The Line Between Right and Wrong Draws Thin; Torture in Modern America and how it is reflected in The Crucible The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, portrayed a reimagined version of the Salem Witch Trials. The trials took place in 1692 when a group of girls accused innocent women of being witches in order to save themselves from punishment. As the accusations escalated, a court was erected to determine whether or not the suspects were truly guilty. Allegations were made against two hundred people, and ultimately, twenty innocent men and women were tortured and hanged in order to cleanse Salem of ‘the devil’s magic’ (Miller, 33). Arthur Miller wrote this in the midst of the McCarthy Hearings, which pursued the eradication of communist sympathizers …show more content…
in the United States, proving that The Crucible’s relevance has not dwindled with time. Currently, the theme of human cruelty in the name of righteousness echoes down the corridors of history, reflected in the torture and mistreatment of suspected terrorists after the attacks of 9/11. The ghastly ideas presented in Miller’s The Crucible are demonstrated with the intention of provoking outrage in audience members.
One of the outrageous themes in The Crucible features multiple people in the town of Salem attempting to speak out against the witch hunt that had begun to take place, claiming that an allegation was not substantial evidence to support the hanging of a human being (Miller, 93). Characters like Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth ruthlessly persist, allowing the situation in Salem to escalate to the point where town’s most influential people showed complete disregard for human life in the name of God and self preservation. An authority figure feeling entitled to assert their convoluted portrayal of morality is a dominant issue in Salem more than three hundred years ago as well as modern …show more content…
America. America has turned blind eye to inhumane practices in the name of justice many times, but perhaps the most recent-- and significant-- in the nation’s history is the treatment of terrorists. Prior to the terror attacks in 2001, the CIA dismissed the use of questionable interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, electrocution, and threats against kin. In the foreward of the Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program, a declassified report describing torture methods the CIA used to interrogate possible terrorists, Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein says, “. . . Such techniques ‘do not produce intelligence,’ ‘will probably result in false answers,’ and had historically proven to be ineffective” (Feinstein, 3). However, the CIA utilized these inhumane techniques despite the fact that these conclusions were drawn, similar to how Salem’s judges continued to condemn citizens even after multiple members of the church claimed that witchery was a farce (Miller, 92). The Crucible addresses the issue inhumanity in the roots of a society with great intolerance toward hatred and discontent toward neighbors, which grew to foster an environment in which people turned a blind eye to malpractice in order to remain unscathed by the epidemic sweeping Salem. The people who refused to neglect this problem such as John Proctor or Giles Corey found that they could not protest the court without being arrested on the charge of contempt of court (Miller, 94), which is a motif that has become painfully evident in the modern world. For example, the horror stories of torture in Guantanamo have found a home in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) based in New York City. In an excerpt from Solitary Watch’s article addressing torture on American soil, Jean Casella tells an unnerving story, “[MCC is] a center of many post-9/11 terrorism cases. On MCC’s tenth floor, suspects in these cases have been held in extreme solitary confinement, often completely cut off from their families. When they have gone on hunger strike in protest, they have been force-fed. All of this has happened, in the middle of New York City, without any of the public outcry that has met similar treatment of detainees at Guantánamo.” Casella suspects that the reason for the lack of outcry is due to the prison itself: the few family members that have the clearance to visit their loved ones in jail cannot talk about their incapacitated relatives for fear of being incarcerated as well, analogous to John Proctor’s internal conflict with speaking out about his wife’s arrest in The Crucible (Miller, 92). The Crucible’s dominant theme features the use of God as an excuse for the mistreatment of human beings.
The saying ‘history repeats itself’ is not lost on Arthur Miller’s play as Americans become more aware of the government's abuse of terrorists during interrogations in order to fuel the War on Terror. In order to move forward as a society, people must learn from the mistakes made by the people of Salem three hundred years ago, such as learning to speak out in the face of tyranny no matter what the consequences. The Salem Witch Trials may have taken place long before the current political climate of America came to fruition, but the theme of hurting humans for the greater good mirrors the conflicts the nation faces today on account of
terrorism. Works Cited Laughland, Oliver. "How the CIA tortured its detainees." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 20 May 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2017. Casella, Jean. "Far from Guantánamo, Torture Takes Root in American Soil." Solitary Watch. N.p., 10 Feb. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2017. Feinstein, Dianna. Committee Study of Central Intelligence. Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. Washington, DC: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2014. Print. "10 most shocking facts we found in CIA torture report." RT International. N.p., 12 Dec. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2017. Miller, Arthur. The crucible: a play in four acts. New York: Penguin , 2016. Print.
The tragic tale of the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts was re-written by Arthur Miller in the form of the play “The Crucible”. The trials have been studied to figure out what really happened, but no one will ever know since it happened decades ago. The play is the closest reenactment we have to help us see how people could have reacted to life. “The Crucible” shows how using others as a cushion to keep from being punished can go extremely bad. Amidst all the chaos a man by the name Reverend John Hale came to help but ended up with making it a huge amount worse.
In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, conveys what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true. In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch.
In 1953, a book/play called The Crucible was published. It was written by Arthur Miller as an allegory of the McCarthyism era. It talks of the causes and effects of the Salem witch trials in the late 1600's. The story is told in a way that made the people of the 50's realize how crazy they were actually acting.
