In an interview with Bill Moyers, Margaret Atwood spoke about cultures and societies in history coming under stress. “When society comes under stress, they begin to look for somebody to put the blame on, they will always scapegoat a person or a group of people.” Texts that represent Atwood’s statement are shown in a drama called The Crucible by Arthur Miller and a drawing called "It's okay -- we're hunting communists" by Herb Block. Also, they’re shown in Atwood’s poem, “Half-Hanged Mary” These sources, and many others, demonstrate the wicked people in society when their reputation is tested or at stake.
There is a well-known cartoon, dealing with communism, that was published in the Washington Post on October 31, 1947 by Herb Block that is called "It's okay -- we're hunting communists." This picture depicts the American government knocking over people in their streets and claiming that it is okay because they're looking for the bad guys. What to conclude of this picture is the government was doing whatever they wanted to make themselves look good, but it was "okay" because
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they were hunting the communists. During the Red Scare, which is the fear of the spread of communism, large amounts of people were accused of being communists, just like large amounts of people were being accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600's. Communism was the "witchcraft" of the 1900's, so many people were afraid of the communists and did not like them at all. With that being said an alleged witch, Abigail Williams, from The Crucible and Joseph McCarthy from the McCarthy hearings, they're quite similar. Abigail accused many women in her small town of witchcraft to get the blame off of herself and it gave the attention to her. McCarthy accused hundreds of people of being communists because he knew it would draw more power to himself. In both cases, most of the people who were accused had lost what good reputation they had had, and a lot of the people weren't truly guilty but only wrongly accused so the person who scapegoated them could be relieved of their stress. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, a group of girls are caught dancing in the woods with a slave, in act one, and when one of the girls falls into what seems to be a coma the next day, rumors spread quickly around the village that witchcraft has erupted amongst them.
Throughout the drama, there are several occasions in which a person has chosen to scapegoat another member in their society for distinct reasons; their own gain, to simply get revenge on someone or to save their life because in some incidents you could accuse someone else to save your own life. In those moments, the accused in the society chose to scapegoat another person because they had a large burden on them with the possible outbreak of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. This act of scapegoating epitomizes what Margaret Atwood was explaining in her interview, previously mentioned, about people finding others to put blame
on. Mary Webster, a woman in which the poem “Half-Hanged Mary” is written about, was convicted of witchcraft in the 1600’s and was hanged from a tree where she hung all night long, from seven in the evening to eight in the morning. It is said that when she was cut down she was still alive and lived another 14 years. If people had thought that she wasn’t a witch before she was hanged, then they definitely did afterward because how could someone possibly survive something like that if they were just a regular citizen? Two hours after Mary’s hanging, the women in her society came, not to help her or even offer her a drink, but to stare at her and to watch her suffer while suspended in the air. This time in history relates to what Margaret Atwood was saying to Moyers in the interview. These women, who were friends everyone due to the small town they lived in, came to stare at a woman who was hanging from a tree. As if Mary wasn't even a friend to them anymore because she had been put up there for being a witch, and anyone associated with her could possibly be accused as well. These women wanted to keep their reputations clean and away from witchcraft. Scapegoating has been around for a very long time. Societies in history walked all over each other to consume attention from others by scapegoating. Our world today needs to know this history of their country or town otherwise history will be repeating itself and we will have individuals beginning to try to gain power by blaming other people and obliterating what reputations they had. These men and women come under stress, like Margaret said, and they quickly look for others to blame to get the heat off their chest. Cartoons, poems, dramas. All examples in which the evil in society over the years had made a huge predicament which caused death. The blood of someone accused, mostly innocent people, on another individual’s hands.
In the story The Crucible, the plot and structure add meaning to the play. Arthur Miller does this by connecting the events of the Red Scare to the Salem Witch Trials. He does this by making the comparisons of how easily it is to trust false things, jump to conclusions too quickly, and believe irrational fears.
