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In both The Crucible and in modern day witch hunts, witch hunts are caused out of fear or for personal gain. Jill Schonebelen wrote a research paper on Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights. Throughout this article, it mentions the persecution of witches today in communities around the globe, mentioning the flashbacks of similar strategies that were used in the past, doing different types of tortures. In Modern days, recent generations have abandoned wonderful traditions. Rather, recollecting others with distasteful memories such as witchcraft.
The only evidence needed to be gained to prove that someone is a witch is accusations, spectral evidence, and that the person can’t recite the lord's prayer. The main reason of the witch hunts were to prevent the work of the devil. If the person accused doesn’t confess to witchcraft they were put to death. If the person does confess they would sign a document writing down their confession which will be shown to the
In Arthur Miller’s “Why I Wrote the Crucible.” talked about how the U.S.A was in such a state similar to Salem Witch Trials. “The Red Hunt led by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and by McCarthy was becoming a dominating fixation
In 1692, the people in Salem, Massachusetts went on a hunt accusing people of being witches. This was a hysterical time in history known as the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials led to many distraught people and false accusations. The famous trials started with two sick children and then led to discrimination manly towards women of a lesser class. The accused people were tortured and eventually killed.
In times of fear and hysteria in the U.S. it is mass chaos and it only gets worse and worse. During the time of both the witch-hunt eras, whether for communist or actual witches, they prove to have many similarities between them. Both of these times were full of confusion and lying which lead to the temporary downfall of the authority at that time. Joseph McCarthy proved to be a factor in this time and add on to the chaos that was America. Arthur Miller wrote about these times in a book called The Crucible, based on the witch trial era.
The McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials accurately represent the saying, "Desperate times call for desperate measures. " In the 1950s, the McCarthy hearings tainted lives by falsely accusing those in the film industry of being associated with Communism. In the 17th century, the Salem witch trials charged innocent villagers of practicing witchcraft. Victims from the McCarthy hearings were isolated and ruined, while victims from the Salem trials were hanged and shunned.
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.
Throughout history there have been many events which fit into the criteria of a witch hunt, literally and metaphorically. From the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 portrayed in The Crucible and McCarthyism during WW2, to modern day issues such as terrorism witch hunts have plagued history. Today, these “witch hunts” have gotten more realistic and are backed up by actual threats to society. Although, they are still related to the original witch hunts of Salem as there are many people searching for large amounts of a certain type of people. However, modern day witch hunts clearly have the same cause/ effect as the actual Salem witch trials.
Ever since the terrorist attack on the twin towers in 2001, innocent Muslims have been labeled as terrorists. An article from the New York Times states “that hate crimes against American Muslims were up 78 percent over the course of 2015,” in other words, people began to accuse many people after one action of others (Litchtblau). This can reflect on the Salem witch trials, due to the large amount of outsiders they targeted throughout the whole trial. People in the United States began to label Muslims as terrorist and it spread like rapid fire, similar to the girls who began the accusing in the witch trials. Recently, it seems as if our nation is on their own “witch hunt” for Muslims, accusing all Muslims as terrorists, in order to try to stop any other attacks on the United States.
I think you have a valid point but with so many people accused of rape, murder, etc... and the number of times someone has been falsely accused of one of these events, backed up logs of DNA tests to go through, evidence being lost or getting mixed up with another individual, so on and so on. I don't think we should have modern day witch hunts just because someone is accused of a crime that they may not have committed. Obviously, it isn't a quick process of being accused but there have been individuals who were convicted of crimes and released decades later, some even being exonerated after their death. We should work harder to get through cases, so that those who have done the crime are actually
As time has passed, throughout history, during different periods of time there are parallels. There are three eras that we are focussed on, where there are three types of people during each era. The three different eras that we’re focusing on, are The Salem Witch Trials (1600s), The McCarthy Era (1950s), and Today (2000s); the three types of people are the people who are the reasons why there’s accusations towards the accused, the accused, and finally the accusers. In The Crucible, or during the Salem Witch Trials, the person that’s the reason why characters were accused is John Proctor. The accuser in the play, who decides to point fingers at everyone, is Abigail Williams.
The Salem Witch Trials are a black mark on American history and all because teenage girls became hysterical and began making outlandish accusations; Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, written in the 20th century, is his account of the events of that time. The question has been asked: Could something similar to the Salem Witch debacle ever happen again? The answer is yes, something similar to what took place in The Crucible could and still happens in the United States today. The presidential election of 2016 is similar; accusations and allegations, whether true or not, are thrown everywhere and at everyone.
The first known witch hunts took place in the early 1300’s (Wallenfeldt). As early as the 1400’s, prominent and trustworthy European figures like the pope released pamphlets on finding and persecuting witches (Saari 13-15). The Salem Witch Trials weren’t even the first to occur in America; a woman in Boston had been hung for witchcraft shortly before the Salem trials began. The people of Salem even cited the Boston trials as proof for their accusations; because their afflicted girls had the same symptoms as those in Boston, then clearly both must have been telling the truth (Alexander 194). It would make sense for Salem residents to look to past events to try and understand their current situation, since this is something that happens frequently through history and even
A witch hunt is an attempt to find, blame or punish a certain group of people who are being blamed for something, most of the time it's simply because of their opinions and not because they actually did something wrong. In the play,”The Crucible”, Arthur Miller picks apart and dives into the Salem Witch Trials and how they were wrongfully conducted under the said “law.” The characters manipulated the whole society of their village into believing the nonsense idea of witchcraft and who was a witch based on their personal opinions and theories. The Free Speech Center in their article “Miller was influential playwright post-World War II” stated, “ During the tense and hard time of McCarthyism, Arthur Miller was inspired to write a play reflecting
Furthermore, by placing so much faith in Nixon, many Americans and the White House denounced the Washington Post’s coverage of Watergate as biased and misleading. Americans felt that the Post was trying to depict their “truthful” president in a negative light; however, the Post writers Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were engaging in Plato’s dialectic approach to uncover the concrete truth of the Watergate scandal. On the other hand, most other Americans were concerned with the rhetorical truth. Based on the actions of past presidents, it was more plausible that when the president, the person they elected into a second term told the American people
