Role of Fear in Salem Witch Trials Essay

the town and people of Salem, Massachusetts, in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. How people gain and use property, whether it is land, livestock, or wealth, gives them access to power and influences how they use their gained power. In The Crucible, this aspect is seen with many characters from Giles Corey to Mister Putnam. Some literary scholars believe “Miller takes pains to document property disputes behind some of the accusations in Salem”(Bovard 71). The people in Salem use their power to…

mass hysteria broke out in the town of Salem. The townsfolk were convinced that they were in danger of bewitchment due to a young girl’s lie. Arthur Miller accurately portrays these events in his play, The Crucible. One of the characters who remains the same from history to the play is a Barbados slave by the name of Tituba. Tituba is a compelling fictional character because, as a historical figure, she played an important role in the (Salem Witch) Trials. Tituba is an intriguing figure because…

The actual events on which The Crucible was based upon started when Abigail Williams and Elizabeth “Betty” Parris experienced violent and strange fits in 1692 in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. According to more recent scientific studies, the cause of these unholy symptoms were most likely caused by the fungus ergot. Due to the widespread worship of Puritanism at the time, this behavior was thought to be caused by devilish witchcraft. Tituba, Reverend Samuel Parris’s slave, was accused of…

Russia taking over the United States anymore, The Crucible rose on the charts and became a movie in 1996, winning a Tony Award in the process. In his work, Miller, a critic of communism, constructs an allegory to show the similarities between the Salem witch trials and Soviet Russia in hopes of opening the eyes of the American citizens who were blinded by the mass hysteria that communism caused. In the play, John Proctor, a man who has…

he began research on the witch trials which led to the composition of his play The Crucible. Miller composed the play, during the time Senator Joseph McCarthy came into power. Under McCarthy’s reign, there were controversial investigations conducted to end Communism. These investigations consisted of…

McWilliams points to what he sees as an overlooked aspect of the historical interpretations of the Salem witch trials, particular the significance of the "racial and wartime dimensions of the Salem witch trials [which] should have been so long obscured within the progressive New England historical tradition" (161). McWilliams makes reference to the early historian George Bancroft and how his analysis of the trials was in error and that it mistakenly placed a disproportionate emphasis on "New…

The Salem Witch Hunt was a series of execution that took place in 1692 after a group of young women began having fits and accused several people of bewitching them. The accusers were named based on conflicts and other factors that they had with the afflicted girls and others. The Puritan’s fear of the Devil made their society more susceptible to the hysteria. Puritan religious beliefs, Puritan attitudes toward women and also their interaction between the natural and the supernatural phenomena…

book-to defeat evil against good as inculcated in the religious books that he brings along with him to the town of Salem. However, when Miller starts to describe Hale’s past…

The witch trials of Salem Massachusetts was a result of a mixture of fear, hysteria and intolerance, and although we believe ourselves to be more advanced then the people of Salem in the 1690s, we are not. Today we continue to judge and fear those who are different then us. In some cases, we have even decided to take “justice” into our own hands, very much like the people of Salem did to those accused of witchcraft. The difference between us and the people of Salem in the 1690s is the reason for…

The Journey of Self The Salem Witch Trials brought a great deal of fear and suspicion to the dwellers of Salem, Massachusetts beginning as early as 1692. Arthur Miller presents many different ways that one handles the pressures of the trials and also the fear of behaving in a way that would get oneself accused of witchcraft. Two characters in particular, John Proctor and his servant, Mary Warren, deal with the pressures in different ways. John Proctor, after committing the sin of adultery,…