The Crucible Discrimination

The Crucible is a play with themes largely applicable to major current events of today. The matters that we face as a society that are featured in this book are: discrimination in the court system, what is a lie, and the freedom to criticize our government.

Discrimination in America’s legal system was rampant in the early 1690s and, I would argue, is still as rampant, but much more subtle. In the Salem witch trials, there were three accused witches originally. All three of these accused witches were social outcasts, although they were targeted for very separate reasons. Titubia, a slave originating from Barbados, was clearly accused because of the huge racial divide prominent in the past few thousand years. In the Crucible, the dialogue largely glosses over that divide. Only in one scene is it ever mentioned: “And he come one stormy night to me and he say ‘Look I have white people belong to me’.” (47).

Of course, that does

Why do we associate wealth, education, upper class, white collar, and clear speaking with whiteness? What about the low income, uneducated, blue collar, heavily accented white people? Well, in 1692’s Salem, Massachusetts; they are accused of being witches and killed. For this is what happened to Sarah Good and Sarah Osburne. Two low-income outsiders hated by the townsfolk were robbed of their lives. Goody Good because she was an old beggar, and Goody Osburne because she hadn’t gone to church in a year and because she had bad relations with the Putnam family. Not to mention that the first accused were all women. Women were the prime suspects because the first accused had to look like a classic witch to play the part. Vile racism, sexism, and classism plagued the town of Salem, and pushed them to detain innocents in the name of God. This racism, sexism, and classism hasn’t left the minds that are present in our court systems. Even though it has been over 300 years since then, the passage of time hasn’t helped our