Examples Of Scapegoation In The Crucible

American playwright, Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible (1952), suggests that witch hunts still exist in American society. Miller supports this claim by drawing parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and the Senator Joseph McCarthy Trials. His purpose is to warn his readers of the dangers of mass hysteria. He uses emotional appeals (pathos) and logic (logos) to convince the reader that mass “hunts” are still a danger to Americans today. The main way, however, that Miller achieves his ultimate goal of demonstrating the dangers of individuality vs. ideology is through the vivid characterization of Mary Warren. Mary Warren is an example of an outwardly conforming character because in the play she tells Abigail that she wants to tell

The swiftness of judgment of many people led to unfair trials. Many people from the play were considered guilty until proven innocent, and even then it was hard to prove innocence. You either conformed and said that you did witchcraft, or kept your dignity and went to the gallows. The fears of evil encroaching upon the people of Salem in The Crucible led to coincidences turning into witchcraft, harsh judgment of the accused, swift judgment of the accused, and many lives being ruined.

In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail William's flaws-Immaturity, Lust, and Spitefulness- that led her to be most responsible for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem.

“Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack.” Is known as the Straw man fallacy. This fallacy has been used various times in the famous play by Arthur Miller “The Crucible” (1952). Below is an example of a Straw man fallacy, along with examples of from in “The Crucible” Arthur Miller (1952).

When a person comes across two alternatives, more often than not they believe they have to choose from the two. Arthur Miller utilizes the Fallacy of the false alternative to influence the decisions of each character. For example. Parris provides two alternatives to Proctor, "There is either obedience or the church will burn like Hell is burning, (30)" in order to defend himself. The confrontation between the two leads to distrust between the individuals. The others observers end up siding with Parris because of the reaction to the two choices Proctor expresses. It leaves them divided.

In The Crucible there are many that are accused or those who make accusations. Abigail is the number one character that uses scapegoating. She is smart, manipulative, and selfish. She does many things and yet isn’t ever caught or accused for the things she done. When the girls were caught in the forest dancing she made sure that the girls were not going to talk. “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” (Act 1, Lines 355-359). She made sure there was a fake story for all the girls to follow because she didn't want a blush in her name. From the beginning of the accusations abigail had someone to blame. She accused Tituba of making the girls dance in the wood and drink blood. “I never called him! Tituba, Tituba…”(Act 1, Line 880). She also blamed Elizabeth of witchery. She began to say that Elizabeth’s spirit came and stabbed her in the stomach. With all accusations abigail

Sometimes people get blamed for wrongdoings that they did not participate in. This was shown in Salem, Massachusetts, during the salem witch trials in the play The Crucible. The play was based in 1692, when a community of Puritans started accusing each other of of being witches and wizards. Innocent people that did not practice witchcraft were getting hanged and accused of being witches. Scapegoats have also been used in modern day with McCarthyism, which was a campaign against communist. Many people were blacklisted and lost their jobs even though many of these people did not belong to the communist party. This took place in 1950-1954 carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Using scapegoats blames innocent people for wrongdoings, and accuses people of wrong doings.

“The arrogant are wise in their own eyes, but the wise will recognize their lies” (Anonymous). This quote accurately describes how the events in the Salem Witch Trials unfolded. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, places the reader into the city of Salem, Massachusetts. Arthur Miller tells a fictional story based on real events of how people who were wise in their own eyes used others to better themselves in a community based on honesty. Three characters from the story stand apart in their arrogance. Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Parris were conceited and cared only about their personal gains. These characters used their power to blame, but not to be blamed or accused of alleged witchcraft which resulted in the deaths of several townspeople. Arthur Miller used these characters to illustrate how simple lies and rumors can spread and become an unstoppable force. With these simple but powerful accusations, well respected citizens soon became the targets of these characters manipulation.

The townspeople of Salem feared that they would be called witches so they lied and blamed their family and friends. Mary Warren being one of those people feared being hung and Abigail’s vengeance. When John tells Mary to go to court and confess, Mary refuses, knowing that Abigail will act out of revenge and in court she faces what she had been avoiding “ABIGAIL. Her eyes fall on Mary Warren. MARY. Abby!”(101). Mary Warren knows that Abigail will claim she is a witch so Mary goes along with it to escape death and she blames John Proctor by saying “You’re the devil’s man!”, instead of possibly ending the trials once and for all.

In western culture, societies are very quick to judge individuals or invent stories in order to place blame on someone. More times than none, society is faced with one person's word against another’s, the unfortunate part is that only one word is true. Thus, society is then forced to decide who’s lying and who is not, based on opinions and assumptions that follow their own values and beliefs. This is exactly what happens to John Proctor and Hester Prynne in The Crucible by Arthur Miller and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In both works, the characters are faced with cruel punishments, and isolation due to the harsh judgment made by their society.

In the Crucible John Proctor stood up for what he believed in and decided to rip up his confession because he knew it was a lie and he decided he would rather die than sin anymore. If he did not rip that confession up it would of been put up on the church and he believed that he could not do that to his family and ruin his name. The crucible has many examples of this throughout the play.

One flaw that can always be found in society and the Crucible is hypocrisy. I chose hypocrisy because at some point in one's life, they will be a hypocrite; even if they do not realize it. The characters normalization of the extent of this flaw in the Crucible adds to the irony of the play. Mrs. Putnam is a hypocrite because she condemns Goody Osburn and Goody Good for witchcraft, when she was the one who asked Tituba to conjure spirits in the first place. Mr. Putnam acts concerned about ridding Salem of witches, when really he wants his neighbors gone so that he can buy their land and increase his wealth.

In the play of “The Crucible” there were people who appeared virtuous, but were actually very guilty of hypocrisy. Revernd Paris is one of the many people guilty of hypocrisy because he wants people to think that he is a humble godly man when he was only focused on being a strong influence over the people and cared only on his pay for himself “What are we quakers? We are not quakers here yet, Mr proctor. And you may tell that to your followers!”(miller 30) Parris mainly said statements because he didn’t want another person to challenge him for his place as Reverend in the church or as a leader in the town of salem.

The Crucible is a play written in 1953 by Arthur Miller. It is based off of the 1662 Salem witch trials written as a parallel between this time period and the Red Scare, the time period in which he was living. There are many topics explored throughout the play, but the most important is hypocrisy, which can be seen in several characters.

Every human has an innate hunger to achieve a certain goal in life. And every action is deliberately taken in order to achieve that goal. This is perfectly illustrated in Arthur Miller’s allegorical play, The Crucible, in which multiple characters take various courses of action for their personal gain. These motives perpetuated the mass hysteria in the small Puritan community of Salem resulting in the inspiration for the play: the infamous Salem Witch Trials. However, the embodiment of this concept is not one that is unique to The Crucible. Similarly in modern society, people in difficult situations tend to act in a manner that satisfies their ulterior motives. However, this often results in the public obtaining biased and deceptive information, skewing the status quo in favor of the person as well as harming other people.