also in religious undertones affect them. Act two in the play portrays not only all of these themes, but also some important events leading towards the witchcraft hysteria. Act two in the play portrays how theocracy ultimately leads to chaos.
The statement,“The Crucible is essentially about courage, weakness, and truth,” is proven true numerous times, throughout the play. The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller, about the true events that happened in Salem, Massachusetts, between the years 1692 and 1693. The Salem witch trials consisted of many hangings, lies, and complete mass hysteria. The citizens of Salem followed the religion of Puritanism, and the ideas of predestination. The root of the mass hysteria comes from their belief in the sense that in something happens then it must have been planned by God. In Miller’s portrayal of the story, Abigail Williams was the ringleader of the witch trials, and she used the idea of predestination to cover up her own sins. Abigail was a very manipulative girl and ruined many lives. John Proctor, Mary Warren, and Elizabeth Proctor were just a few of the victims in Abby’s game. John, Mary, and Elizabeth exhibit the traits courage, weakness, and truth, whether it was in a positive or negative way.
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.
It talks about how the young Puritan girls who are caught doing something suspicious which was dancing in the forest (Decter, 54). To prevent the punishment, the girls, accuse multiple neighbors for bewitching them. The people who get accused of witchery is sent to trial. They either have to lie and say that they did do witchcraft or say they didn’t. Lying is the best thing to do in the situation that they are in. It is really a set up cause either way they are breaking the rules of their religion. But if they lie they have better chances of not dying so quick, they will just be sent to jail but be on trial for execution. If the say they didn’t commit it and the court think that they are lying and they will get hanged immediately. This is all based off of social dynamics. The reason why people lied and scapegoat others is so that they wouldn’t get punished for witchcraft. Most of the people that was blaming people for it was the ones who were doing the witchcraft, for an example, all of the girls that was dancing in the forest. They blamed people for their actions so that they won’t get punished for it and so that the attention would be taken off of them. The result of all of this blaming is that the entire village is descended into hysteria about witches. Those called to testify about their knowledge of or participation of witchcraft, communist activities were in fact guilty as
Oppression; an extended treatment of cruelty or injustice towards an individual or a group of people. If looked for, it can be found in every society expressed in a number of different ways. Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible, puts it in a way that is easy to understand. "It is still impossible for man to organize his social life without repressions." This is evident in his play, The Crucible, demonstrating that within a society, oppression will always be present due to personal motives, disputes and misuses of power, as well as distorted religious beliefs.
The Crucible is a play with many underlying messages and themes. One of which is the idea of power. Power is a very important term in this play in that whoever holds the power, holds the fates of others. The hysteria within Salem has directly effected society. Everything has turned upside down and has gotten distorted. Arthur Miller is telling us that all the power in Salem is given to those who are corrupt and their abuse of it is directly shown through: the actions of Abigail throughout the play, the corruption and desires of Parris, as well as the witch trials held by Judge Danforth.
Seventeen others died in prison and the lives of many were irrevocably changed. To better understand the events of the Salem witch trials, it is necessary to understand the time period in which the accusations of witchcraft occurred. These were the ordinary stresses of 17th-century life in Massachusetts Bay Colony. A strong belief in the devil, factions among Salem Village fanatics, and rivalry with nearby Salem Town all played a part in the stress. There was also a recent small pox epidemic and the threat of an attack by warring tribes created a fertile ground for fear and suspicion.
The crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials and how people react to hysteria created from the fear of witches. In the play, after hysteria breaks out, the Salem government starts persecute and hang people it believes are witches. This prompts people to start to accusing people of witchcraft. Some people who accuse others of committing witchcraft are Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam. They do not accuse people of witchcraft to stop witchcraft, but for personal gain or to hurt others. Thomas Putnam, one of the many characters who takes advantage of the witch trials, is able to use the fear of witches to bend the court to his will. Hysteria causes people to believe claims that are clearly false. This allows Putnam to persecute his enemies. He and many other are able to get away with this because hysteria driven persecutions are not run like regular courts and the fact that witchcraft is an invisible crime allows evidence to be made up. The theme of The Crucible is when any persecution is driven by fear and people can and will manipulate the system so they can gain and hurt another.
The power of religion and fear is prominently displayed throughout The Crucible; the characters holding power of the court misuse it, and the motives of credible, honest, worthwhile characters are lost to lies and deceit. Out of all the characters in The Crucible, John Proctor and Reverend Hale are the most deserving of authority but receive very little, if any. The majority of the power is distributed between Danforth, Hathorne, Parris, and Abigail. The power and ability to decide innocence and guilt is given to those who can ask questions while evading answering any.
In modern times, the most infamous witch trials are the one that occurred in Salem. These specific witch trials are known for the unjust killings of several accused women and men. The Salem witch trials of 1692, is a big portion of what people refer to, when they want to analyze how Puritan life was during the colonial period. According to ‘Salem Witch Trials’, “The witch trials are often taken as a lens to view the whole Puritan period in New England and to serve as an example of religious prejudice…” (Ray p.32). However, as more fragments of textual evidence occur, historians are making new evaluations of how the witch trials were exaggerated by recent literature. Some historians like Richard Godbeer, analyze how witch trials were conducted during the colonial times, but in a different setting, Stamford, Connecticut. In this book,
In The Crucible, the mass hysteria surrounding the witch trials caused paranoia amongst the people of Salem. Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as a symbol and allegory of the fear surrounding the spread of communism during the 1950s in America. The community’s sense of justice was blinded by the mass hysteria and for some, a desire for vengeance and personal gain. The Putnams
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
The Puritans in The Crucible are judgment filled hypocrites. Hypocrisy is one of the most ignorant and dangerous traps that we as humans seem to fall into and commit very frequently. This hypocrisy that many of the characters have in them has many terrible effects on the society of the town of Salem.