The Power of Fear
Imagine living in a world without fear. Would people be more carefree? Would it be a world without terror or with even more? Fear is no doubt one of the strongest emotions any person could experience. From government officials to ordinary citizens, it holds the ability to cloud anyone’s proper judgement, blur their own morals, and lead to irrational actions. Looking back at any of the world’s tragic events, fear has always played a major role. The power of fear over individuals contributes to delirium and usually results in calamity after being displayed in both literature and world history.
The accusations of witchcraft in Salem revealed in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible prove that fear of irrational beliefs can lead to hysteria and tragedy. Once the rumors of witchcraft spread across the town, people would suspect witchcraft among any
…show more content…
individual who may have acted a little out of the blue, or not normal. Some even went to the extreme and used this fear as a scapegoat for their own grudges. The main motive is Abigail and her revenge on John Proctor’s wife, after kicking her out as a result of her and her husband's affair. Abigail’s vengeance is confirmed when Betty says, “You drank a charm to kill John Proctors wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” (Miller 19). Elizabeth is eventually incriminated of witchcraft and arrested. Another example is Thomas and Ann Putnam, who blames Rebecca Nurse for the death of their seven children, which leads to her also being arrested of witchcraft. Eventually some of the accused would dishonestly confess and name multiple people of being witches out of fear to mainly avoid or prolong their own death. This concluded with a numerous amount of people being falsely charged with witchcraft. Another example is the biased reaction towards Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor is similar to the response in The Crucible. After December 7, 1941 Japanese Americans were thrown into what was referred to ‘Japanese internment camps’ for three years. The American government used the unlawful imprisonment of Japanese men, women, and even children as a scapegoat for the fear that ran through the country during that time. However, the fear didn’t just affect regular American citizens, but the president as well, “Panic flooded into those in charge like President Franklin D. Roosevelt” (E). The president himself was the one who ordered the incarceration of the Japanese. Therefore, many civilians agreed with this decision after learning about the threat of possible Japanese spies throughout the west coast. Even though Germany had a more established threat to America, the discrimination and resentment towards the Japanese followed back to the fear of Pearl Harbor. Lastly one of the strongest illustrations of fear being used as a controlling power that concluded in a tragedy is Hitler and his rise to power.
After World War I, the state of Germany was in chaos. This helped Hitler’s campaign to be built on propaganda and fear. In this case, his exploitations of fear were directed towards the Jewish population and other minorities in Germany. Almost all who rallied behind Hitler centered the blame towards the Jewish; again, using them as a scapegoat for the poor condition that Germany was left in. However it wasn’t just the people he absolutely abhorred who lived in fear, people who fit Hitler’s specific criteria were described as, “ Also living in constant fear of doing or saying anything wrong...” (MacKenzie). Anyone who spoke against anything Hitler believed was instantly painted a target, also any connection with the groups he was opposed to was not taken lightly. So not only did Hitler evolve fear into total paranoia, but into a complete psychological control system over the whole nation. Consequently, this power lead to the demise of millions of innocent
people. In conclusion, it’s important to encourage people to not let emotions hinder their decisions in times of panic. Fear has been proven to be a powerful tactic and conflict throughout history, especially in favor of people in power. An obvious key in this placing the liability on specific groups of innocent people to calm chaos in the quickest way. It’s crucial to keep a narrow and clear mind and not to be subservient to fear to prevent tragedies like the Holocaust and the injustice towards Japanese Americans from happening again . “As shown in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, citizens will sway with whomever satisfies their fear the quickest” (E).
At times, fear motivates people to behave unscrupulously. Personal fears instigate some characters in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible to cry witch. Reverend Parris fears losing his job, Abigail fears prosecution and losing John Proctor, and Tituba fears physical retribution. Fear induces people to defend their personal whims and use their power to harm others.
The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that they were being punished by God himself.
Fear holds a great control over any mortal human-being through daunting and restricted words, most commonly seen while anyone is under pressure. While being controlled over fear, you may come to realize that you are being manipulated to the possibilities of a threatened punishment and may also be mislead by lies. Arthur Miller’s classic novel, The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, where a lot of times fear would be used to control anyone to blame another of witchcraft. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller elucidates this through Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Williams, and Mary Warren, that fear holds a great torment on the truth.
