Accusations Without Proof
Dakota Marschner
English III
Mr. Hedtke
Crucible Essay
May 8, 2013
Accusations Without Proof In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, he tells the story of Salem, Massachusetts during the witch trials. He does this to draw a comparison between the red scare of the 1950s and the false accusations of the girls and the community in Salem in 1692. In his play the little girls who are about twelve to eighteen, they were dancing naked in the forest with a black caldron with Tituba. Paris is the one who finds them and now all the girls have to lie and say Tituba is in touch with the devil, act like they see evil spirits, and say that people were witches even thou they were not. In the end a lot of people die over silly things that could not even be proven. Some of the things they would do for punishment was, they would hold them underwater for ten minutes and if they came back up dead they were not witches, if they were alive they were. It was a lose lose method and not the best way to solve things. Most cases they came up dead. Another thing they would do is just hang them and not give them a chance to explain themselves. When they would take them into court and testify that they were not in touch with the devil the girls would act like they see things, and start to get scared. One girl went as far as faking a coma for several hours. The people that died did not deserve to over something silly like little girls trying to get out of trouble. This was much like the Red Scare because, everyone was paranoid thinking communism was taking over. People were questioned to see if they were communist, just like in The Crucible. It just goes to show how fast rumors can spread. Arthur Miller wrote about The Crucible because he wanted to show how close it was to the Red Scare, and that people would be questioned without proof. The point of this book is to demonstrate how hysteria and rumors can cause people a lot of problems, which in this case caused several people
English III
Mr. Hedtke
Crucible Essay
May 8, 2013
Accusations Without Proof In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, he tells the story of Salem, Massachusetts during the witch trials. He does this to draw a comparison between the red scare of the 1950s and the false accusations of the girls and the community in Salem in 1692. In his play the little girls who are about twelve to eighteen, they were dancing naked in the forest with a black caldron with Tituba. Paris is the one who finds them and now all the girls have to lie and say Tituba is in touch with the devil, act like they see evil spirits, and say that people were witches even thou they were not. In the end a lot of people die over silly things that could not even be proven. Some of the things they would do for punishment was, they would hold them underwater for ten minutes and if they came back up dead they were not witches, if they were alive they were. It was a lose lose method and not the best way to solve things. Most cases they came up dead. Another thing they would do is just hang them and not give them a chance to explain themselves. When they would take them into court and testify that they were not in touch with the devil the girls would act like they see things, and start to get scared. One girl went as far as faking a coma for several hours. The people that died did not deserve to over something silly like little girls trying to get out of trouble. This was much like the Red Scare because, everyone was paranoid thinking communism was taking over. People were questioned to see if they were communist, just like in The Crucible. It just goes to show how fast rumors can spread. Arthur Miller wrote about The Crucible because he wanted to show how close it was to the Red Scare, and that people would be questioned without proof. The point of this book is to demonstrate how hysteria and rumors can cause people a lot of problems, which in this case caused several people