The Crucible Conformity

There has come a time in everyone’s life when their character was called into question, or someone accused them wrongly of something they did not do. This puts a person’s morality on the line and tests whether they will do what’s best for them or the masses. The Crucible by Arthur Miller shows the characters John Proctor, Deputy Governor Danforth, and Abigail Williams going through this same test. The play provides a narrative on how people choose to value their own reputation and honor over protecting the lives of themselves and others.

Getting caught by Reverend Parris was the start of the hysteria over witchcraft that overtook the entire town. Fear of being shunned by the church and society along with the need to maintain a reputable status are what drove the girls to accuse the innocent of witchcraft. The allegations from the afflicted girls of being associated with the devil distracted the village from the suspicious wrongdoings that the girls had done in the woods willingly the night before. This hysteria from the girls originated from their desperation of self-preservation. As young females in their community, their current reputation completely decides their future.

Hale is starting to consider that there might be other causes at play. Another key point

The accusers in this situation, a group of young girls in the town led by Abigail Williams, took advantage of the town's fear of witchcraft in order to spread false accusations about innocent people, who were powerless to defend themselves. The chain of fear would continue in the community because the accused, would have to accuse others of witchcraft, knowing they did not really commit the crime, out of fear of being executed. The girls’ first witchcraft accusations were based on fear because the girls were afraid of being ridiculed or punished for dancing in the woods. They spread false accusations of witchcraft to cover up their deeds. When the girls got a taste of the power they received from accusing others, they were consumed by it and began using the accusation for their own personal gain.

The Salem Witch Trials forced townspeople to lie and possibly lead another to death or deny accusations and get hung as a result. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, people with authority in Salem make unfair decisions in order to punish those that have been accused of witchcraft. Judges knew the hangings were wrong, but continued to hang innocent townspeople. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller shows hypocrisy,judgment, and abuse of power throughout the town of Salem by explaining people’s lies and accusations in the play. Authorities in Salem were not truthful, felt little sorrow for their wrongdoings, and used their power to their advantag,in a bad way.

Those accused by Abigail found themselves in the same hopeless situation Abigail had originally been in. Their desire for survival leads them to accuse others of the same crime and avoid the consequences that rightfully belongs solely to Abigail. Fear and paranoia envelope the village, and many are punished and even executed. Slowly, as the fear dissipates in the town, many begin to strive to find the root of the mayhem. Talks of a “rebellion” against the court cause worry and anxiety in Abigail (pg 127).

So even if you believed in this you could not practice that type of thing or you would be despised in your community. In addition, The Crucible portrays the negative effects of group conformity on humans, as characters are pressured to conform to social expectations, leading to the loss of personality, innocent lives, and the destruction of society. The characters in The Crucible are pressured to adapt to society's standards, even if it means abandoning their own values, out of fear of being judged guilty by their community.

Keely Fisher Ms. Nikolai ELA English 10 Sophomore Academy 4-19-23 The Crucible and Today Witch Trials are an event that has captured people’s attention in history for being unreasonable and frightening. They represent a time in history when people were prone to being unreasonable, and many people would like to believe that these times are behind us. But times of hysteria are not behind us. The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller, who was inspired by the Red Scare, that covers the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

The Crucible portrays society’s tendency to react illogically when frightened, and this fear is often manipulated by demagogues, thus, The Crucible often goes hand in hand with Politics of Terror. This concept is nothing new to this day and age and certainly wasn’t to Arthur Miller, as he explained that ‘The Crucible was an act of desperation’ (Miller, 1996)

I feel like these are words of wisdom to live by. You can try to give people like Abigail a chance to prove herself and confess the sins she has done. However, she just continues to lie about the predicament she got herself into. There is a certain point in life when you realize it is your fault for believing in the person who keeps doing wrong. In the play Proctor realizes the only way to stop someone doing these things is to tell of the lies they are speaking of.

Initially, Hale comes back to salem to try and save the people accused. He tells them that he does not think god

We all know peer pressure can make you do things, But Arthur Miller’s The Crucible shows us the extremes of social pressure and how it can make us do things we would never have thought of doing. One of the major themes in The Crucible is that popular belief causes you to act and operate differently than you would normally. Some examples of this is Mary’s behavior, the girls fainting, and Proctors struggle to not confess. One of the main examples of someone giving in to social pressure is when Mary Warren decides to convict Proctor and say he is working with the devil.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatic play that expresses a very important message and that is how far people would go to save themselves from the hands of death. There are many characters in the Crucible who are guilty of taking innocent lives, but there are three major characters who, without a doubt, are the most at blame. The play takes place in the city of Salem, a city filled with people that would do anything to keep their reputation clean. Throughout the play, Miller is introducing multiple characters that experience changes in their decisions and negatively influence more people eventually leading up to the witch trials. The main point that the story revolves around is that people would rather lie and blame someone else instead of confessing and accepting the punishment.

All the girls are afraid of the consequences in store for them if the truth is revealed to the community. To save themselves, they accuse multiple innocent people of witchcraft and for causing the two girls to go into a coma. The Puritan belief system is the cause of the negative effect on the people in The Crucible. Because of how strict it’s religious beliefs became,

It also shows that knowing every detail about a situation can lead you to changing into a completely new person, and clearly expressing the problems of not being informed of the hidden intentions of certain people inside the society. Overall, this clearly shows a change in Hale’s character, with his confidence slowly decreasing with every single conversation he has with the residents of Salem, which eventually leads to