The Crucible and Why Reputation is Important

Many people believe that teenagers are reckless, rude, and untruthful human beings. It seems that teenagers are always under the pressure to “look cool,” and not do anything embarrassing. Reputation means a great deal to many high schoolers, because it seems that you only get one chance to make a good impression. In the Crucible, Abigail and the other girls fear that their reputation will be destroyed if the would be known as witches. Teenagers today have so much pressure on themselves. They have to get good grades, to get into their choice of college. They also are under the pressure to have and keep a good reputation, just as Abigail and the girls of Salem had to keep theirs.

We have all experienced a time during our teenage years when our parents told us not to do something, but we did it anyways, because we thought that we could outsmart our parents and not get into trouble. In the Crucible, the following quote “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” Abigail is blaming Tituba, for them dancing in the forest, and told everyone that Tituba was with the Devil and that she was a witch. This shows that Abigail and the girls did no want to get in trouble, or confess for dancing in the forest. So they came up with the idea of saying that it was witchcraft and that they were forced upon their own will. In today’s society teenagers are faced with the same type of pressure. When on person gets in trouble, they tend to point the finger at someone else, for mainly one reason: so they do not get into trouble for their wrong doings. In the Salem Witch Trials the girls of Salem told a lie, so they would not get into trouble for dancing in the forest. In the end this caused them to hurt the lives of many men and women who were wrongly accused, because of false accusations. A good reputation is hard to achieve and even harder to keep. Teenagers take their reputation very seriously. One accusation or wrong action can see like the end of the world. Some teenagers believe that if they can blame someone else, then their problems will disappear. But that belief is misinterpreted. Anything that goes around comes around.

Power is a very strapping word.