Argumentative Essay On The Crucible

Scapegoating: Taking Heat From Someone Else's Flame In an interview on Faith and Religion with Bill Moyers from PBS, Margaret Atwood once said, “Under stress, society will always scapegoat a person or a group of people.” This belief is shown in the texts The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the cartoon “It’s okay -- We’re hunting Communist” by Herb Block, and her own poem “Half Hanged Mary”. In The Crucible Salem, Massachusetts suddenly has a problem with witchcraft. Most of the townspeople and farmers accuse one another of witchcraft either for land or revenge. In “It’s okay -- We’re hunting Communists” the government is chasing after Communist but hurting people in the meantime. In “Half Hanged Mary” the town hangs a woman called by Mary Webster for witchcraft. “Under stress, a society will always scapegoat a person or a group of people” in hopes to get rid of a huge issue at stake, not thinking of the damages of the people not associated with the problem. A presentable text to justify this statement is The Crucible by Arthur Miller. In this story a small village in Salem, Massachusetts has a scare of witchcraft. Instead of taking the

As seen in the examples above, society will do whatever it takes to solve “the bigger problem” even if it means burning the innocent. Society doesn’t stop to look back nor ahead to see the damages they’ve caused or are going to cause, they just throw the torch and wait for the town or people to fan the flame. In order for the scapegoating to come to an end, the people must first want it to end. The people must show they truly want it to stop and put forth the effort to bring scapegoating to an end no matter how bad the situation looks or is. “Under stress, a society will always scapegoat a person or a group of people” doesn’t have to be true, but unfortunately in most cases it is true and there are cartoons, plays, and poems to prove