Analysis Of ' The Crucible ' Essay

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My time travel experience to the 1600’s started in Paul Green Theatre as I sat down to watch The Crucible. I was joined by Reverend Samuel Parris, Betty Parris, and audience members taking up all four corners of the Parris’ upper bedroom in 15th century Salem on the center stage during Act 1. The Parris’ house filled up quickly as we saw Betty Parris bed-ridden and dealing with an illness deemed as the devil’s work by members of the Salem community. The hysteria of witchcraft spread immediately throughout the auditorium as I had my eyes glued to Betty and the huge cross on the head of her bed. I kept thinking to myself that I could have easily have been another member of Salem Village accused of being an associate of the devil. This production set forth burgeoning fear of my own faults and how important maintaining reputation and integrity is in the face of mass hysteria. Presentation of fear in The Crucible, and its repercussions is parallelled by the more modern example of the Red Scare that occurred in twentieth century America. Arthur Miller chose to write this play after experiencing the Red Scare that occurred less than one hundred years ago. In the program notes, Mark Perry, a dramaturg, says that the features of injustice present during the Red Scare that were making the world toxic by persecution of an unprecedented number of innocent people became the impetus for Miller to write this play (Perry, 2016). This annotation made this production seem even more like

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