Fear is seen in everyone’s daily life. Many different fears affect different people but when those fears are used to manipulate people’s lives, it can cause destruction and hurt many. When fear is used as a tool of manipulation, it can control others actions through fear of death, betrayal, and abandonment. This can be seen through the sources the Crucible, 1984, and in today’s society with toxic relationships.
One of the ways fear is used to manipulate is using the fear of death against others. An example of this is seen in the Crucible through Tituba’s situation. She gets manipulated into confessing to witchcraft against the girls, which she didn’t do, in order to stop the whipping enforced by Parris and to avoid death. At first, she begs
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In the Crucible, this manipulation is shown through two deaths at the end of the play. The first one is Proctor’s death. Many in the village knew Proctor was trying to become a righteous man after his affair and was always a man of his word which would become his downfall. The court officals and the girls used this knowledge into accusing him of witchcraft because they knew he feared betrayal of his loved ones and would protect them. “I speak my own sins, I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it!” This implies that Proctor is able to “confess” to his own sins and witchcraft but wouldn’t bring others down with him for crimes they were not responsible for. He feared the betrayal of the good people he loved like his wife or Goody Nurse that he would take all of the blame by calling himself the “antichrist” to protect them. The other death that shows the same fear is the death of Gile Corey. With this death, Giles fears the betrayal of the good people in the village that want justice for those wrongfully accused. The fate of these people was known by everyone that they would be also hanged for witchcraft or false accusations. To protect them, Giles is manipulated into being crushed to death by stones to confess these names and to make an example of false accusations. “More weight.” This small quote can imply to the reader that he would rather have the last breath squeezed out of his body than betray these people that trusted him and wanted to save his wife and the others. These two men are manipulated through the fear of betrayal into growing the number of “witches” found and