Self Delusion In Ernest Hemingway's 'Scapegoat'

“I bear I will be born this is a crime I will not acknowledge leaves and wind hold onto me I will not give in”(Atwood 3). In the selections The Crucible by Arthur Miller and Half- Hanged Mary by Margaret Atwood scapegoating is found in both. A society under stress can affect a person or a group of people more likely by the cause of scapegoating then it can others.

While reading the crucible and analyzing other documents, Scapegoating became a relevant occurrence in communities. Societies will turn to scapegoating a group of people to place blame for a problem or event; there is evidence shown regarding scapegoating in “ The Crucible” / Salem witch trials, “The Holocaust”, and in politics. These three examples all relate to scapegoating because they all discriminate and place blame of something the community cannot control on a specific group of people.

An obsession exists in the world today based solely upon the use of scapegoats. According to the dictionary, a scapegoat consists of a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. Some of the most influential scapegoats consist of Jesus Christ taking suffering for the sins of civilization, the Jewish population being punished for the problems in Germany, and more recently the U.S. citizens who perished in 9/11 being punished for the sins of America. Scapegoats have come in many forms over time and have been very destructive. The usage of scapegoats in our society, such as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, has proved to be damaging, and an end must be found in order to find peace.

During World War II, Hitler used his power to persuade the government to make him the chancellor, which gave him more control over Germany. This lets him manipulate the people so they would think that same way as he did. The people believed this because they did not understand what Hitler was going to do with the Jews, during this time they used the Jews as a scapegoat to blame for their problems. Many situations have a scapegoat that people need to blame to help them deal with their problems. In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller the town used witches as their scapegoat. In the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed the people in Tanzania used witchcraft as their scapegoat. Finally in the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government Makes Americans More Likely to Reach for a Gun the government is creating scapegoats out of the certain people and events. Some people need to find a scapegoat to blame for example, in The Crucible, the New York Times article Extended Forecast: Bloodshed, and the Quartz Magazine article Fear of the Government makes Americans more likely to Reach for a Gun the people had to find a scapegoat for the problems that they faced.

When we are younger we used to get our brother or sister and pick on another sibling. When mom or dad comes to yell at the person who started it we tend to pin it on someone else or you are the person who gets left with all the punishment. At one point in our lives we were blamed for something we didn't do or we were the person that pushed it onto someone else. Arthur Miller expresses a lot of scapegoating or being the scapegoat in The Crucible.

When people condemn others, the accuser affect themselves the most. Marc and Dianna MacYoung, the authors of No Nonsense Self-Defense, in their article “Blaming Justifies Your Own Bad Behavior” writes, “Unfortunately, blame is

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.

A scapegoat, by definition is,”A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency” (Oxford dictionary). The Crucible is easily one of the greatest examples of a scapegoat. The town was completely prepared to blame witches for the girls actions. The Columbine shooting blamed Marilyn Manson, a man known for his outlandish dress and style. On April 20th, 1999, two students murdered 12 teachers and students in cold blood. These two seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, committed suicide before incredulous government officials were able to ask them why.

The archetype of a scapegoat is represented by Pearl Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In the novel, the townspeople view Pearl as a personification of Hester Prynne 's sin, and they do not treat her fairly because they only see her as the result of a horrible crime. And although Hester doesn’t see Pearl in this light for the most part, there is a time in which her view on her daughter changes. The village blames Pearl because they need to find someone to blame it on, which illustrates the role of a scapegoat in a novel. A scapegoat is an innocent character in which a problem is blamed on. In this case, the puritans put responsibility on Pearl because they can not blame Hester anymore. She is

Using this perspective, scapegoats are created in order to lay blame on others for their situations. It is functional by creating in-group solidarity and is also shaped by the social environment (Henslin, 2011). William Hazlitt in his essay, On Prejudice, published in 1830, noted that this in-group solidarity exists due to people wanting to affiliate with others who are most similar to themselves and because like-minded others validate their beliefs (Webster, Saucier, & Harris, R.,2010). When taking the functionalist perspective into account, one can conclude that the behavior of the students and staff towards Felicia and her siblings was due to using their different ethnicity as a scapegoat for their poor living conditions. The students and staffs in-group solidarity also reflects their need to not want to associate with those who are dissimilar to

A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency: this is the definition of scapegoat. It is also how one might describe the role of Iva Toguri Aquino in the hunt for the Tokyo Rose. Betrayed by not one but two countries she called home, Iva Toguri Aquino was the seventh person in the history of the United States to be tried and convicted of treason. D’Aquino v. United States is the case involving a young American born and raised woman of Japanese heritage, who was taken advantage of by the U.S. and Japanese government and a mythical siren blamed for the discouragement of U.S. Troops during World War II.

A scapegoat must have two qualities. First, it must be anecdotal; meaning it must be representative of “certain unwanted evils.” Burke describes these unwanted evils as guilt from historical and cultural identifications. In my understanding, “historical and cultural identifications” can be seen in modern day situations such as Tamir’s. These identifications are the negative associations which African American stereotypes have created throughout time. An article written by Kenneth W. Goings in February 1990, states the idea of these stereotypes, saying, “These objects produced from the late 17th century to the present, have been almost universally derogatory, with exaggerated racial features that helped ‘prove’ that African Americans were ‘different’ and inferior.” (Goings, Kenneth.) Historical and culturally, these stereotypes say things such as African Americans look suspicious based of apparel, facial expressions, or physical intimidation therefore making it reasonable for officers to become suspicious. These stereotypes and identification issues make the scapegoats’ guilt easily understood by society and law courts that decide cases such as Tamir Rice’s. Burke’s second point states that a scapegoat needs to be powerful because it must be at least equal to the burden of guilt, so that the sacrifice destroys a vessel strong enough to hold the transgression. Burke notes that the scapegoat must be “worthy legalistically,

“Every group feels strong, once it has found a scapegoat” (Mignon McLaughlin, 1913). A scapegoat is someone who is blamed for all the faults and corruptions that others have committed. In history, there are lots of scapegoat examples, the most popular being; Jesus Christ and the Jews in the Second World War. In the short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson used persecution and tradition to demonstrate how scapegoating justified unfair killing. Both of these aspects relate to the World War that preceded only a couple years before the story was written. The persecution was blind and done once a year as a tradition that everyone expected to happen.

Countless times people with a little power have tried blaming someone that had nothing to do with the problem for their own troubles. Most times people with high and low class have a hard time accepting that things are their own fault. These terms can better be defined as the scapegoat theory. The source of prejudice can be easily recognized in the scapegoat theory “from frustration among people who themselves are disadvantaged” (pg. 309). “Prejudice does not improve the situation, but it is a relatively safe way to express anger” (pg. 309).

The theme of the story could be depression, depravity, or hate. The nation falls into disorder after the disease. What’s worse, people who live lose the important ability to communicate. In this case, humanity depraves easily, and the dark side inside human’s mind drifts. As it’s indicated in the passage, the author use metaphor “superiority” to people’s attitude of more comprehending. However, “such ‘superiority’ was frequently punished by beatings, even by death”(93). Along with the misunderstanding, people tend to be jealous to things they don’t own-not only to possessions, but also to the ability of language. Even the protagonist gets the feeling of “hatred, frustration and jealousy”(98) when she finds out that the man could read while she couldn’t. Under such situation, people become isolated and depressed, sometimes seeking for death like the protagonist has always been thinking. The author also used the literary device of allusion like “Left-handed