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Fear In The Crucible

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Fear is necessary for life. When people are afraid, they will point fingers at those who wronged them. Adding in revenge, humans will destroy almost anything and anyone just to get back at others. In the story The Crucible by Arthur Miller, in the town of Salem, the townsfolk experienced this firsthand. In the story, a group of young girls were found dancing in the woods and were later forced into confessing to witchcraft. With the town now in fear of witchcraft, accusations start to run wild. With great sorrow, this leads to the death of many innocent victims. This play portrays how revenge and fear are a recipe for disaster among humans. Revenge is the action of hurting someone on purpose because they wronged another person. In The Crucible …show more content…

You didn’t tell him that! ABIGAIL: Betty, you never say that again! You will never- BETTY: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor! (p. 575). With this and all that Abigail has done, John Proctor ruins her name as a response to her actions. In Act III, line 524, John slanders Abigail's name, “You are pulling Heaven down and raising up a whore!” (p. 655). These acts of desperation and wild attempts at revenge do not benefit anyone in the story. Since Abigail had tried to hurt John’s wife, he in return destroyed her name in the town of Salem. Not only does this repeat the cycle of revenge and hatred, but also shows that revenge can only hurt others and bring poor situations. Poor situations and bad times bring in the emotion of fear. Fear, while necessary in life, can also be very bad in communities and humanity as a whole. Fear is what makes people willing to do bad things and become erratic to save themselves. In Act I, lines 432-433, Tituba begins to display these symptoms of fear. PUTNAM: This woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged! TITUBA, terrified, falls to her knees: No, no, don’t hang Tituba! I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir. (p. …show more content…

BETTY, staring too: I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil! PARRIS: She speaks! He rushes to embrace BETTY. She speaks! HALE: Glory to God! It is broken, they are free! ABIGAIL: I saw Goody Sibber with the Devil! It is rising to a great glee. (p. 595). When the girls were presented with the punishment of hanging, they started playing the victim and accuse others to save themselves. Fear made the girls turn on one another and endanger many others. They sparked fear in each other and in the town by admitting to witchcraft and accusing those around them to save their necks for a small while longer. When humans and communities mix these emotions together the result is disastrous. In Act III, lines 500-504, John Proctor is accused of witchcraft, as a result of Mary Warren being afraid of the other girls and having poor feelings towards him for forcing her to testify in court. MARY WARREN, pointing at PROCTOR: You’re the Devil’s man! He is stopped in his tracks. PARRIS: Praise God! GIRLS: Praise God! PROCTOR, numbed: Mary,

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When Mary Warren, servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor and the oldest accuser in the Salem witch trials, is put on trial to defend John Proctor’s wife, she claims, “You’re the Devil’s man” (The Crucible, Act III, 500). Faced with a life and death situation, Mary Warren accuses John Proctor of aligning himself with the Devil to save herself. Many of the citizens of Salem choose to “confess” to witchcraft and accuse others so that they are able to join the more powerful side in court. In a similar situation, John Proctor cries, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!

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When Reverend Hale is questioning her he is yelling and she is threatened with death. Only after the suggestion of hanging her does she confess to dealing with the devil. “I don’t compact with no Devil!”, but then one of the onlookers says “This woman must be hanged!”. After that, she changes her tune asking Hale to “Tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir. ”(Miller 44).

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She was also an influence to the rest and when she gets caught she denies it. To keep her lies going she threatens one of the girls who knows the truth which occurs for Abigail to threaten her. “ You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctors wife!” ( Betty pg. 1137) “ John- I am waiting for you every night.”

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You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor! (1. 575). " Abigail proceeded to smack Betty across the face to ensure that Betty did not speak any more of that night in the

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The quote "Fear can prevail over reason so that fact and opinion become confused" by the mathematician and philosopher Thucydides speaks to the idea that when people are fearful, they may lose their ability to think rationally and differentiate between fact and opinion. This concept is central to Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, which depicts the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts in the late 1600s. In Act III of The Crucible, fear is rampant in Salem as the court begins its hearings and trials to determine who is a witch. As a result of this fear, many characters, including some of the judges and accusers, lose their ability to reason and distinguish between fact and opinion.

