“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” (Martin Luther King Jr.) According to famous speech speaker and black rights activist, injustice even in its most small form is a threat to social equality in society. Social injustice is a continuous problem that has developed over the years. For example, the McCarthy case and the witchcraft problems that were hundreds of years apart but still posed a great conflict in life. Often conflict are illustrated through pieces of work. Such is the case in the play by Arthur Miller, The Crucible Miller uses literary elements such as; symbols, metaphors, and personifications to illustrate the similarities between the witch trials and what happened to him centuries later in the Red Scare. The …show more content…
The witch trials occurred because people during this time were obsessed with witch hunting. During this time the citizens were falsely accused of practicing witchcraft. Many innocent people lost their lives because of the lies. Later in the 1950’s similar events happened that led Arthur Miller to create this play where he let out his emotions and tell the readers about the witch trials and conflicts in the government that keep happening three hundred years later. “Well ,they was always talking; they was always runnin’ round adn carryin’on-” (Miller 43) Tituba, a black slave in the play confesses she has seen people with the devil. In reality, she has never seen anyone with the devil but it is the only way she’ll be free. At this point in the story the people in the town are found in the trial because witchcraft is said to be practiced in the home of Parris Reverend. Parris Reverend’s daughters and niece Abby are caught dancing in the woods and are accused of witchcraft. The only way left to avoid being punished is to confess of being in agreement with the devil. While in the room, Tituba accuses people of being in the hands of the devil. Similar to this event, Miller gets accused of being communist. The metaphor found in the play portrays the one in Miller’s life when he too was
Hysteria, paranoia, and delusion was what drove the Salem Witch trials in 1692. Many people were executed by decision of the court because it believed in absurd false allegations. Justice in the court was perverted by fear and delusion (Johnson 9). In the 1940s and 1950s, many people in the United States were living in fear of communism; similar to those who feared “witches” in Salem. In the 1953, Arthur Miller came out with a play: The Crucible based on the Salem Witch Trials tackling McCarthyism; accusing others of being communists trying to overthrow democracy in the United States (9-10).
The Devil influences the villagers of Salem, Massachusetts by using their ongoing fear of him to manipulate their thoughts and actions in a manner to set himself in the highest position by the end of the Act 1. As the Puritans lean toward blaming the Devil for their misgivings and suspicions, he gains control of their thoughts. Ruth and Betty pretend to fall ill after Reverend Parris catches them in the forest with Tituba and other girls, partaking in what is considered to be witchcraft: an act that defies the laws of femininity in the Puritan society. Mrs. Putnam does not buy her daughter Ruth’s act; rather, she sees it as “‘the Devil’s touch”’ which “‘is heavier than sick”’ (13). Believing that the Devil
In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Reverend Parris, a solipsistic and impatient minister of Salem, Massachusetts, possesses a 40-year-old Barbadian slave named Tituba. Tituba is misunderstood and genuine; she was neglected by the Parris' due to her perceived lack of intelligence, which clarifies when the girls were caught dancing in the woods and accused Tituba of being "with the devil" because she had been seen dancing with Betty, one of Reverend Parris's daughters and Abigail, Reverend Parris's niece. Abigail also claimed that Tituba reached out to her with "the Devil’s book" in dreams. Miller portrays Tituba as a gullible slave who fibs to shield herself from being tormented by her master, to show her devotion to the Parris family, and to
Also the idea that it is based on true events and true people made the play more appealing, for the history would be accurate. Arthur Miller dramatized the events of the Witch Trials and made the story even more interesting, where he showed manipulation and power more clearly. Miller showed the devil within people in a different way than other play writes would have. He made sure that the characters that were power hungry and manipulative were shown clearly. He showed the corruption in Salem and how many innocent people
“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life . . . I have given you my soul; leave me my name” (Crucible)! The people that were accused during the Salem Witch Trials lost not only their lives, but they also lost their names.
In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Miller writes about a small town in Massachusetts called Salem. In the town people start accusing people of witchcraft to take the blame from themselves, and they try to use people’s differences as evidence that they are witches. Miller was the author who best used his writing to support the meaning of his play because he did a great job using conflict development, characterization, and setting. One element Miller used in The Crucible is conflict development.
Cameron Oldfield Mrs. Brincks English III 15 November, 2015 The Crucible and Red Scare Imagine being thrown in jail, blamed for something that you didn't do .The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a story about how certain propaganda and false accusations can ruin lives, just like in the case of the Red Scare. Although 1692 the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare were over 200 years apart, The similarities are striking. both trials used intimidation, fear, hatred, and false accusations to ruin innocent lives. Both trials resulted in terrible outcomes, with both ending with innocent people being put to death and shunned from society.
Back in the late sixteen hundreds the people during that time are very strict on religion. During the time a colony in the Americas called the puritans believed in witchcraft. People that are accused are guilty till proven innocent. In the Crucible it portrays injustice by how Danforth is not following court that is ruled by religion, Abigail intimidating the court, and the accused not having proper court rights. The following reasons will explain why the crucible is injustice.
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. The play was written in 1952 after the Red Scare in America that caused much hysteria, like the Salem witch trials. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Each of the characters of Proctor, Hale, and Elizabeth changed from the beginning of the play to the end of the story. Proctor becomes more honest; Hale becomes more skeptical, and Elizabeth becomes more forgiving.
Do you remember learning about the Holocaust in school? Do you remember all of the feelings and thoughts you had? Imagine if it was you. Imagine if you were one of the soldiers. Would you stand up for what was right?
In 1692 hundreds of people were sitting in jail for being witches, but none of them were really witches. An author named Arthur Miller wrote the play The Crucible based of the true events of the Salem witch trials. In the play some girls get in trouble for dancing in the woods. They claim the witches were making them do these bad things. The girls accused a lot of people and got a lot of people of hang for being witches.
Although, many people that were condemned weren’t actually apart of the Communist Party, (under McCarthyism around 1950-1954) they got blacklisted or lost their jobs. This social injustice is also portrayed in The Crucible as its characters face the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as his own reaction to the injustice of McCarthyism. Miller’s purpose was to show how people accused each other with false denunciations because of their fear, jealousy and solely hatred of one another under McCarthyism.
Social class can define a person depending on who you are. Chances are, you will probably get judged by your social class like for an example, High social class people will get treated a little nicer than those in the lower social class. In the Crucible, people got judged on what their beliefs were or how they lived. John Proctor was a man who was first in the higher class with a lot of friends. Later on in the play/story, people have started accusing other people of WitchCraft and John Proctor got involved and was eventually hung at the end of the play.
Miller believed that there was an “element of the marvelous in it” that he had to make into a play (Miller 96). Since there was so much going on in America with mass panic, it made Miller think of other points in history when Americans were put into a great panic over something so inane. He had studied witchcraft slightly in college, so once he went back to it and read a book by Charles W. Upham he “knew (he) had to write about the period” (Miller 96). Once Miller had researched enough about the people surrounding the events, he began writing. The witch trials are a perfect comparison to the HUAC trials of Miller’s time.
The quote "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. expresses the idea that any instance of injustice, no matter where it occurs, poses a threat to the overall concept of justice in society as a whole. This quote highlights the interconnectedness of justice and injustice, and how they affect not only individuals but also the society as a whole. It suggests that when one group of people is being treated unjustly, it threatens the rights and freedoms of all people and undermines the principles of fairness and equality. One example of an injustice in our society is discrimination against a certain racial or ethnic group. This can take many forms, from overt acts of racism and hate crimes, to more subtle