Examples Of Mentality In The Crucible

McCarthyism and Witch Hunt Mentality The “witch hunt mentality” has been present in every age of history. People united against a common enemy can lead to patriotism, fear, anger, and a whole variety of other emotions. This mentality is an interesting one because it can reduce or completely destroy the moral sense of people. There are many examples of this in history and literature, but a work that addresses this perfectly is The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The Crucible provides a commentary on group mentality and the ability that persuasion has to change someone’s views and morals completely. These points are extremely relevant to today’s society. Many events that have taken place in history mirror the events that take place in this play,

This series of events started when two girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, started having fits "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect" (Hale). This escalated into full-on hysteria when two other girls joined Betty and Abigail in accusing people of witchcraft. Salem, like all Massachusetts settlements, enforced religious law. (Jones), This meant that witchcraft was a punishable offense. The first women accused of witchcraft were Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; Sarah Osborne, a local resident, and Tituba, an Indian slave. As this went on, more and more women were accused of witchcraft. The only common factor that all these women had in common was the fact that they were social outcasts. Woman after woman was accused and convicted of witchcraft, eventually going beyond the realm of social outcasts and progressing to outstanding members of the church of Salem. As these events progressed, evidence was more and more circumstantial. Nevertheless, there was a mentality that the judges “cannot pardon these when twelve are already hanged for the same crime. It is not just.” (Miller, Act 4, p. 119).All of these accusations were accentuated by the fact that “Salem was ruled less by God than by a fractious congregation dominated by a few wealthy voices, a situation that almost certainly contributed to the outbreak of witchcraft hysteria” (Jones). The

McCarthyism is given that name because “Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rocketed to public attention in 1950 with his allegations that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies.” (Have You No Sense of Decency?senate.gov). The red scare is best defined as a widespread series of actions by individuals and groups whose intentions were to frighten Americans with false and highly exaggerated charges of Communist subversion for the purpose of political, economic, and psychological profit. “The red scare is best defined as a widespread series of actions by individuals and groups whose intentions were to frighten Americans with false and highly exaggerated charges of Communist subversion for the purpose of political, economic, and psychological profit. The “Red Scare” put people out of their jobs, and ostracized them from society.” (Carleton 5) Although the punishments were not as obvious or as intense as the punishments during the Salem witch trials, they nonetheless affected the lives of the people involved