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Impact of the salem witch trials
Impact of the salem witch trials
Impact of the salem witch trials
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Impact of the salem witch trials
Impact of the salem witch trials
Impact of the salem witch trials
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Crucible is a piece of literature that can be attributed to a few other situations in history, not simply just the Salem Witch Trials. People throughout history have turned on each other in fear, and have use irrational thinking to justify what they have done. Though the story portrays the Witch Trials, it is able to connect with other events in history due to how the themes can connect with the reader and resonate with how people can feel under certain stress at these moments. Arthur Miller writes in the way that the story can live on in other situations to make points on how we treat each other during these times, the rhetorical appeals he uses becoming important as to why this story is still important to our history in more than one event. As spoken before, The Crucible is set in a certain time period, but advances its meaning into other aspects of history; written in the 50’s, it can be traced back to a connection with McCarthyism, the story an allegory for this period.
Channeling Change The Crucible by Arthur Miller was modeled after the Puritanical society during the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692. Innocent people, such as Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth Proctor were falsely accused and condemned of witchcraft. The aftermath of the trials affected the children, cattle, crops, and the reputations of the accused.
In history there have been many major events that have shaped the times we live in. Two of the major events of our time are the "witchunts" of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a drama and fictional story of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692-1693. Miller wrote the play as a parable for McCarthyism, when the United States government ostracized people for being communists.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatic play that expresses a very important message and that is how far people would go to save themselves from the hands of death. There are many characters in the Crucible who are guilty of taking innocent lives, but there are three major characters who, without a doubt, are the most at blame. The play takes place in the city of Salem, a city filled with people that would do anything to keep their reputation clean. Throughout the play, Miller is introducing multiple characters that experience changes in their decisions and negatively influence more people eventually leading up to the witch trials. The main point that the story revolves around is that people would rather lie and blame someone else instead of confessing and accepting the punishment.
Reasons Behind The Crucible Arthur Miller’s main purpose in writing The Crucible was to show the similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Trials and to warn against government propaganda. At the time that The Crucible was published, America had a huge fear of communism. Anyone accused of having ties with the communist party was shunned. It much resembled the Salem Witch Trials in how the government, or leader of the time, used fear against the people to gain power. For example, Joseph McCarthy can be compared to Reverend Parris in how they both lead the people into the belief that there were intruders in their mists that had plans to sabotage the community.
To be alive in the era of civilized men means individuality is sacrificed for the good of the whole; although if individuality is forsaken to be part of this whole, the individual must avoid letting the group control his thoughts lest this affect his rationality. Arthur Miller found the Salem Witch Trials an exemplary example which demonstrated the dangerous repercussions of mass sensationalism in The Crucible. In Puritan society all decisions are to be based on god’s will, this high level of spirituality is difficult to maintain and more so difficult to properly judge. If we are to properly judge as announced to be our intention then must define sensationalism, why it is a negative force, and the branching problems it invokes.
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
Good afternoon teachers and fellow peers, In order to achieve their own personal and communal ambitions, figures in society manipulate and persuade people through events and situations to conform to their own political agenda. In the 1955 prescribed text, “The Crucible,” playwright Arthur Miller establishes the exploitative behaviour of characters through dramatised staging features. Similarly in the 1964 related text, “The Times They are A-Changin’,” Bob Dylan insights individual ambitions through musical and poetic devices. The shared ideas of the modernist era such as the significance of religion and political hegemony are investigated by both composers in their perspective texts.
Dying for a cause, it’s happened many times throughout history. It’s how the world has progressed through many wars, rebellions, and social movements. Reverand Hale in The Crucible by Arthur Miller says “no principle, however glorious” is worth dying for, which was said during the period of the witch trials. This was a logical statement in that particular situation, where it was a basis of false accusations and pride. However, in modern times this statement applied to the situation of the present-day can be refuted and rejected.
One of the many themes in The Crucible is mass hysteria. The witch trials are occurring because everyone in Salem is alarmed by the thought of Satan being among them. Miller uses mass hysteria in the book to show how simple it is to create disruption among a society. The theme is important because it “warns us of the dangers of reacting blindly because we are afraid of something” (enotes.com). When the judge asks Mary Warren to faint and she can’t, she says, “I heard the other girls screaming, and you, Your Honor, you seemed to believe them…
We all know peer pressure can make you do things, But Arthur Miller’s The Crucible shows us the extremes of social pressure and how it can make us do things we would never have thought of doing. One of the major themes in The Crucible is that popular belief causes you to act and operate differently than you would normally. Some examples of this is Mary’s behavior, the girls fainting, and Proctors struggle to not confess. One of the main examples of someone giving in to social pressure is when Mary Warren decides to convict Proctor and say he is working with the devil.
Back in the late sixteen hundreds the people during that time are very strict on religion. During the time a colony in the Americas called the puritans believed in witchcraft. People that are accused are guilty till proven innocent. In the Crucible it portrays injustice by how Danforth is not following court that is ruled by religion, Abigail intimidating the court, and the accused not having proper court rights. The following reasons will explain why the crucible is injustice.
Peer Pressure in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible There are many types of flaws in human beings. Some of them are jealousy, selfishness, or peer pressure. Most of the human flaws lead to tragedy. Victor Hugo believes that most people act like they’re better than others or often trying not to be an outcast.
The issues it dealt with then are much the same as the issues we deal with now. The modern audience can still relate to the issue of corrupting power, or the struggle to uphold the conscience, the issue of society's 'rules' and our condemnation of those woof those who go beyond those 'rules', along with our inherent desire to 'blame someone else', because of this connection. As with many good plays, The Crucible has many timeless facets, which Miller has incorporated, and these can give us valuable insight into many of our own
Imagine being an African American living down South during the 1930’s, when racial discrimination was a huge thing. Why were these African Americans so hated and discriminated? It was the way these people grew up in their setting, or even the way the setting raised them, to automatically view these colored people different and not equal towards them. The place in which people are raised in give them these characteristics and social beliefs, so they are not used to anything outside of their social norm. In the novel, “The Crucibles”, by Arthur Miller, the characters living there had a very vague and straight forward way of living life, and if anyone was seen to be doing something different or unusual, they would automatically be accused of witchcraft.