Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is a partially fictionalized account of the Salem witch trials. Miller depicts Salem as a community filled with mass paranoia and fear that leads to the an atmosphere in which everyone was a potential witch. The story is centered on John Proctor and tells the story of the witchcraft accusations that lead to his death. Many people blame his death and the death of many others on Abigail Williams, a young woman whose lies lead to the death of many innocent victims. However, it’s difficult to blame one particular character when so many others are complicit in the abomination of the Salem Witch Trials. In The Crucible unfavorable facets of Puritan society are exposed: unreasonable strictness, savage punishments,callow
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Salem was a devout community where every sin was absolute proof of the devil among them. The Crucible depicts the Puritans in Salem as a rigid society based on religious intolerance. Individuality and any show of emotion was considered sinful and discouraged. It is these draconian rules that allow someone to say something as utterly unsubstantiated as “she’s a witch” and subsequently create hysteria in the community. In the Crucible, Salem had become paranoid so Abigail Williams was easily capable of causing arrests and deaths without proof. She is delusional in thinking that with John’s wife out of the way that they will be together. Now, not only was she guilty of an inappropriate relationship with a married man but she was also caught dancing in the woods which was a punishable sin and in order to deflect attention from her actions she accused others. Of course, this is still an often used ploy in our own justice system today. Proctor says “I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl 's a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she 's fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone- I have no proof for it.”(Miller) Abigail has confessed her machinations to John Proctor and she knows he has no way to prove …show more content…
Pieces of writings that came from Puritan society such as Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God” describe a God that is persistently angry with the people of the world. “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.”(Edwards) God is angry with the people for committing sins against him so he punishes them. Abigail is smart enough to discover how afraid of God’s wrath people are and she chooses to use it against them. Puritan officials should have recognized the fact that Abigail was attempting to soil another woman’s name for very selfish reasons. This does happen to be a punishable offense termed libel or slander. The judges assigned to the case can be described with one simple word, incompetent. Incompetence : not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. These “officials” made a mockery of not only the court but of their religion as
Salem was a devout community where every sin was absolute proof of the devil among them. The Crucible depicts the Puritans in Salem as a rigid society based on religious intolerance. Individuality and any show of emotion was considered sinful and discouraged. It is these draconian rules that allow someone to say something as utterly unsubstantiated as “she’s a witch” and subsequently create hysteria in the community. In the Crucible, Salem had become paranoid so Abigail Williams was easily capable of causing arrests and deaths without proof. She is delusional in thinking that with John’s wife out of the way that they will be together. Now, not only was she guilty of an inappropriate relationship with a married man but she was also caught dancing in the woods which was a punishable sin and in order to deflect attention from her actions she accused others. Of course, this is still an often used ploy in our own justice system today. Proctor says “I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl 's a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she 's fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone- I have no proof for it.”(Miller) Abigail has confessed her machinations to John Proctor and she knows he has no way to prove …show more content…
Pieces of writings that came from Puritan society such as Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God” describe a God that is persistently angry with the people of the world. “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.”(Edwards) God is angry with the people for committing sins against him so he punishes them. Abigail is smart enough to discover how afraid of God’s wrath people are and she chooses to use it against them. Puritan officials should have recognized the fact that Abigail was attempting to soil another woman’s name for very selfish reasons. This does happen to be a punishable offense termed libel or slander. The judges assigned to the case can be described with one simple word, incompetent. Incompetence : not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. These “officials” made a mockery of not only the court but of their religion as