Why Do Goths

In this essay I will talk about two main central ideas. First, some people accuse innocent people for witchery. Secondly, there is a lot of hatred in the town of Salem.

During the Holocaust, thousands of people died because they were targeted by another group, the Nazis. Similarly, in The Crucible, about 19 people were executed. Although Salem was a smaller town, the characteristics of both events can relate to one another. The Holocaust was an act of genocide performed by a group called the Nazis through the 1930s and 1940s. This group was led by the notorious dictator, Adolf Hitler. The Nazis and Hitler took over Germany, killing many Jews. The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller, during the uprise of McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In Salem, Massachusettes, many people were accused of worshiping the devil because of doing something that was frowned upon. The government strongly influenced strict religion, so even dancing was inappropriate. The lack of importance placed in truth, chaotic riots, and discrimination are all the human characteristics that are seen in The Crucible and the Holocaust.

Once the people of Salem fully realize their fear, Miller shows how they try to justify this fear, but that they are in fact becoming more and more hysterical. They now try to find a justification for thoughts and their fear of evil. They need some solid proof to back up these accusations that they make, and they need to clear their own names as well. So, they arbitrarily start claiming that “[they] saw…with the Devil”, and that “[they] saw…with the Devil” (45). These unjustified explanations for their fears just shows how truly corrupted their minds become. They start naming their own friends, neighbors, and even their own family in order to clear themselves and more importantly to try to prove that this witchery is really upon them, and to prove that they are not just crazy. What it really does is show how hysteria is setting in, and how they have actually accepted these lies as the truth. While questioning each other on the matter, their breakdown can really be seen through their quick, almost sputtering manner of speaking:

Miller is saying that people should be aware of how much they can get swept up in hysteria. Fear causes people to do and say things completely out of character with whom they are. He is saying we can lose our heads when we are afraid of something. When people allow themselves to get swept up in this hysteria, bad things can happen. In the play, the people of Salem lose their heads because they are afraid for various reasons. One of which is they do not want to be accused of witchcraft, so they wrongly point the finger at others. Miller is warning us that when we are afraid we forget our better natures and turn on a convenient scapegoat.

A society that praises moral righteousness and piety is destroyed by a series of witch trials that are ironically immoral and unfair. The Salem Witch Trials are fueled by personal motives and feuds that emerge because of the restrictions in Puritan society. The society nurtures a culture of fear and distrust that stems from dread of the devil and strict adherence to the Bible. Salem is the perfect environment for fear and vengeance to spread through witchcraft accusations, because people have no other means to gain power or get revenge on enemies. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays how the Puritan society in Salem influences the witch trials and increases their impact, because of the religion-based justice system, women and

The Puritan town of Salem is corrupt when it comes to accusing innocent people of witchcraft. The town fears their powerful God and assumes that the Devil is punishing those that sin. Miller writes this play during the Red Scare time period which is also a time of questioning others on beliefs. Miller brings attention that people are questioning others if they don’t understand something and this leads the decision to be made without any background knowledge or ideas. Even if Education is not presented to someone, they should do everything possible to educate themselves on the topic before making a

In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses themes to display thoughts throughout the book. The theme that seems to be the center point of the story is religion. Religion is on the character’s minds with every action they do. When something goes wrong in the town, religion is sought out as a cause. When the witch trials begin, the devil is supposed to be the source of the troubles. Arthur Miller vividly uses religion to show the readers how important religion is to the people of Salem.

All throughout the play,The Crucible , Arthur Miller uses various themes to get his message across. A motif that made an enormous impact in the Puritan community would be demonization. Demonization could be described as marking an entity as evil, due to having the polar opposite beliefs as one's own. In Miller’s play demonization caused instability in the community by creating chaos, fear, and false accusations. It allowed people to create scapegoats, and it revealed repressed social conflicts in both the Salem witch trials and in the era of Mccarthyism. Demonization plays an important role on how characters in the play live, and associate with one another. Miller in the play describes the lives of the people living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the witch trials, that occurred during the late 1600s. Much of these characters are a representation of what was happening during Miller’s lifetime.

