From the start, one can assume that witchcraft is involved in this situation. A health young girl is in bed for no apparent reason and no cure for it is found, after the girls were found in the forest dancing and naked. Witchcraft was definitely part of this random sickness, therefore the devil was involved with this situation. One might say that the cure for Betty's sickness was not found because science was not as advance as it is today. One might say that the girls were in the forest dancing in secret because of their restrictions.
I don’t think that even the Christian and pagan action came to Grendel’s mother mind. Grendel’s mother had a delinquent son and knew he was bad, she didn’t want him dead. Grendel’s death was punishment for all the previously committed murders. This proves the case of the phrase that society use ‘only a mother could
The Good and the Bad “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” as said by John Lord Acton, meaning that no matter how much power is given to a person it will eventually corrupt and destroy anybody and anything. In the play “The Crucible” there is characters that cause corruption in the little town they live in. They cause such corruption by accusing some people of the town of being a witch. In the Puritanical belief they would consider that there is corruption in the town because of the so called accused “witches” not the ones that are accusing the innocent. In this play there are characters that are, in the puritanical belief, good and bad; no in between.
The people of the town were pressured, accused, and tested simple tests but the girls would scream with such pain whenever the accused spoke. The victims, the girls, and the judges all were consumed in the anarchy and lost all sanity. Were people convicted of not only being witches in Salem but across the country suspicion arose and people convicted women of being witches for the simplest causes. Two girls took a joke way too far and caused disorder across the country. Not all "witches" were from Salem, MA.
In Bell, Book, and Candle Gillian, a witch, was unable to fall in love unless she was willing to give up her magical powers. In order to get the man she wanted she cast a spell over Shepherd to make him leave his fiance and fall in love with her. Gillian did all of this in hope of not joining the consensus. In the film Bell, Book, and Candle we watched how Gillian and Shepherd’s lives changed as they got to know each other and grew to love one another. Though Shepherd was under a spell and his love was not real at first it became more apparent that Gillian was actually falling in
What had previously been a belief that some people possessed supernatural abilities (which were sometimes used to protect the people) now became a sign of a pact between the people with supernatural abilities and the devil. To justify the killings, Protestant Christianity and its secular institutions deemed witchcraft as being associated to wild satanic ritual parties. It was also seen as heresy for going against the first of the ten commandments (You shall have no other gods before me) or as violating majesty, in this case referring to the divine majesty, not the worldly. Further, scripture specifically decreed that "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18), which many believed. Definition of witchcraft- the practice of magic, especially black magic; the use of spells and the invocation of spirits.
And when he tries to convince the court that the witch trials are a hoax, he is only doing so to seek revenge on Abigail. He confesses to doing the devil’s work and shows submissive ways to himself, just to get the people of the court off of his back. He does not battle back and stand by his faith, which is questionable to say the least as well. He also shows that he is a cowardous character as well. He chooses to die and take the easy road out of things, leaving his wife alone to mother 3 children on her own and to later die herself, leaving the kids with no parents.
In The Crucible, Miller vividly creates a terrifying world where superstition and hysteria blinds the people of Salem, preventing them from seeing reason or using common sense. They fear the threat of witchcraft so much, they are unable to see the reality of the situation; a group of young girls pretending, leading adults to believe their actions, acting and accusations, all of which had murderous consequences. In the opening of the play, we learn that a group of young girls were discovered dancing in the forest, in an act that appeared to be linked with witchcraft, especially find no medical reason for the girl's condition, they must now "look to unnatural things" (pg 7). From this moment, it becomes evident that the people of Salem were quick to jump to conclusions of evil due to their superstitious beliefs, before looking at all angles. Here, they have not used common sense, ignoring the possibility that perhaps the girls feared the consequences of their actions in the forest, the fact that they were young girls playing, not calling the devil.
Unlike the girls in Salem, Abigail is not submissive which is why her uncle is suspicious and even more because she’s rebellious. That alone was considered filthy and impure. In Act one, Abigail states these words, alluding about her past affair with Proctor. “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men!
The Crucible as a Dystopia In Arthur Miller's The Crucible we are exposed to many examples of what could be considered a dystopian society. For those accused of and convicted for witchcraft, life in Salem was not at all desirable. Their land and belongings would be taken and their families shunned. I can only imagine how horrifying it would be. Though this play is not futuristic and fictional as many other pieces of dystopian literature tend to be, I think it should not be excluded as an example of one.