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“ (Act 3) by also calling Abigail a “whore” in public consequently leading to his sentence as a witch. Instead of Abigail and the witch trials being exposed as fake and a lie, Proctor is inreturn called a liar and then accused of witchcraft by the court. His attempts in return leads to his downfall. Abigail’s revenge on him for ending their affair yet she avoids to make their affair public because it would lead to his disgrace.

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After word spreads about the devil being among the citizens of Salem, Reverend Hale, an exorcist of witchcraft, is called upon by Parris. Hale starts to get information by interrogating the girls to see if they are associated with the devil. During the interrogation, Abigail feels the heat of the conversation as Hale asks her questions. Knowing her faults, she lies by putting blame on Tituba. Hale turns back to Tituba and asks her if she loves God.

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I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”. In the part Abigail says that she saw Sarah Good and Parris sends the marshall to go arrest her for witchcraft. Also Abigail’s statement caused an uproar in Salem with the people believing Abigail over Goody Osburn with no proof. Another example of the people of Salem not thinking logically

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The Crucible Fear has effected much of history. Many of these events in history are very similar. One of the biggest examples in history would be The Holocaust. An example would be the Salem witch trails which were depicted in the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The Crucible and The Holocaust are related because one person was to blame for the mass hysteria, there was one person in power, fear was used to control the people and many people were wrongly punished.

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He tells Abigail “It must come out—my enemies will bring it out… Abigail do you understand that I have many enemies?” Reverend Parris is more concerned about his own reputation being hurt then Betty not dying. He tells Abigail that his ministry is at stake before he says that he cares about if Betty will be okay.

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After Abigail and the girls put on an act convincing the judges that Mary Warren is using witchcraft, Proctor, as a last ditch effort, brings up his affair with Abigail to prove Abigail has it out for Elizabeth. “She thinks to dance with me on my wife‘s grave! And well she might!—for I thought of her softly, God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat! But it is a whore‘s vengeance, and you must see it; I set myself entirely in your hands, I know you must see it now. My wife is innocent, except she know a whore when she see one,” (Miller 110).

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It reveals how people commit cruel acts out of selfish intentions. In this situation, the girls claim to “come to Heaven’s side” by pointing fingers at others for witchcraft, although they were only doing so to get themselves out of their own trouble. These acts of cruelty reflect upon the evil motives of the perpetrators that become more common after it is done once, as seen through the continuous trials and suspicions, which acts as one of the most major conflicts in the play. Without these cruel accusations, there would be neither plot nor ending. With this same situation, it can be concluded that accusations become more frequent during an interval of time when there are more people accusing.

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In the Crucible, fear, hysteria, and revenge are the most important elements where fear spreads around the whole village. Hysteria involving witchcraft would end up with many innocent people killed. With many false accusations of a long held grudge with another villager would kill others they would have problems with. Revenge would later involve the slaughter of another bad blood of another villager. “God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat.

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In The Crucible, fear is used as a tool to take control and override the power of the townspeople. The fear of being accused of witchcraft leads many characters such as John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, and Elizabeth Proctor to be falsely accused in order to protect themselves. In the long run, this fear causes the lives of innocent people to be taken. With fear, John Proctor uses this as a motivator to stand against his accusations. This leads him to confess his adultery and ultimately sacrifice himself for the truth.

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“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” - Franklin D Roosevelt. Fear plays a major role for the tragic ending of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, because fear is upon the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts, it leads to unanticipated accusations, power, and hatred. This feeling, has occurred in everyone’s life at some point, which is more overpowering than some might think. Once hysteria arose about the girls dancing in the woods, due to all the fear it leads to unanticipated accusations, being a slave, Tituba was accused by Abigail to avoid any punishment.

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