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Good and evil in literature throughout history
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In complex relationships between individuals, and society leads to tension between good and evil. David Calcutt’s portrayed and catastrophic play Salem uses views of society, besides individual to engage in a relationship of values and beliefs in the range of superstition in the 1962 of witchcraft. Nevertheless this is emphasized through the themes of judgment, power, prejudice, individualism and good vs. evil. However Calcutt’s play Salem reinforces society, and individual contextual concerns on behalf of ideals of religion, and culture with the desire to conform. Salem is an intriguingly written that states the pensive issues faced with society and individual attempt to imitate from chastisement. The usage of Good vs. evil in Salem between …show more content…
God and the devil is represent to show societies division between what is right and what is wrong for individuals. This is shown in both individuals and societies perspective of what evil and what good is and those that don’t obey what is right is forced to be condemned or known to go to hell this is shown by the chorus “ oh the devil’s abroad in Salem, yes, the devil’s abroad in Salem ( Act 3 scene 1 ) page 66. Are your souls in readiness? Because if they are not you will be damned, and you will suffer for eternity the wretched pains and torments of hell! Act 2 scenes 2) the controversy shown between what is believed in the terms of religion shows in all aspect of society and the individual. Thus the society is ruled by the tightness of the religion and spirituality therefore the society must obey the terms or be condemned this shows that individual have lack of freedom to have diverse religion and culture. Salam presents judgment into the catastrophe play through the characters of the individuals and the society. The relationships presented between individuals shape the society that causes the issue of judgment. “The chorus judges “Hang her, hang the witch! Hang the witch hang her hang the witch!” prologue “enemies of this village and its church. Enemies of Christ. And here among us, in our midst! God have mercy on us” In Samuels’s prayer quotes “prayer is the weapon the lord has placed in my hands” – The chorus repeats “hang her, the witch in the term of confidence the argue to destroy the evil in Salem or the fright the fear of the accusations and prosecutions that uses exclamation that the chant becomes louder and more fighting. The individuals are either defendant of the judgment or induce judgment to retrieve from fault. The prejudice explored in the play Salem by David calcutt’s replicates perceptions of what society presides of the individual that the society judges irrationally by the stereotypes and the human condition.
“And no native heathen that worships devils and drinks the blood of white men! Sarah good. Chorus the stranger, the alien, the heathen, the savage” “you mean no harm when you sent your spirit to afflict this poor girl here (act 3 scene 3) “This is rendered through the techniques of exclamation and descriptive forceful emotive language also that displays nominalize and empathic language that bore the high emotions in the discriminative speech “blood of white men!” “Native heathen “They are not honest folk. Honest folk work for their living. Those who beg are slothful, and they are godless parasites”. The prejudice native heathen, savage is an insult and discriminative that shows minority and prejudgment. Hence the community presumes to prejudge and define the individual that complies the complex …show more content…
relationships Salam presents judgment into the catastrophe play through the characters of the individuals and the society. The relationships presented between individuals shape the society that causes the issue of judgment. “The chorus judges “Hang her, hang the witch! Hang the witch hang her hang the witch!” prologue “enemies of this village and its church. Enemies of Christ. And here among us, in our midst! God have mercy on us” In Samuels’s prayer quotes “prayer is the weapon the lord has placed in my hands” – The chorus uses repetition “hang her, the witch in the term of confidence the argue to destroy the evil in Salem or the fright the fear of the accusations and prosecutions that uses exclamation that the chant becomes louder and more fighting. The individuals are either defendant of the judgment or induce judgment to retrieve from fault. Individualism in David calcutt’s play includes the objectiveness and rejection of the range of individuals that are able to express themselves in a tight society that is narrow minded.
It won’t be the first time. We have been cast out before (act 1 scene 7) I employ no creature. I am falsely accused (act 3 scene 1) I say there’s more of devilment than devil at work here and a good sound thrashing would put an end to all this wicked foolery. And so, good day to you. Bring them here to the woods and my master shall question them (act 3 scenes 3) the individual in the society doesn’t have power or speech only this society is able to conform. Although individuals like Abigail Hobbs is an expressive character that uses formal language “my master” or “wicked foolery” to show a mild expression. Furthermore the individual struggles to express views and the society pressures the individual to obtain similar
perspectives. The themes are relatable to the audience that makes David calcutt’s successful. Accordingly to the confirmation of the society and the individual was the main reason for such a tragic play and lack of understanding between independent altered individuals as rebellion in societies views. Salam presents an opposition of the patterns between what is believed and what it is. The characters misused trust to break relationships for power and authority of Samuel parris influence on the contradiction of good vs. evil. The society conveys judgment to structure the society or bring goodness to the city of Salem. That leads to complex relationship between a tight society and a free willed individual.
Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer. This book was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Richard Godbeer examines the witch trials in the seventeenth century. When a young girl Katherine Branch of Stamford, Connecticut is stricken with unexplainable convulsions, her master and mistress begin to think it is caused by something supernatural. Godbeer follows the incident without any bias and looks into how the accusations and trials are handled by the townspeople and the people in charge of handling the trails. Godbeer’s purpose of writing this book is to prove that Salem was not the norm. Godbeer’s approach of only one using one case, slightly weakens his effectiveness that Salem was not the norm.
