Guilt In The Crucible Essay

The feeling of guilt can make it very difficult for people to think properly and enjoy their lives during their time of regret. The events that took place during The Crucible by Arthur Miller clearly illustrate guilt as the motivating factor in the many false convictions and deaths of twenty people. The acts of the people of Salem were influenced by the acts of a group of girls lead by Abigail Williams, who would act irrationally and accuse people for witchcraft. Many people were sold by the actions of these girls which ended up causing all of the hangings to occur. After some time people started to believe less and less of what the girls were saying; many of the girls felt guilty and left the town. The events that took place during the …show more content…
Having guilt causing many people to take very extreme actions and hide from the truth; but when people confess to their guilt they feel renewed and accept their consequences. During The Crucible; guilt took these effects on many of the townspeople, all due the girls having guilt in the beginning of the story. When the girls were caught for dancing naked in the woods, they blamed it on Tituba then other townspeople to try and hide from the consequences. Then they kept creating new stories and accusing people to stay out of trouble. One of the accused was John Proctor who ended up confessing to the accusation but then taking it back and confessing to his guilt. This made him feel whole again and no longer mad at himself. During all of this time, there was great strife and fear in the town; people were not able to focus properly and everyone was living in fear not being able to enjoy their lives at the time. If you had been caught for something so severe as what the girls were caught for, would you blame someone else or would you take the blame for yourself and just make things easier for everyone around