Many people look back on the events of the Salem witch trials and laugh at the absurdity of the allegations. It seems crazy that society could be fooled into believing in things like witches and deal with the events in such an extreme manner. It is a common belief that witch hunts are things of the past. Many people would agree that they no longer exist today; however Arthur Miller, author of the play, "The Crucible", points out that society has not come very far from the days of the Salem witch trials. In his play, he used the Salem witch trials to represent the McCarthy Era because he saw that the nation was facing the same events that Salem went through back in the late 1600's. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" in an attempt to create moral awareness for society. He did so by making a few small changes to the history and creating parallels in the play with racism, human tendencies, and H.U.A.C.
During the 1690’s in Salem, Massachusetts, one of the most disgraceful events in American history took place. 20 innocent people were sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft (Kortuem). At the time there was a witch scare sweeping across the North East of America in a time we know today as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was one of the most shameful events in American history. In fact, it was compared to another event by a man named Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was a playwright from New York who wrote many famous plays like Death of a Salesman, All my Sons, and of course The Crucible (Kortuem). In The Crucible, Miller was comparing the McCarthy Hearings at the time to the events hundreds of years earlier in the
A very famous man once said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933). This is certainly true when it comes to Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible. Arthur Miller lived through the Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism. After living through this era and being one of the accused communists Miller wrote the book titled The Crucible in 1952. This book told the story of the Salem witch trials with some modifications to make it more relevant to the current situation. The book ultimately became an allegory devoted solely to McCarthyism. In The Crucible it uses situations such as the actual trials; direct comparisons of the characters in the book to those that participated in the McCarthy trials and, the atmosphere of the two events were almost identical.
Events have played out in history that made people realize the inhumane acts of people and the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy era were two of them. The Salem witch trials in 1692 were almost 260 years before the McCarthy “witch hunts” in the 1950s yet there are similarities between them. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller in 1953, is about the Salem witch trials and is an allegory to the practicing of McCarthyism during the Second Red Scare in the United States, which Miller was a victim of. Although there may be differences between “The Crucible” and McCarthyism, ultimately the anger, lack of evidence, and the people were alike in both events.
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.
Throughout The Crucible, Miller is concerned with conscience and guilt. Through the character Abigail Williams, he shows how people are willing to abandon their firmly-established values in order to conform with the majority and protect themselves. Those who refuse to part with their conscience, such as the character of John Proctor, are chastised for it. For this reason, the Salem witch trials raise a question of the administration of justice. During this time in the late 1600’s, people were peroccupied by a fear of the devil, due to their severe Puritan belief system. Nineteen innocent people are hanged on the signature of Deputy Governor Danforth, who has the authority to try, convict, and execute anyone he deems appropriate. However, we as readers sense little to no real malice in Danworth. Rather, ignorance and fear plague him. The mass
The horrors of history are passed on from generation to generation in hopes that they will never occur again. People look back on these times and are appalled at how horrendous the times were; yet, in the 1950s, history repeated itself. During this time, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator from Wisconsin, began accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers, which is parallel to the Salem witch trials in the late 1690s when innocent people were accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the people McCarthy accused was author and playwright Arthur Miller. To express his outrage at McCarthy’s actions, Miller wrote The Crucible, intentionally drawing similarities between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials.
The play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller was written in response to McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In 1692 and 1693 the Salem witch trials took place in Salem Massachusetts. Girls believed to be involved in witchcraft were responsible for these trials. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s senator McCarthy came to office. Senator McCarthy and some of his allies were responsible for hysteria in the United States of America in the 1950’s. The scare was also in result of a communist scare after World War II and leading to the cold war. The behavior of the people of the Salem witch trials and Americans in the 19050’s resulted in a big scare in reaction to hysteria.
One of the most prominent themes in Arthur Miller’s 1953 drama, The Crucible, is the use of role reversals within race and gender boundaries, social status, and superficial power. In the not-so-sleepy town of Salem, Massachusetts, the rumor of witches among the community runs rampant as various characters work to accuse their fellow citizens of witchery or defend their neighbors from the gallows. Driven by jealously and pure hatred, those who have minor roles within the community lust after a more notable place in society by accusing the more distinguished members to rid them of their land, wealth, or reputation – and even their life. Those wrongfully accused are driven by fear as they either admit their guilt to save their own lives or find someone else to blame for the supposed crime. In turn, this causes the well-known citizens to be reduced to their salt and the minor townsfolk to gain a certain type of fame or air about themselves. The turn of tables proves to benefit certain female characters with minor roles and damage the more notable male characters within the community.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
Even though The Crucible is not historically correct, nor is it a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, it still stands out as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance, hysteria, power and authority is able to tear a community apart. The most important of these is the nature of power, authority and its costly, and overwhelming results. “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or against it,” says Danforth conceitedly. With this antithesis, Miller sums up the attitude of the authorities towards the witch trials that if one goes against the judgement of the court they are essentially breaking their relationship with God. Like everyone else in Salem, Danforth draws a clear line to separate the world into black and white. The concurrent running of the “Crucible” image also captures the quintessence of the courtroom as Abigial stirs up trouble among the people that have good reputation and loving natures in society. In a theocratic government, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the Devil.
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller in the Early 1950’s. It was written during the “Red scare, when McCarthyism was established. Many anti-communists wanted to prevent communism from spreading just like in The Crucible many wanted to get rid of witchcraft. Many would accuse others of witchcraft in order to not be accused just like many would accuse people of communism. In The Crucible witchcraft would be punishable by death. Many were scared to be accused; therefore many would admit practicing witchcraft in order to save their lives. The Crucible is considered a good play because it is based on real life events during the Salem witch Trials and shows how fear played a role in the individual’s life just like during the “Red” scare.