Fear And Power In The Crucible

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat. Our own emotions, especially fear, make us do the things we never saw ourselves doing. In the play “The Crucible” many of the characters actions are driven by fear. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. This emotion doesn’t have to control our actions.

There have been many major events in history that have shaped the way we live today. Two of these events were the “witch hunts” of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. Many similarities exist between the events such as the fear and anger that made its impression upon the communities, but however, contrast prevails between the two, such as the fuel that started the events and the consequences that were faced. The rich controversy imbedded in these topics serves for a greatly impacted history.

Power is the ability to influence an individual or a series of events, most humans crave power and the ability to be in control of others. In Salem Massachusetts the Puritan lifestyle gave individuals few freedoms and little power in one's daily life. They were not allowed to do anything that resulted in enjoyment, an individual's life was not devoted to one's self and well being but only to God. The Puritan lifestyle was a very restricting one, this caused Puritans to crave the power they could not grasp, until the Witch Trials in 1692. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, many characters including Abigail Williams and Mary Warren use the Witch trials to obtain power that they did not possess before the trials occurred.

The horrors of history are passed on from generation to generation in hopes that they will never occur again. People look back on these times and are appalled at how horrendous the times were; yet, in the 1950s, history repeated itself. During this time, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator from Wisconsin, began accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers, which is parallel to the Salem witch trials in the late 1690s when innocent people were accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the people McCarthy accused was author and playwright Arthur Miller. To express his outrage at McCarthy’s actions, miller wrote The Crucible, intentionally drawing similarities between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials.

If there is one thing that is impossible to escape in modern society, it is fear. Whether it be advertisers using frightful hypotheticals to sell a product, or politicians instilling panic into the citizens in order earn themselves a few extra votes, fear is found everywhere and anytime. With this in mind, it is no surprise that the use of fear seeps into the literature of the times, especially when the content of the work has a basis in real events from the past. Fear is an effective motivator as evidenced by the characters in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible.

The witch hunt formula, being fear + a trigger falling onto a scapegoat, is a great example of how fear holds power over Americans. Americans are afraid of anything that is different, and when they do not know what to do about a situation, they will shun or cast out those who are different, locking them out of normal society. For the Salem Witch trials, anybody that was accused was shunned, and forced into trial, and if found guilty, hanged and removed from society. Those who were accused of becoming a witch were usually an outcast from society, or those who stood in the way of people with power. For example, in the crucible, we are shown an old man waving and saying hello.

Life teaches one very valuable lesson: with power comes the abuse of power, which results in hysteria and fear. Fear comes in many forms; fear for loved ones, fear for health, fear of losing reputation and fear of reprisal. Throughout history, a powerful few have abused their power. An example of this dilemma occurred in the 1950’s when Senator Joseph McCarthy started accusing innocent people of being communist sympathizers. Contemporary author, Arthur Miller, visited this concept of corrupt power and disapproval of McCarthyism in his classic, The Crucible. Good Night and Good Luck, a movie which was about the hysteria McCarthy caused to innocent lives, and The Crucible have one major thing in common: the corruption of power. This thematic idea reveals that the corruption of power can not only affect and impair mainstream society, but also the people which live within it.

Danforth has an great power and he shows that throughout the play. As he states on page 35, “Peace, Judge Hathorne. Do you know who i am, Mr. Nurse?” Mr. Nurse thinks he is someone more important than Judge Hathorne, he feels he should have the upper hand in the situation that they are in. Nurse thinks that he is more important and that his word has more power than Judge Hathorne because they are not the highest branch of government.

Many characters in Arthur Miller's The Crucible have a fierce desire for power, though not all of them are looking for power in the traditional sense. Reverend Parris is thoroughly obsessed with maintaining power because he is a coward. Before the incident with the girls in the forest, we know that he was consistently preaching hellfire and brimstone, demanding more money generally acting as if he deserved more, all of these things are a play for power and control over the very people over whom he was supposed to be a shepherd. Once the witchcraft talk begins, Parris is deathly afraid people will blame him and then will remove him from his position.

An individual has the power to shape and influence people's lives and events dramatically to form their own preferred outcomes in society. This concept is seen in ‘The Dressmaker’ and ‘The Crucible’ where individuals use their power to control people in ways that leave communities and families broken. Power of the individual is when someone has the ability to influence the lives of others and events, usually for their own self-benefit. This concept is evident in everyday society by individuals such as Mark Zuckerberg and Taylor Swift who influence people globally. Power of the individual is apparent in ‘The Crucible,’ an allegory by Arthur Miller, where the main character Abigail fools the entire town into believing that the devil has infected

Both Salem, Massachusetts in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and post 9/11 America are societies that dread witches or terrorists and tries to identify and eliminate them. When people find something that they are afraid of, they will do everything in their power to get rid of that fear. It will not matter to them what they have to do in order to eliminate their unease. Any fear that is great enough can take over people and make them do horrible, unjust things.

Power is something almost everybody strives for at least once in their life. In Salem, the men who own the most land or people who have a great reputation for being very religious are the people with the utmost power. Slaves and women, especially unmarried ones, are the people with the lowest status. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the power dynamic dramatically shifts. Tituba, Betty’s family’s slave, brings a group of Puritans girls, including Betty, into the woods. Tituba is from Barbados and practices a different religion, which goes against parts of the Puritan beliefs. When the girls are in the woods, Reverend Parris, Betty’s father, sees them and they all scatter. Betty worries she will get in trouble, so she falls into a trance,

Fear can lead to a lot of things, but unfortunately, in humans it usually leads to something bad. Throughout history, fear has lead to some of the most violent actions by man, and some of the biggest collapses of organized society. In early American history, the people of Salem experienced this for themselves. Arthur Miller shows this in his book. The society of Salem that Miller creates in The Crucible shows how fear can slowly cause rational thought to deteriorate, leading to mass hysteria and eventually the breakdown of civilized behavior.

Fear and faith can drive a person to death or a divine life. The Crucible takes place in Salem during the Salem witch trials. The Crucible makes a point to include that the population’s main religion is puritan. The puritan religion has many distinct rules. People that are puritan have extremely strong faith and guidelines. Fear is another extremely strong force. The Crucible makes a point to include that the people accused of witchcraft are very fearful of death and this element drives the entire play. People get ear in their heads and start to lose their faith. The people want to live so when they are accused of dancing with the devil, they disobey their faith and lie and confess until they are set free. They all do this to save themselves

As represented in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, fear played an important role and is exploited by the characters in the play. The Crucible beings with a group of girls accusing people of witchcraft for their selfish benefit.Fear is an emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to inflict pain , or a threat. Fear is an emotion that is capable of overtaking and controlling one’s state of mind and well being. However , fear can be used as a motivation factor. Fear influenced these people to take extreme measures and act irrationally. Additionally, fear is a master of suffering capable of haunting those who patronize it Moreover, in The Crucible this erratic emotion causes people to fear being labeled