In 1860-1960 there was lynching in the United States. When the confederates (south) lost the civil war the slaves got freedom and got rights of human beings. This was just to say because segregation wasn 't over in the South and didn 't go away for over 100 years. Any black person in the South accused but not convicted of any crime of looking at a white woman, whistling at a white woman, touching a white woman, talking back to a white person, refusing to step into the gutter when a white person passed on the sidewalk, or in some way upsetting the local people was liable to be dragged from their house or jail cell by lots of people crowds, mutilated in a terrible
More than 200 people were accused of the begin witches and of the two hundred, about twenty of them were killed. Eventually the people of Massachusetts realized that what they were doing was wrong. Many times the reason for someone to be accused of witchcraft as because if they were found guilty, then the court would receive the land that they had owned. If the court did not want the land, which they usually did not want, it was given to the person who had accused them of witchcraft.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” People tend to behave and deal with life differently according to the situation that they are in. In most cases when a person is in a very blissful and comfortable point of his or her life, they tend to act pleasant towards themselves and other people. This is why it is not fair-minded to judge people when they are in a contented part of their lives. It is during times of trial and suffering where the true soul of a person is revealed and judgment can be made. Readers can see the actions that are made by characters through times of hardship that reveal what they truly are in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Crucible by Arthur Millar.
The Crucible and today’s society are similar in the way the judicial system works. The Puritans and our society’s judicial system are similar in a good way. In the crucible the Salem witch trials are held which show how the puritans handled trials where people were accused of crimes. Although they did not require evidence to hold or try the accused their process was still a lot like our own.
All participants in the witch-hunt were influenced by the society that existed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Salem operated as a theocracy, a government ruled by and subject to religious authority. In a theocracy, people's sins are not forgiven, so that when they commit an indiscretion, they are left feeling guilty. "The witch-hunt was....a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims." (p. 7) Characters such as Abigail Williams and Mrs. Putnam used the witch-hunts in the way cited above, as a method of confessing their sins without being accountable for them. Others used the chaos created by it for their own benefit. Thomas Putnam made his daughter Ruth accuse both George Jacobs and Rebecca Nurse so he could buy the resulting unclaimed land after they were hung. Any character that accused, confessed, or in any way joined the witch-hunt failed his or her test.
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.
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 cause of why so many people were arrested and killed for witchcraft. One way people could save themselves was by falsely confessing to have performed witchcraft. Many people did not do this though. This is because the townspeople were held to very strict moral values and must uphold their good name in society. They did not want a bad reputation. In The Crucible, by Arthur
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
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.
In conclusion to the defending of Margaret Atwood scapegoating really is not the right way to experience success because you should not make someone else take the blame for what you have done you should take your punishment and move on with your life. Therefore in the “Crucible” and “Half-Hanged Mary” there happened to be a lot of scapegoating going on so that others could stay out of trouble which made people that did not do what they got scapegoated for to have to take the blame and get someone else's
A group of teenage girls were secretly dancing in the woods with a black slave, named Tituba. When they were discovered of what they were doing, the girls started accusing certain individuals in the village of dealing with witchcraft. Within a blink of an eye, the entire village is controlled by a devil that exists within the fear of each person. A drama of suspense and impact, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, explores through the individuals' vengeance, fear, reputation, and quest for power.
The play Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw, which is about a ‘draggle tailed guttersnipe’ of a woman, Eliza, who receives elocution lessons from a professor, Mr. Higgins, and metamorphoses into a Lady; they consequently fall in love. It is set in the late nineteenth century, during the Victorian era, in London. The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller, is about a town hysterically overcome by accusations of witchcraft, set in Salem on the East coast of America in the late seventeenth century. One of the major differences between the two plays is the period in which they are set (Pygmalion is set in the early twentieth century, The Crucible in the Seventeenth). The different periods in which the plays are set mean that the characters have different beliefs and traditions in accordance to the times.
In Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum theorize that opposed to the traditional approach of saying trauma or disease caused the mass hysteria in Salem, it was the way in which the strange behavior of the girls was interpreted as witchcraft by the adults in the community that caused such chaos. In fact, when the first occurrence of affliction happened, nearly a month had passed before the girls made any accusations. During this time, it would’ve been so easy to blame the girls themselves for witchcraft. So why instead were the girls treated as innocent victims in all of this? Simply put, the witchcraft accusations were guided by adults and it was only once the girls were influenced to do so did they started to point fingers.
Parallels between Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, and his article Why I wrote the Crucible, can easily support Miller’s reasons for writing this classic play. Miller’s purpose in writing both the play and the article was to emphasize the similarities between the 1692 witch hunt and the 1950’s Red Scare. Miller simply wanted to convey the message of fear over reason, express himself in a new language of old English, to warn of mass hysteria, and most importantly compare his life in the 1950’s to the irrational trial in 1692. Miller’s reasons are numerous, and while they are all stated flat out in his article, they are also clearly stated and understood in the play.