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The Crucible Paranoia Analysis

Decent Essays

In the Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is both an allegory and tragedy where the Puritan society of Salem is attacked with the agitation of witchcraft. It all started with five young girls of the Salem society caught dancing naked around a bonfire. This practice is viewed upon by the Puritans as the task of the devil. In the beginning of the play, there was controversy about ownership of land between some of the villagers. Later in the story, people fear for their own safety and begin pointing fingers and accusing their neighbors of witchcraft in order to escape being hanged. This caused the society to get more and more separated as time went on. This emphasizes the idea of how fear and suspicion can destroy a society due to accusations, roundups, and forced confessions. Miller captures the evil of paranoia and fear in his play through emotions by letting them shine through his characters to make the audience feel the tension, the angst and the desperation throughout the play.

Arthur Miller includes a large number of logical fallacies such as scare tactic and slippery slope in order to emphasize the evil or paranoia and fear in his play through emotions of the characters. Miller exemplifies scare tactic when Abigail says “... I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ head upon the pillow next to mine, and I have seen reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!” (Miller 20). This emphasizes paranoia and fear because Abigail is trying to scare her friends into not telling everyone that they danced and conjured up spirits instead of not giving them a logical reason why they should not tell the truth. Miller organizes this conversation between the girls in a mysterious manner. Betty accuses Abigail of drinking blood, to which Abigail reacts by telling her to shut up. Abigail feels threatened by the other girls, and she reveals this frustration by offering a threat of her own. Another example of scare tactic is when Paris says “You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to death, Tituba!” (Miller 44). This emphasizes paranoia and fear because Tituba is pressured into "confessing" and also she is also pressured into denouncing others who are

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