Propaganda In The Crucible Analysis

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¶“A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is . . . 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.” The Crucible is a play written in 1953 by Arthur Miller. It is based on the Salem Witch trials in February of 1692 and May of 1693. The trials were the product of the death of twenty innocents accused of witchcraft.  The use of propaganda in the Crucible is not only present, but defines the story as a whole because it is used so frequently. Throughout the play, different types of propaganda and fallacies are used very often. There are many different types of propaganda found in the Crucible. Some examples are Bandwagon, Fear, and citing/appeal to authority.  In the Crucible, one of the main types of propaganda found is Bandwagon. The basic principle of the bandwagon fallacy is that an idea that is popular is correct simply …show more content…

Fear uses deception to increase prejudice towards the opposing idea. This type of propaganda was used in the play when Abigail, the protagonist of the story threatened the other women when they were opposing to her ideas and accusations. She threatened them by telling them about her history, and what she was capable of. Also, this was used often by the Court themselves. They used fear in order to convince people to confess to witchcraft. People were being hanged in front of the town, and as those accused did not want to meet the same fate, they confessed because they were in fear. This was very effective in the Crucible as it was able to create tension among the town of Salem. It caused people to fear, and turn against each other and create mass tension. Fear was a very important type of propaganda in the Crucible, but there is one more very important