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Salem Witch Trials In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

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The 1996 movie “The Crucible” offers some insight to what the Salem witch trials were all about in 1692. The movie begins with teenage girls dancing in the woods and performing what looks like some ceremony led by a slave named Tituba. It is revealed that the girls were participating in witchcraft in order to cast a love spell on the young men in town. The girls end up being caught in this act and are accused of witchcraft. This event sets off mass hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. The girls being to lie. Saying other people in town bewitched them and that Satan willed them to do those things in the woods. These lies lead to more accusations that the townsfolk say out of selfishness and greed. Some want land and money, some want a forbidden …show more content…

In doing this we can see that Abigail is very selfish and will do whatever to get what she wants. What she did caused a spiral of other accusations. I feel like Abigail didn’t really mean for it to get way out of hand like it did. Once she started lying though it was hard to stop because the power gave her an adrenaline rush. Of course, it is unclear if something like this did happen in the real Salem Witch trials, but it is very possible. As explained in lecture 3 most accusations made were the poor people accusing the wealthier people. This part wasn’t a huge factor in the movie, though. I think this is because the storyline of a forbidden love is more interesting to viewers than just poor people blaming the wealthy. One thing I noticed that was relevant in the movie is the accusation pattern discussed in lecture 3. The pattern is if the accused was found guilty they would be executed unless they confessed to being a witch. At that time reputation was a very important thing to people. Those falsely accused would rather die than admit to participating in witchcraft for it would ruin their reputation. This idea becomes apparent by a quote john proctor says on the day he is to be hanged for being accused of …show more content…

The movie sticks to the pattern of what happened to the accused, but not so much on why people were really accused in the real witch

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