Compare and Contrast Essay

The movie, The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller in 1952. It is about Salem witch trials that happened near the Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play because of McCarthyism. Before the court trials anyone, he had a lot of hearings before they chose who is guilty of witchcraft. When the court found out who was guilty, they would be hung between February 1692 and May 1693. Even though The Crucible is based on the Salem witch trials, the play and the movie are different in some ways like the relationship between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, and the towns’ reaction to the Putnam’s. In January of 1962 many people loved to hear Tituba's stories of "natural" magic and island culture. Two of the girls were related to Samuel Parris, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris, the other people were children from the town. It is said that the girls were praying to spirits and got sick. William Griggs, the village doctor, was called in when the girl’s didn’t get better. He diagnosed Abigail and Betty had been bewitched, and that’s what started the Salem Witch trials. The girls started naming people who could have bewitched them. The girls were naming everyone and anyone because they were afraid of being accused of witchcraft. Anyone who experienced any loss believed the crazy stories only because the people that the girls were accusing were he same people many had already suspected. The play, The Crucible, is about a group of girls that go dancing in the forest with a black slave named Tituba. While dancing, they are caught by Parris, the local minister. One of the girls, Parris’s daughter Betty, falls into what was close to being in a coma. People gather in the Parris home while rumors of witchcraft fill the town. With the fear of being accused of witchcraft, the girls start accusing others of bewitching them. Parris questions Abigail Williams, the girls’ ringleader, about what happened in the forest. Abigail, who is Parris’s niece and