Salem Witch Trials And 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

“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.” this is a quote by Walter Kirn. The Crucible and the Salem Witch Trials are very similar to the time of McCarthyism and it the most likely reason the why the book was written. “It was not only the rise of "McCarthyism" that moved me, but something which seemed much more weird and mysterious.” (Budick 1985) a quote by the author himself proving it was a factor that made him write the book. They were both witch hunts one literally one not so much a witch hunt as a communist hunt. Events in the play and events in McCarthyism are both very similar. A general thing that happened during both is hysteria, a mass feeling of fear in a way. They were both about people

“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” said George Santayana. If this is true, then why have we continued to repeat something like the Salem Witch Trials on more than one occasion, including the recent uproar of sexual assault accusations? Although The Crucible and modern day accusations of sexual assault differ in the ways that these assault accusations are in modern times and they are also on something that is not related to religious beliefs, they ultimately have more in common, like how evidence was and is shaky for some cases, all accusations were started by a domino effect, and reputations were ultimately ruined even if the accused were proven innocent eventually.

The United States of America is filled with many historic events, enriching its history. Many events that occur are compared to past events in our history. In particular, the McCarthy Era in the 1950’s was compared to the Salem Witch Trials which occurred in 1692. This correlation was first made by Arthur Miller who wrote the play “The Crucible”. He connected the time period of McCarthy to where there was a hunt for communists, to the Salem Witch Trials where there was a hunt for witches. Following that, many comparisons and contrasts have been made between the two. The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthy Era are both similar, yet different.

Human beings always have been curious creatures. We are a species that is always searching for answers to unexplainable events. Take aliens for example. To us, aliens may or may not exist (depending on your individual belief of course). Yet we still take such an interest in them that we continuously search for answers and proof of alien. Now that we have modern day technology, we can attain “proof” of alien life-form somewhere deep in outer space. But given the date 1692 in New England, if we were to even come in contact with aliens it would have been considered some supernatural phenomena, and even cause quite a bit of hysteria. That is what happened to the puritans in Salem village during the Salem Witch Trials, in Massachusetts, in the year 1962. The puritans of Salem village were extremely paranoid, and they believed that if something can’t be explained then it had the devils influence. So when a group of Salem girls spoke up about the devil and witches, the villagers of Salem went into a panicked frenzy. Truth of the matter is that there were no witches in Salem nor was the devil at war against Salem; the Salem Witch Trials were only a result of endless lies, conspiracies, and side effects of an illness.

Throughout history, there have been many cases of discriminatory accusations of people, including the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were a string of trials, hearings and prosecutions of many people accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts between the dates of February 1692 and May 1693. The trials ended up leading to the execution of twenty people, men and women, but mainly women. The Salem Witch Trials that took place about three hundred years ago affected the lives of everyday civilians during that time in ways such as politically, religiously, economically, fearfully, mentally, and sometimes in other various other ways.

There are many factors that contribute to the cause behind the Salem Witch Trials but I am only going to state the ones I feel most important to me like politics, religion, family feuds, economics, and the imagination and fear of the people. With such a small town there is a lot of talk and conflict among others which begins causing hysteria and eventually got 20 people killed because of it, people who were not in fact guilty.

Throughout history all world leaders pushed the blame onto others by using scapegoats as a way to justify their own wrongdoings. A scapegoat is something or someone people use to avoid the repercussions of their wrong doings. McCarthyism was the time in which many people were accused of being communists while The Salem Witch Trials were when many people were accused of being witches. One group led by McCarthy and another group led by a young group of girls, both had a great impact during the time period and caused a lot of chaos. Even though the time in which The Crucible and McCarthyism took place are very different, they were similar in the way that citizens were treated, the fears they had, and the accusations that took place. This all

In the winter of 1692, a event that affected a religious group in the Massachusetts Bay, later on changed how people looked at each other. Puritans were a strict religious group that had come over to the new world, where they can practice their religion without having the motherland’s religion around them. Through the years, they had a settlement which they made do with, but that changed in February of 1692. Two girls, native to Salem Village, became “bewitched” and would have fits. They pointed their fingers at a slave women, saying that she was a witch and bewitched them. This began to be known at the Salem Witch trials. Maybe these children really were bewitched or there could have been other reasons. The Salem witch trials could be contributed

In the start of something new, the Salem witch Trials brought distress and panic to the town of Salem,

The Salem Witch Trials were a very important event in our nation’s history. In colonial Massachusetts where both men and women were being accused of being witches and of creating witchcraft. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of many people. The time period was very controversial and could inflict death or torture on the accused. The town had many accusations however many were taken to trial. The “spectral” evidence was based on the accuser saying that they see something that is not truly there. “Spectral” evidence was used however when the end of the time period the courts banned the evidence. The Trials were necessary and they shaped our thinking of mythical beings and magic. Many believe that the trials were a hoax created by the United States government at the time, do you?

The Salem Witch Trials were prosecutions of accused witches. It took place in Salem Massachusetts in 1692 to 1693. Too many people died from accusations made by other people to save themselves from the rope. Many of the accusations were false, let alone 3 characters in The Crucible by Arthur Miller also had a huge part in the accusations also. There are many people in Salem that their actions and manipulations directly led to the cause and/or added fuel to the fire, to the witchcraft trials. Hales naive self, Mary's lies and Abigail's love for Proctor lead to many hangings in Salem.

Salem was divided geographically and politically into Salem town the sea port and Salem village a small farming community. The Salem village's struggled for power; one led by the porter family advocating close ties with the town, another group led by the Putnam family fighting for independence. A Sinister pattern began to emerge, many of the accusers belonged to the Putnam faction, many of the accused girls were a part of the Porter faction. Five of the nine accusing girls reside at Thomas Putnam and Samuel Parris. A total of eight members of the Putnam clan help sentence nearly fifty accused witches. All of the accusing girls had direct links to the household of Rev.Parris who testified against ten accused witches.

Responsibility is being accountable for your own actions. In The Crucible a group of girls accused many people of witchcraft and many of them were executed after being processed by the court of Salem. The girls accused these victims ,but they are merely are children ,which leaves the responsibility with the court (the adults), the final say of the accused.

Arthur Miller was a popular play writer during the twentieth century. He wrote plays such as: Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and All My Sons. His plays were very controversial, and he received some criticism for them. Because Arthur Miller wasn’t able to freely express what he wanted to say in his plays: The Crucible and Death of a Salesman they have deeper underlying meanings about what was happening in society during the late 40s and early 50s.