The Crucible: Belonging & Exclusion (the "Other")

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a rich and enticing play set in the late 1600’s describing the epic horrors and emotions through the events of the Salem witch trials. The Crucible, focuses primarily on the inconsistencies of the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior that can result from dark desires and hidden agendas. The play begins with the discovery of several young girls and an African American slave, Tituba, in the woods just outside of Salem, dancing and pretending to conjure spirits. The Puritans of Salem stood for complete religious intolerance and stressed the need to follow the ways of the bible literally without exception. The actions of the women in

In the book The Crucible there is a struggle within to have one have a sense of belonging to society. They want to be loved by that society no matter how much they may seem that they don’t belong. But they do want to show that to everyone, everyone that may not think that.

A person who is excluded from a group is disempowered. Inclusion is a strong and forceful need. Many people consider being part of a tribe, gang, clique or social group a necessary part of their life. Exclusion is disempowering. We are aware of bullying in schools, and the words still resound in my ears, “You can’t be part of our gang!”

Conformity is a belief that has conflicted people since the beginning of time. Conformity is the inner feeling that will make you second guess everything you do: should I go to my friends party or should I resist temptation and stay home and study, should I change my beliefs or stand alone in the crowd. Conformity is all around you and it is up to you to make the right choices. In Arthur Miller’s 1953 drama, The Crucible, Miller uses conformity by forcing the people of Salem to choose between being an outcast or being accepted but forced to live a life not true to themselves. Conformity plays a key role in the play because it shows the reader that everyone is hiding something and it gives a deeper meaning to some of the characters

The traditional concept of a leader, as being the directing chief at the top of a hierarchy, is now considered to be inadequate to truly lead a modern organisation. Leadership is concerned with people and so anyone, and indeed everybody, has the potential to demonstrate leadership qualities and behaviours.

Humans want to be like other humans. Likeness breeds security, and with this, people will go to great lengths to conform to their peers. This concept dictates a large part of everyone’s daily lives in the society built around them, as demonstrated very clearly by Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible; a story of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. In this case, because people conformed to what people around them were saying and doing--accusing people of witchcraft and executing them--twenty two lives were lost. After considering how the events of The Crucible portray conformity and the place in society conformity occupies, it becomes quite clear that conformity, while it has it virtues, can result in many societal issues that can be easily

To belong is to be, or have the feeling of being accepted or included by a certain group, person, place or community. While initially an individual may belong to a community or group, speaking their opinion can seclude them, and cause them to become an outsider. Belonging to a community or group can be very beneficial, and not belonging can cause an individual to face consequences. Hysteria and fear can be caused throughout a community by outsiders who don’t belong. We are able to view these experiences of belonging and not belonging through the use of characters and events throughout a variety of texts. Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” and Armin Geder’s picture book “The Island” display how an individual can belong and not belong at

Despite the fact that the theme of insiders and outsiders is a commonality worldwide, most people do not think about it enough and how affects so many different communities. In order to obtain balance, there should be both insiders and outsiders. The insiders are there to support the greater public opinion while the outsiders are there to question the rules and laws which helps maintain diversity. Lastly, standards and overall trends greatly regulate what is normal and what is not. In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, although the Puritan town of Salem is supposed to be a united community under God, the strict societal norms and harsh expectations creates a major division between insiders and outsiders which ultimately forces many accepted members to become shut out as the culture progressively develops further from normality.

All individuals unmistakably experience a sense of belonging in a multifaceted and convoluted process. Arthur Miller's play “The Crucible” and George Clooney's film “Good Night and Good Luck” are both texts where acceptance into society is explored in characters through various and complex measures. While the play and film both illustrate the complexities of assimilation into society to an individual's identity the Crucible further presents this as an ironic situation as people are pressured into conforming to societal desires, where choosing to detach from community values leads to a detrimental fate.

The sense of belonging humans naturally seek in life reflects the feeling of security and being accepted. They struggle with their identity as they make the choice whether to reject the individuality and belong to a community or group. When individuals seek to belong and rigidly follow society’s norms and practices, they must adhere to the strict rules of their society. In doing do, the desire to belong comes into conflict with the need to be an individual. These ideas are powerfully evident in Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible”, “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger and the Gurinder Chadha film “Bend it like Beckham.” In each of these texts, most desire to belong but need to restore the balance between the need to belong and the

What is leadership? Are individuals destined to lead or are they mentored into it? Leadership can be taught and seen by hard work, mentoring and a specific mind set, but the great leaders are born with the leadership quality. Leadership is taken from hard work. If one individual sees another individual working hard than the other will try and help the fact and get the job done with more efficiency by he also trying his hardest. It has a conformity affect. If most people in the group work hard and keep their eyes on the prize than good things will happen. Leadership could have been taught by the worker that began the domino affect with the conformity of the group. He could have a very humble father that taught him that hard work pays bills. Therefore if he works to his abilities than the worker will receive riches. If a worker only half-asses it than he will not move up the chain of life. Some people have mind sets that make them successful. Herbert hoover, the 31st President of the United States was an orphan.( The Biography.com website.) This tells us that no one's life is invaluable, and that no matter what environment a person comes

A well-researched knowledge-base is a necessity. Organization is also key to being a leader. A leader must plan thoroughly to properly direct the group. Even though careful planning is crucial, a leader must remain flexible when problems arise. Remaining humble is also important. Once a leader raises her/himself above the group, s/he will lose respect and will be seen as a ruler - and not a leader. A leader must see eye-to-eye with the group to retain an effective role. To manage the needs of the group, a leader must be trusting enough to allow others to help. If a leader makes all the decisions without the group’s input, or does not allow the group an active role, the group will no longer agree with the leader and will not feel valued. The leader’s effectiveness and respect form the group will the drop. The group must also trust the leader to make wise decisions. Despite the fact that these qualities are mostly seen when leading a cause, they can be extended to other roles of leadership.

     Leadership is a major issue when it comes to whether or not a society is going to be viable. It seems that if the leader is a good leader, a leader that puts his

If one has no leadership ability, one cannot be a leader. If one does not make what his or her followers consider the correct decisions to achieve their goals, no one will have faith in the leader's abilities and, consequently, no one will follow and without followers, there can be no leader. Another important criterion which one must have in order to be a leader is a person who leads a crowd in the direction where the goal can be accomplish as well as someone who acknowledges a problem and finds solutions to it.

Leadership is a difficult word to define and according to the Miriam-Webster Dictionary leadership is the “office or position of a leader” (Miriam-Webster, 2010). This definition is definitely not one that I would ascribe to when discussing leadership. My definition of leadership is “the ability someone has to motivate and empower others to achieve a goal.” Some may add to this definition, others may discard it altogether and have a completely different definition. In the end, leadership takes on many different forms depending on who is doing the defining and we end up asking ourselves, what is leadership and why do we care?