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How Does Human Nature Change In The Crucible

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Whether it is 1692, or 2001, human nature has not changed. Human nature is the idea that if you are different than another person, you do not deserve to be treated the same. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, focuses on the injustice of the 1692 witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts. In The Crucible, innocent people were wrongfully being accused of being witches from past issues. Likewise, after the events of 9/11, racial profiling at airports shows the inequity towards different cultures. The unfair treatment towards different people in both these events show how humans can be cruel towards others in order to save themselves. Despite these two time periods being far apart, the ideas of human nature do not differ. Based on the Salem Witch Trials and racial profiling after 9/11, one can conclude that human nature is altered by fear. People tend to fear the unknown, jump to conclusions and are easily manipulated by fear.
No matter the time period, human …show more content…

This event shows how humans nature does not change along with the time period. In the article “Air Security and Terrorist Threats” written by Timothy G. Borden, he states, “Some of its screening factors were kept secret, which raised suspicions that it might actually be a racial profiling system directed at passengers of Middle Eastern descent.” (Borden, page 10). After the 9/11 events took place, racial profiling became much more apparent than ever before. In the article it states that security screenings became more directed at passengers of Middle Eastern Descent. This shows that all flight members did not receive equal treatment as one another. As some Middle Eastern passengers began being removed from flights due to more controversial and fear, the inequality became greater. Security was made more direct towards certain ethnic groups and it was evident that not everybody was treated equally. It showed that people were still being accused without a justified

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Society as a whole seeks to satisfy themselves. This may be at the expense of their peers or individuals they are associated with. Arthur Miller brilliantly displays this dark side of humanity’s side in his play The Crucible. This play is based on the Salem witch trials in the early 1690s. During the Salem witch trials over two hundred people were accused of witchcraft and twenty were executed.

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Throughout the history of our country hatred has been common, as Immigrants enter our homeland they are looked down upon and thought of people who are “destroying” this nation. All these new people coming in are only seeking new opportunities but are discouraged by other because of their ancestry. Humanity’s unjust behaviors can be seen in two different aspects of America 's history, we first see it in the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII and the period of the Salem Witch trials. Arthur Miller’s dramatized play, The Crucible can be correlated to the event of Pearl Harbor because of the similarities between the Japanese Americans and the characters in the play; they both demonstrate the lives of civilians being ruined, a mass hysteria caused by fear of their neighbors, and lack of a just court system. To being with, it was the year of 1692 when the “witch hunts” had officially began, fellow citizens were being accused of being involved in witchcraft.

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The witch trials in Salem in the year 1692 was a scowling time in American history. The New York Post explains about The Crucible play that “... at a time when America was convulsed by a new epidemic of witchhunting, The Crucible brilliantly explores the threshold between individual guilt and mass hysteria, personal spite and collective evil.” In The Crucible, John Proctor and his wife are hit with many situations which burdens their relationship. While this is going on, many people were being accused as witches for little incidents which they thought would add up to witchcraft. During this time period, the grudges and personal rivalries between people makes these witch trials immoral and unethical.

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Hysteria, paranoia, and delusion was what drove the Salem Witch trials in 1692. Many people were executed by decision of the court because it believed in absurd false allegations. Justice in the court was perverted by fear and delusion (Johnson 9). In the 1940s and 1950s, many people in the United States were living in fear of communism; similar to those who feared “witches” in Salem. In the 1953, Arthur Miller came out with a play: The Crucible based on the Salem Witch Trials tackling McCarthyism; accusing others of being communists trying to overthrow democracy in the United States (9-10).

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Hysteria can be defined as the exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people. This definition proves true and exists throughout the course of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In The Crucible, a group of girls go dancing in a forest around a cauldron, some even naked, and along with a black slave named Tituba. Reverend Parris, the local minister, then catches the girls in the act. As a result, Betty, one of the girls and Parris’s daughter, goes into what it seems like a coma.

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When push comes to shove, everyone makes a tough decision, but in the end the decision was either out of fear to protect themselves, or a strategy to gain a designated amount of authority. In today 's society, many of the decisions people make lead to riots in the streets and people getting hurt. Similarly, the Ferguson riot in Missouri years ago, where many civilians were injured because of decisions made by everyone involved. Whether it turned violent because they wanted to prove something or because they feared the police when they showed up. In the story, The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, the characters also illustrate the fact that it is human nature to defend oneself, to strive to survive despite the harm such actions can cause to

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Instinctual prejudice on people who might be different was a distinct similarity between the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust. In both of these events, hatred was thrown towards specific groups of people.

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The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism have an uncanny relation to one another. In Salem people were afraid of not appearing christian enough, meanwhile during the 50’s Americans feared of being accused of communism. Also during the McCarthyism era and the witch trials innocent lives were ruined when people were forced to accuse others or be accused themselves. Though The Crucible is an allegory for McCarthyism, it focuses some of its attention on the question what is more important, your honor and reputation or your life?

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