Jordan Reed Mr. Bradley Honors English 10 04 April, 2023 Life is full of tough decisions, and often people believe their choices are in black and white. To further explain, people depict conflicting ideas as either right and wrong or good and bad. However, this is far from the reality of making difficult decisions. One piece of literature that blurs the lines of black and white thinking is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In this piece Miller expresses his discontent for society throughout the 1950s by metaphorically comparing it to the Salem witch trials that occurred during the 1690s. To evaluate Miller is comparing the witch trails to the communist trails by illustrating how both events were driven by mass hysteria and manipulation. Furthermore, …show more content…
Mary is right in the middle of all the chaos in Salem. Therefore, when it comes down to making a decision she gets stuck with the devil's bargain regardless of the path she takes. For intense she is being compelled by the manipulative character of Abigail Williams to claim that she's seen various people practicing witchcraft. Miller creates the character of Abigail to represent the powerful leaders that emerged throughout the 1950s by utilizing people's fears. This devious tactic is also used by Abigail as she asserts fear into Mary Warren. Furthermore, Miller uses the relationship between these characters to portray to his audience that witchcraft wasn’t the real problem in Salem but rather the leaders who abused their authority through mass hysteria. Therefore, 1950s America was struggling with corruption not communism. Even Though Mary Warren realizes that denouncing innocent people as witches would cause immense damage she feels obligated to go along with Abigail. To further explain, Mary recognizes once she goes against Abigail's intentions, Abigail will claim witchcraft on her in an attempt to silence her. This is Miller’s direct attack at the trials where countless people were wrongly accused of communism, other words known as the red scare. Therefore, Abigail Williams represents that fear is an easily exploited trait that can put jurisdiction in the wrong