Government Corruption In The Crucible

Religion and the government are both strong powers that are similar in some ways, and helps build each other up during certain points. However, religion has also had negative effects on the government as well, which in turn has corrupted government officials and made them fabricate poor decisions. The Crucible, the famous play written by Arthur Miller in the 1920s, shows a decent example of government corruption by religion, and the poor decisions executed by the town of Salem during the Salem Witch Trials. Townspeople of Salem, Massachusetts, were quite devoted to their Puritan lifestyle. They had strict laws and a code that was expected to be followed, and any act that went against the code was considered a sin and punishable (msu.edu). The Puritans were also completely

Out of these accusations, twenty four of them were killed by being hung, and one by being pressed to death. Many believe that most of these witches were burned, but that information is false. Not all of the accused townspeople were killed, due to the fact that they confessed to associating themselves with witchcraft and the devil. To the government, these confessions were a good thing, meaning that the people were now in the hands of god and could be saved. Even though they still never participated in witchcraft. To one man accused during the trials, John Proctor, not confessing was better than lying in his eyes, because lying is a sin. So he felt that if he lied and said he was a witch, even though he would have been saved from execution, he would not have went to heaven due to the fact he lied. So he would have rather taken the death route, and still be accepted into their heaven. The Puritans eventually recognized their mistakes and pleaded for forgiveness from God in 1702, but it took 250 years for massachusetts to apologize for the trials