Fear In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

“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. As Tituba was accused of witchery, Hale takes her hand and tells her “confess yourself to witchcraft, and that God will protect you” (24). Tituba overwhelmed with fear was frightened

One major example for hatred in the play was when Rebecca Nurse was accused witchery for “murder of Goody Putnam’s babies” (34). This shows it was out of hatred because the person who claimed Rebecca of murder was Mrs. Putnam who had all her babies die except one while Rebecca had all of her children alive. However hatred might have played some of the role for the tragic ending of The Crucible, fear played the majority role. It all started with Reverend Parris, frightened that Abigail and the girls dancing will become common knowledge to Salem, he tells Abigail “I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me.” (10). Parris then tells Abigail he saw Tituba “waving her arms over the fire” and heard “screeching and gibberish coming from her mouth.” (9). Parris shows fear so he tries to blame everything on Tituba instead of the girls so he wouldn’t lose the town’s respect. Thats where everything started with the fear of Parris losing his respect in the town. Towards the end of the play, Proctor’s execution causes a lot of tension, causing Parris to realize what his decision has caused. Parris full of fear yelling towards Goody Proctor “Go to him, Goody Proctor! There’s yet time!” (63). Trying to convince her to talk to her husband to confess to witchcraft so he could live instead of dieing on Parris