‘The Crucible' not only addresses the issue of conformity, it attacks the poor balance of power that surrounds us everyday. Miller demonstrates how much power a sole in-dividual can have when the decisions made by that person effect a whole community. During the Witchcraft Trials in Salem, religion was, much more than now the answer to the unknown and the unexplained. As a result, the Church and the people in its service were people of prominence and power. They were the only people who could successfully interpret the Church's doctrine, often to their own benefit, without being accused of a wrong doing and what could be more powerful than this in a theocratic society like Salem? This corrupt hierarchy meant that nobody could question a priest or minister because doing so would be considered questioning God. As a result, a per-son of such power could say almost anything they pleased, people would listen and appropriate action taken. This is evidenced with the supposed ‘cleansing' of Salem. Although an event that occurred before the writing of ‘The Crucible', the Holocaust is a prime example of imbalanced power. Hitler, a man of great power, especially in Nazi Germany, basically accused a few million people of being witches. Action was taken and millions perished all

American playwright, Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible, implies 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 and logic to convince the reader that mass “hunts” are still a danger to Americans today. The central way, however, that Miller achieves his topmost goal of displaying the hazards of Individuality vs. Ideology is through the expressive characterization of Reverend John Hale. John hale is an example of outward conformity because he believes in the devil in the beginning, he sees that the girls are

Miller sets the whole of Act 1 in one room this conveys hysteria because they are all in one room and everyone is shouting each other. Also it will be quiet dark and crowded as the windows are all narrow so only little light comes through. I also think it is a metaphor for the narrow minded nature of the people in Salem. The fact that only a little comes through conveys that they have little knowledge of the outside world. The language used is very different and address woman as Goody and men as Mister. This contributes to the difference in society and the time.

Most people agree that Nathaniel Hawthorne changed his last name from “Hathorne” to “Hawthorne”. This is one of the many signs that suggest that Hawthorne was ashamed of his Puritan past and tried to do anything to remove that “black mark” on his past. Furthermore, it can be seen through the themes and symbols in his play that Arthur Miller was no fan of Puritanism as well. Both Miller and Hawthorne take negative stances against Puritanism. This can be seen in their works The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter deals with the Puritan intolerance of those who committed a sin. In Hester Prynne’s situation, her adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale seemed to have sparked a particular hatred for her within her community. The Crucible deals with the Puritan fight against witchcraft. Many people in the town are accused of being witches and are forced to confess in order to save their lives. The intolerance that the Puritans show to witchcraft symbolize Miller’s complete dislike of Puritanism and their strictness. Both Miller and Hawthorne’s negative views on Puritanism are strongly seen in their respective works of literature. Also, both authors seem to think that the outsider is treated quite brutally. Miller’s take on the Puritan way of forgiveness of sins is somewhat painless compared to Hawthorne’s version of forgiveness. Hawthorne’s novel highlights hypocrisy and its detrimental impact. Miller similarly writes about hypocrisy and how it can destroy society as a

He has used many symbols to cement the ideas of the play and to comment on what he needs to convey. Ideas are present in nearly every symbol he uses. Mary's puppet that is used to set Elizabeth up is a symbol for Salem's arrogance that sets the will of fanatics. The witch trails represent tyranny and injustice rising from wrath, intolerance, mass hysteria and the desire for revenge. The stones that kill Corey symbolize the weight of sin and guilt committed by the corrupted in Salem (Gottfried 219). Miller represents The Crucible as an allegory to McCarthyism, the anti-movement to communism. The American people loathed communism and whoever found guilty was killed. In The Crucible many people are falsely accused of witchcraft as in Miller's world many were victims of false accusations. In both cases, the ruthless accusations were believed and people falsely confessed to escape death. The Crucible is an extended metaphor for the era of terror known as McCarthyism in America ( Gottfried 187). Miller employs allusion in The Crucible to demonstrate blunder in reason. For example, when the witchcraft scholar Hale is asked how such a virtuous woman like Rebecca could be serving the devil he replies that the devil too seemed virtuous. He says that the devil is a deceiver and 'until an hour before he fell, even God thought him beautiful in Heaven" (II iii 76). Another one comes when Goody Proctor describes how the people are

Arthur Miller writes about the tragic results of human failings in his play, The Crucible. He presents characters from the past and infuses them with renewed vitality and color. Miller demonstrates the horrifying results of succumbing to personal motives and flaws as he writes the painful story of the Salem witch trials. Not only do the trials stem from human failings but also from neglect of moral and religious considerations of that time. Characters begin to overlook Puritan values of thrift and hope for salvation. Focusing on the flawed characters, they begin to exhibit land lust, envy of the miserable and self-preservation.

In a small community within Salem, Massachusetts, a witch hunt breaks out, causing widespread hysteria. People contribute to mass hysteria in different ways. Some characters try to stop hysteria, while other characters try to continue the spread of hysteria for self-gain. Many innocent people are hanged due to a growing fear of witches. Miller uses The Crucible to express his feelings towards the McCarthy trials. He views the Salem witch trials as useless killings, caused by vengeful people. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses a variety of characters who each symbolize different types of people, in order to convey his opinion on how they contributed to mass hysteria.