The issues of power, that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, portrays are concerned with, who has the power, the shifts of power that take place and how power can consume people and try to abuse it, for either vengeance, jealously, material gain or sexual desire.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.
In Arthur Miller's famous play The Crucible, innocent people are falsely accused of witchcraft and are killed as a result. Even the thought of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600s would put the whole village into mass hysteria. Mass hysteria refers to collective delusions of threats to society that spread rapidly through rumors and fear. This is the main reason why so many people were arrested and killed for witchcraft. One way people could save themselves was by falsely confessing to having performed witchcraft.
It comes to a point in life when fear controls you and causes harm to you and everyone else in your environment. History repeats itself when fear is involved. In the Salem Witch trials, fear caused people to accuse the innocent of being witches. After World War Two, Americans feared sabotage from Japanese and locked up all the Japanese even if they were innocent. After 9/11, fear caused people to believe all Muslims were evil and could harm you. Being afraid of something can eventually become dangerous to you. In some cases, fear becomes dangerous to other people around you like in Salem.
The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
hysteria brought about by the witchcraft scare in The Crucible leads to the upheaval in people’s differentiation between right and wrong, fogging their sense of true justice.
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.
Persecution has been a round for sometime and can be traced historically from the time of Jesus to the present time. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith in the hands of the Jews. Many Christians have been persecuted in history for their allegiance to Christ and forced to denounce Christ and others have been persecuted for failing to follow the laws of the land. The act of persecution is on the basis of religion, gender, race, differing beliefs and sex orientation. Persecution is a cruel and inhumane act that should not be supported since people are tortured to death. In the crucible, people were persecuted because of alleged witchcraft.
The crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials and how people react to hysteria created from the fear of witches. In the play, after hysteria breaks out, the Salem government starts persecute and hang people it believes are witches. This prompts people to start to accusing people of witchcraft. Some people who accuse others of committing witchcraft are Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam. They do not accuse people of witchcraft to stop witchcraft, but for personal gain or to hurt others. Thomas Putnam, one of the many characters who takes advantage of the witch trials, is able to use the fear of witches to bend the court to his will. Hysteria causes people to believe claims that are clearly false. This allows Putnam to persecute his enemies. He and many other are able to get away with this because hysteria driven persecutions are not run like regular courts and the fact that witchcraft is an invisible crime allows evidence to be made up. The theme of The Crucible is when any persecution is driven by fear and people can and will manipulate the system so they can gain and hurt another.
In every conflict there always seems to be at least one person to blame. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, many problems arise that deal with live and death. Many innocent people in this play were hanged during the Salem Witch Trials. Of course, there are many people that may be blamed. In The Crucible, one may find Abigail Williams, The Putnams, and Mary Warren to blame. Abigail was manipulative, The Putnams were very jealous, and Mary Warren was weak-willed.
In 1933, Europe was going through a major change and not just the countries as a whole, but the minorities such as the Jews as well. In Germany Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of the National Socialist Workers Society (also known as the Nazi Party), was elected chancellor on January 30, 1933. On July 14, 1933, only 7 months after Hitler’s election, the Nazi Party became the only legal political party in Germany. Any known rebels would later be severely punished. Hitler was a very persuasive speaker, which made it easy for him to blame the Jews for many things. He began by blaming Jews for the economy crash that had happened in Europe at the time. Jews were fine on their financial ends and striving in business. Also at the time The Black Death was occurring. Many Europeans were dying for unexplained reasons whereas the Jews seemed to be healthier. These two factors made it very easy for Hitler to convince the German people that Jews were the center of their problems. He later moved on to other minorities as well claiming that the only good race was the Aryan race. Hitler even published a newspaper called the Der Strümer in which he would publish cartoons making funny of Jews and print at the bottom “Jews are our misfortune”. Things were changing in Germany under Hitler’s rule and not in a good way.
The desire for power and authority has always been a part of the human nature. Today’s society most often use power to dominate one another and fulfill one’s personal intentions, which can affect other people in many ways. Having power and authority is truly gratifying but it is terrifying if abused and used for selfish acts. The play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is an example to illustrate the consequences of abuse of power. The characters Abigail Williams, Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris use their power over society by manipulating people and using their authority to fulfill their personal intentions, like material gain, vengeance, maintaining social status and reputation, and attention, which eventually lead into a mass hysteria.