The audience then sees how bold Desdemona is when she marries Othello, despite the accusations of being involved in witchcraft from Iago and her father. This shows how Desdemona is not afraid to make choices for herself, something women did rarely in those times. However, as the story progresses and Iago tries to manipulate Othello, Desdemona starts to
It makes perfect sense as to why Miller wrote The Crucible allegorically to these events, 1953 was a time in which American fear and madness concerning communism was frankly getting out of control, just as the experiences in Salem were in the 1690s. The Crucible is a historically fictitious adaption of the Salem Witch Trials which as previously stated, was an episode of unjust accusations of witchcraft/devil worship carried out by a group of female teens. In the play, the group of accusing teens is led by girl named Abigail Williams. In order to refocus the “heat” on another source in order to save herself from trouble, her and her peers wrongfully stage a phenomenon of witchcraft in Salem, producing mass panic in the community for months on end. It got so bad in fact, that at one point Abigail implied that even the official court judges could be guilty of wicked doings; “Let you beware, Mr. Danforth.
When Shakespeare wrote his play, Macbeth in 1606 a large majority of people were interested in witchcraft. This is why Shakespeare made the witches and the witches’ prophecies play a major part in the plot of the play. In the time of Macbeth witches were not believed to be supernatural beings themselves, but allegedly extended their powers by trading their souls to Satan. (atheism.about.com/od/christianityviolence/a/witches.htm) There can be little doubt that most of Shakespeare’s audience would have believed in witches, and for the purpose of the play, Shakespeare also acknowledged their reality. The three witches in the tragedy Macbeth are introduced at the beginning of the play and the brief opening few scenes give an instantaneous impression of mystery, fear and vagueness.
Gillian MacDonald 21 March 2013 ENG 4U Mr. Chalmers The Ringleaders of the Salem Witch Trials In the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the theme of hysteria is dominantly present throughout the entire play. It is not hard to narrow down the cause of the widespread hysteria to three people that inevitably had their hand in the trials. The devious character, Abigail, shows her wicked mind and skill of manipulation in the play so she can get what she wants, John Proctor. The slave, Tituba, gave into the accusations and started the hysteria of the witch trials. The last character that contributed to an entire town’s belief in witches would be Danforth.
Body Paragraph #1 A. Topic sentence : Arthur Miller’s development of Fear in The Crucible is parallel to the fear that was experienced in the 1950’s. B. CD #1: Abigail accuses Tituba of being a witch and to prevent herseld from being hanged, Tituba confesses that she was doing witchcraft (Miller 45-49). C. CM #1.A. : Being accused of being witch in Salem, Massachusetts was alarming because even if one was innocent, they are still held guilty D. CM #1.B: One could infer that the morals of society dictated that a person wasn’t “Innocent until proven guilty” but rather they were “guilty until proven innocent.” E. CD #2: “ [ In Hollywood] blacklists were quickly circulated of
The Civil Rights Movements and The Salem witchcraft trials Since the witch trials times in Salem and before, fear and persecution have acted on people’s life. It doesn’t matter if the person was one of the involved or not, it affected indirectectly everyone around. Arthur Miller in the Crucible showed a perfect fear and persecution scenery using the Salem witchcraft trials as and example. Arthur Miller used the Crucible to represent the Mc Cartheism, when the communists were been “persecuted” and everyone was pointing fingers to the enemies. As in Salem, it started with a small portion of people trying to accuse people for personal reasons and ended with a big mass of ruined lives without any evidence.
After she confesses that she is a witch, she goes on with her story when she talks about the devil and his promises to her: “The devil came to her in the form of a hog and also a giant black dog; he promised her many pretty things if she would serve him” (83). Tituba is thought to have made up this story to interest the judges, for she knows they look for interesting stories on witchcraft. Although she was a servant, she was very smart when it came to fooling those who were in charge of her. Tituba’s confession was seen as: “an amazing performance that ended the stumbling, confusing first phase of the outbreak” (87). Tituba not only saves her life, but saves other witches’ life by her example of what to do in court.
Part of McCarthyism was paranoia and finding scapegoats and blaming innocent people, without viable evidence, for something they didn’t do. In ‘The Crucible’ people were assumed guilty of witchcraft and compacting with the devil. If someone said they were. McCarthyism was the exact same except instead of accusing people of witchcraft they accused them of being a communist. The accused had two options; either they “admit” to being a witch/communist and name others, or maintain their innocence and be hanged/blacklisted.
Hysteria leads the people of Salem to believe that those who were friends are executing witchery and associating themselves with the devil. The continuous accusations of witchery present the people of Salem with a chance to redeem long-term grudges. The abundant case of Abigail Williams uses the current situation to indict charges on Elizabeth Proctor, having her sent to jail. Not to be entirely blamed, Reverend Parries also pronounces his placement in society by accusing the people who question his authority. Hysteria can prosper from those who feed off of it.
As the play progresses, lady Macbeth loses her evil facade and starts to show signs of strain. Her sudden change in character might seem to shock the audience as she changes from confident and in control, to insecure, desperate and uncontrollable... Shakespear is especially successful in creating Lady Macbeth’s character to appeal to the wide 17th century audience. her controlling, queen-like character at the beginning of the play could please the higher class people as they could relate to her status