Fear in Salem, Massachusetts and "The Crucible" Essay

As represented in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, fear played an important role and is exploited by the characters in the play. The Crucible beings with a group of girls accusing people of witchcraft for their selfish benefit.Fear is an emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to inflict pain , or a threat. Fear is an emotion that is capable of overtaking and controlling one’s state of mind and well being. However , fear can be used as a motivation factor. Fear influenced these people to take extreme measures and act irrationally. Additionally, fear is a master of suffering capable of haunting those who patronize it Moreover, in The Crucible this erratic emotion causes people to fear being labeled

From the time of the 1690’s the entirety of Salem, Massachusetts were Puritans. “The Puritan lifestyle was restrained and rigid: People were expected to work hard and repress their emotions or opinions. Individual differences were frowned upon.” (Salem Witch Trials, The World Behind the Hysteria). These people believed that doing anything sinful would result in punishment from God. Just as much as they believed in God, they also believed in the Devil. Keeping up with the Puritan code, it led to the first women being accused of witchcraft. They were viewed as pariahs, and seen differently. Had the Puritan government let the afflicted defend themselves, not be so dependent on religion, not investigating the facts or scrutinize the trials the killing of many could have been prevented. The hangings from the trials would ultimately be the last in America.

Fear can lead to a lot of things, but unfortunately, in humans it usually leads to something bad. Throughout history, fear has lead to some of the most violent actions by man, and some of the biggest collapses of organized society. In early American history, the people of Salem experienced this for themselves. Arthur Miller shows this in his book. The society of Salem that Miller creates in The Crucible shows how fear can slowly cause rational thought to deteriorate, leading to mass hysteria and eventually the breakdown of civilized behavior.

In the Crucible, Arthur Miller shows us how fear and suspicion can destroy a community. As the play develops, Miller shows us how fear and suspicion increase and destroy the community. Throughout the play it becomes apparent that the community gets more and more divided as time goes on. In the beginning there were arguments about ownership of land between some of the villagers.

The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that

Fear is definitely not always a harmful emotion. Fear influences people to take extreme measures and act irrationally emotion. While fear is one of the main emotions people face, fear is not a always harmful emotion. In the Crucible, Arthur Miller shows us how fear and suspicion can destroy a community. As the play develops, Miller shows us how fear and suspicion increase and destroy the community. Throughout the play it becomes apparent that the community gets more and more divided as time goes on. In the beginning there were arguments about ownership of land between some of the villagers. As the story progresses people fear for their own safety and begin accusing their neighbours of witchcraft in order to escape being hanged. Salem became overrun by the hysteria of witchcraft. Mere suspicion itself was accepted as evidence. As a Satan-fearing community, they could not think of denying the evidence, because to deny the existence of evil was to deny the existence of goodness; which was God. In the 17th century a group of Puritans migrated from England to America - the land of dreams - to escape persecution for their religious beliefs. As Arthur Miller tells us in the introduction to Act 1 'no one can really know what their lives were like.' We would never be able to imagine a life with 'no novelists' and 'their creed forbade anything resembling a theatre or vain entertainment.' 'They didn't celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate

This happened after both the first accusations of witchery as well as the attack on twin towers. All citizens in Salem believed that the girls were telling the truth about the accused, and so, everyone began to turn against one another. People were afraid to do anything wrong or rude to anyone (especially the girls), because if so, there would be a great chance of accused for witchery. Similarly after the 9/11 attack, security in airports and other transportation were on high. Like the town of Salem, US citizens were extremely afraid of another attack. The town of Salem and the United States after 9/11 are similar because all citizens were greatly affected, but more importantly, they lived in fear after the

Inside us all there is a deep dark fear this is what grabs us by the thresh hold of life. It controls the most important aspects of our lives. This is found within the deepest and darkest chasms of our souls. The very creature that wreaks havoc in our minds we cage and never confront we lock this beast away to afraid to overcome it. If the beast is not confronted it begins to contort and change who we are as a person and how we interact with others. Even the very decisions we make as a person to affect those around us and are loved ones to also suffer the consequences of our actions. Such as the crucible and how each person was warped into their own monster by greed.

In The Crucible, there was a lot of senseless behavior. The purpose of The Crucible is to educate the reader on the insanity that can form in a group of people who think they are judging fairly upon a group of people. Judge Hawthorne believes what he is told by certain people is the truth even if little evidence is to be shown. The young girls with Abigail convince Hawthorne of others being witches so that Abigail can get what she wants, John Proctor, also so that Abigail does not blackmail the girls. The Crucible by Authur Miller investigates the effects of hysteria, superstitions and repression on the Salem Community in the late 1600’s.

In 1962 the penalty of witchcraft was to be hung or smashed. There was a big outburst of witchcraft and spells that were going around among the people of Massachusetts in 1962. Some of the women of Salem began the witchcraft many people started to catch on and fallow them. A lot of these people were hung do to what the bible said about the wrongs of witchcraft. When these women of Salem Massachusetts started to do witchcraft and pass it on to other people they were put on trial for their actions, which at the time was, illegal. It had caught on all over England and was spreading fast. Arthur Miller made a play called the Crucible that was about the Salem witchcraft trials. Arthur miller took the historical

Both Salem, Massachusetts in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and post 9/11 America are societies that dread witches or terrorists and tries to identify and eliminate them. When people find something that they are afraid of, they will do everything in their power to get rid of that fear. It will not matter to them what they have to do in order to eliminate their unease. Any fear that is great enough can take over people and make them do horrible, unjust things.

In the late 1940’s, hundreds of screenwriters, actors, actresses and entertainers of the Hollywood film industry faced charges of being subversive to America through spies for the Soviet Union. The FBI was accusing many Americans for being loyal to the communist country, this is similar to witch hunts that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts. The “Red Scare” and the Witch Trials both produced mass hysteria as a result of people’s irrational angst. The Crucible a play composed by American author, Arthur Miller who was many of the accused during the red scare, wrote this play about the town Salem that fell into mass hysteria after a group of girls Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Ruth Putnam, Tituba and Mary Warren wrongfully accused townspeople

In “The Crucible”, there are words that have different meanings based on their context such as hysteria, evil and hope, which applies to the content of the play. Hysteria destroys the people of Salem, evil is within the Devil, and hope is when the characters confess.

Many crucial events lead to the Salem Witch trials. The trials ended in a gruesome manner, and conflicts were at the root of the cause. The Salem Witch trials were the result of illogical-mass hysteria, and were induced by grudge holding people who used the trials to harm their foes.

Throughout history, many horrific incidents based on an act of violence or disagreement have resulted in panic and mass hysteria. These historical events include but are not limited to, The Holocaust, mass shootings, and 9/11. Many of these tragic events have led to people being immensely afraid. These events often create fear for those who participate in everyday activities. A healthy community consists of a support system, peace, trust, and adhering to societal laws. Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, illustrates parallels between the Salem 17th century witch trials and the Communist Red Scare in the 1950’s to exemplify how destructive irrational fear and mass hysteria can become. When a community is overcome with fear it creates an insalubrious system of mistrust, corruption, hypocrisy, and the defiance of laws. Conflict relating to witchcraft in The Crucible, led to tension and struggle for the people of Salem. In his allegory, Arthur Miller illustrates the devastating impact of irrational fear on a community through the actions of the characters of Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth and Judge Hathorne.