Fear And Superstition In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

"Fear breeds superstition ; Superstition breeds fear" Surely the Devil had come to SALEM in 1692 (Independance Hall Association, 1). For a year people were blamed for witchery and caused a great mass of their population to become fearful of everyone. The superstition began to grow amongst the townspeople and slowly everyone became involved. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail shows fear breeding superstition and Parris, Cheever, Herrick, and Giles show superstition breeding fear. Miller uses both superstition and fear, which he uses by reading background information on the Salem Witch Trials. Miller first showed the spread of fear caused by superstition due to the many witches who were accused. In the Salem Witch Trials over one hundred sixty people were accused of witch craft and fifty of them confessed to have done witchcraft to save themselves from trial (Ray,1). Miller used this information by showing the intense trials in his play and the large number of accused witches put in jail by Abigail and her friends. The accused all came clean due to their lives being at stake. …show more content…
Throughout the play, all of these characters are seen causing either superstition or fear. Parris having many superstitions causes the townspeople to become afraid and believe witchcraft is in their village, while Abigail makes the people become superstitious so they claim everyone is an accused a witch. In contrast these characters play a major role in the play. The two components of fear and superstition caused the whole town of Salem to breakout into madness, but even still today people allow supertstition and fear to control their lives. Superstition and fear are powerful in a way that can devour someones life or of someone even a small town. Do not allow superstition or fear to take full control of ones