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.
While most people are familiar with the notorious Salem Witch Trials in 1692, many people are unaware that similar events were taking place in other parts of New England in the very same year. The book, Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692, takes readers through an intriguing narrative of a young girl with claims of being bewitched. Although I was concerned at first about the book being in a narrative style, the author was very concise and used actual evidence from the trial to tell an accurate and interesting story.
Salem Village was one of many non-urban inhabitants. They were looked upon as country folk because of their interests and beliefs in the church and growing tobacco to survive in this new land. There was not much for children to do except go to church, work on the fields, or go to school. You can imagine how bored these children can get. In such a secluded lifestyle as this, you would be a crazy person if you were at all different, and this episode would be so different that it would be traumatic to the people of this small village. Traumatic as it was, I believe the people just did not know how to react in such a situation.
When one evokes The Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the image that comes to most peoples minds are that of witches with pointed hats riding broomsticks. This is not helped by the current town of Salem, Massachusetts, which profits from the hundreds of thousands of tourists a year by mythologizing the trials and those who were participants. While there have been countless books, papers, essays, and dissertations done on this subject, there never seems to be a shortage in curiosity from historians on these events. Thus, we have Bernard Rosenthal's book, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692, another entry in the historiographical landscape of the Salem Witch Trials. This book, however, is different from most that precede it in that it does not focus on one single aspect, character, or event; rather Rosenthal tells the story of Salem in 1692 as a narrative, piecing together information principally from primary documents, while commenting on others ideas and assessments. By doing so, the audience sees that there is much more to the individual stories within the trials, and chips away at the mythology that has pervaded the subject since its happening. Instead of a typical thesis, Rosenthal writes the book as he sees the events fold out through the primary documents, so the book becomes more of an account of what happened according to primary sources in 1692 rather than a retelling under a new light.
The Salem Witch Trials marks a vulnerable era in history. The play allows us to see that uncontrolled rage, pride, and even religion at times, can lead to destruction and mayhem. With these factors, it’s quite clear to see why Salem was vulnerable to these
Arthur Miller's portrayal of Salem, Massachusetts can be juxtaposed with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. While the motivations differ, societal similarities exist and both teach us that when a whole society of people have a fear so great that it can be used against them, the society will try to do anything and everything in their power to prevent this from happening. Even when the means of prevention involves innocent people dieing and the judiciary system becoming corrupt, the society will act upon this fear of wickedness and the devil.
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.
Salem in the 1600s was a textbook example of an extremist society with sexist norms and no separation of church and state. Because it had no laws, only people considered authorities on law, it was always a society based on norms laid down by the first settlers and severity on the verge of madness. The power was imbalanced, focused subjectively in the people who had means to control others. Some people attempted to right the wrongs of the powerful, as people are wont to do eventually. Because of them, change indeed came to Salem, slowly and after excessive ruin and death. Before the rebels’ impact took hold, Salem’s Puritan society was a religious dystopian disaster, a fact illustrated excellently by Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. This religious dystopian disaster carried many flaws and conflicts that can be seen in other societies, both historical and modern.
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.
As flawed people, achieving perfection is an impossible task. Yet, despite this inevitability, individuals strive for perfection only to reveal and witness imperfections. The Puritan lifestyle attempted to achieve this unattainable mission by setting strict morals upon the people of Salem, Massachusetts, however they struggled to do so. Salem faced a major change as a result of the Puritan ambition. Because of their thought on the ideal community as a straitlaced society, those who portrayed an imperfect model were to be isolated. Suspicion flooded the holy Puritan town, and led to accusations of innocent people. After a close analysis, it may be relevant to look at the Puritan belief system as a possible catalyst for the events that occurred during the Salem witch trials.
In the modern day it’s hard to believe there’s even still ‘’witch hunts’’ as you can say where a group of people are stereotyped as something without them doing the actual stereotypical thing. We live in a world where blacks are getting shot for no reason when they were just walking down the street unarmed and not harming anyone. Blacks and Latinos are always looked down upon in any shape or form. They could be driving a nice car they get pulled over for suspicion of a stolen car, they can get pulled over in an old broken car and they will get pulled over for suspicion of ‘’criminal activity’’. But if it’s a white person the cops will NOT bat a single eye at them despite being in the same situations as the black. And you know what the problem
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.
The play, set in the 1600’s during the witch hunt that sought to rid villages of presumed followers and bidders of the devil is a parallel story to the situation in the US in the 1950’s: McCarthyism, seeking the riddance of communist ideologists. Miller sets this story more particularly in a village called Salem, where the theocratic power governed by strict puritan rules require the people to be strong believers and forbid them to sin at risk of ending up in hell. However, the audience notices that despite this strong superficial belief in God, faith is not what truly motivates them, but it is rather money and reputation.
As Arthur Miller tells us in the introduction to Act 1 'no one can really know what their lives were like.' We would never be able to imagine a life with 'no novelists' and 'their creed forbade anything resembling a theatre or vain entertainment.' ' They didn't celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer.' They led a very austere and bleak life. The people of Salem - from which the audience derive their "good" and "evil" characters - were superstitious and highly religious, and their Theocratic form of government offered them security and unity.