Abuse Of Power In The Crucible By Arthur Miller
“The Crucible” is a timeless play whose ideas can be applied to nearly every time period in history. Arthur Miller’s writing contained insights into human nature and displayed the dangers of hearsay and abuses of power. Those dangers were very present in Arthur Miller’s depiction of the Salem Witch Trials and even in more modern times. Through his fictionalized depiction of the events of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials Miller painted a vivid picture that’s allegories can be compared to even modern events. The events of “The Crucible” are comparable to both the Red Scare and the Covid-19 Pandemic.
During the 1950’s, when Arthur Miller wrote “The Crucible”, paranoia about communists in the United States had reached its peak. In what was
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During the start of the pandemic, authority figures abused their power and poorly handled the situation. Much like Judge Danforth. In “The Crucible”, Judge Danforth refused to believe that the trials were a sham and instead stuck by his beliefs. He even went as far as hanging John Proctor, since he would not let him post his confession in town. Despite knowing that Proctor had confessed and despite evidence that the trials were likely fraudulent, Danforth still went with what he believed to be right. It’s this kind of stubbornness that worsened the Covid-19 pandemic. President Trump sidelined experts and instead handled the pandemic in the way that he believed to be right. He claimed that the virus was no worse than the flu, and he acted in ways that dismissed experts. He especially spread his agenda through his daily briefings, where he established himself as the chief source for covid updates (Lewis and Higgins). By stubbornly sticking by his beliefs, like Judge Danforth, President Trump made the Covid-19 pandemic situation worse. Trump’s actions, in which he established himself as a powerful figure, are also similar to McCarthy, who abused his position to gain more power than he should have had.
Ultimately, it is amazing how Miller was able to write a story so insightful that it would stay relevant nearly 70 years after it was written. The similarities between “The Crucible”, the Red Scare and the Covid-19 pandemic, show that Miller was a genius writer who was truly great at analyzing human tendencies. It’s through those analytics that his works are still relevant even
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