“I find it deeply upsetting when I see justice not being served. How do we as human beings deal with the unknown? The West Memphis Trial is a joke on so many different levels” - Atom Egoyan. The West Memphis Three case is one of the most famous trials ever as there was a documentary released covering the case. The documentary got nationwide attention and interest from celebrities like Johnny Depp, the most involved one of all. The reason this trial got so popular was for three reasons, the mystery factor as there was not solid evidence in the case, the fact that the three were prosecuted quite unjustly, and the fact that people got emotionally involved because they felt sympathy for the boys and or feared satanism; satanism was a major fear …show more content…
The argument for motive of the two situations is the same, which is satanism. In The Crucible, certain citizens of Salem were accused of conspiring with the devil. The devil then made them take witchcraft into fruition, and the judges would used how the defendants acted previous to the accusation as the “proof”. Judges would take anything that did not correlate with the common puritan lifestyle and paint a picture that they are not people of Christian faith. For example, if I were to accuse Sarah Good of satanism; I would discuss her second marriage and begging lifestyle which is heavily looked down upon. Now in the West Memphis Three, DamienDamian Echols was accused of Satanism. This is because the kids were killed in a more ritualistic way, and Damian had an abnormal appearance. Damian wore all black with black hair so it was easy to pin the satanism claim onto him, just like the Judges did to the defendants in The Crucible. A piece of evidence also used with the case was Jessie Misskelley's confession. Jessie’s confession is widely considered invalid because the methodology utilized to obtain the confession violated many police procedures. This confession can be compared to the Judges interrogating suspects, because the Judges widely wanted the outcome of guilty to be brought upon the accused. A sad aspect of the two situations is that both trials were more or less guilty until proven innocent. The last aspect as to why the trials were unfair is that both the citizens of Salem and the West Memphis Three were handed the same judge every time, which in the mass majority’s opinion is
Reverend Parris is concerned that the town is discontented with the executions. “This way, unconfessed and claiming innocence, doubts are multiplied, many honest people will weep for them, and our good purpose is lost in their tears” (128). Parris realizes that the hysteria in Salem has caused the majority to unreasonably view innocent people as threats and how the government unjustly eliminated them. The fundamental purpose of the trials was to oust witches in order to return Salem to a Christian community. Instead, it has created a society of hate and prejudice.
The person in the Crucible, other than the Salem girls, that I believe caused the trials is Mrs. Putnam, Thomas Putnam 's wife. There are 3 reasons why I suspect of this, the first, is about her beloved seven children who unfortunately passed away. Mrs. Putnam blames a witch for causing the untimely death of her children, which leads to disastrous effects. The second reason is that she starts a witch hunt and creates the atmosphere of mistrust and doubt in Salem when she spreads rumors of witches. This causes the whole town to go wild and start pointing fingers at neighbors, enemies, and friends.
In the Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the Salem witch trials to show how a society can become flawed and corrupt, leading to an inevitably witch hunt and hive mindset. These mindsets have still carried on in modern day society. The community of Salem was run under a strict theocracy, where religious leaders held immense power and threat to the common people. With the large fear of the unknown and wide belief in apparitions and entities this added to and heightened the chaos of these witch trials. During the trials an unjust court is shown immediately in the first hearing, the presumption of innocence was ignored and all of the evidence was based on hearsay and rumors.
The reason that the Rosenberg trial comes to light in history is because of the unusual punishments doled out to the respective parties involved. Every person involved that confessed was given a prison sentence, but when it came to the Rosenbergs, both Ethel and Julius refused to confess. Both pleaded the fifth as a means to stay silent. Most of the evidence presented against them were the words of Gold, Bentley, and Greenglass. Some historians argue that Gold, Bentley, and Greenglass confessed simply to make their prison sentences shorter.
In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, in the town of Salem, everyone was in constant fear of the Devil and Hell. Because of their ongoing struggle with the Indians and many other problems for which they had no explanation, people started to believe that the ones from hell had been stirring up the problems because Devil is directly opposed to Heaven, and the latter symbolizes harmony and righteousness. This tension was triggered when Tituba confessed her affiliation with Devil in the village. Her confession provoked upheaval and hysteria in the town, which quickly resulted into a witch-hunt. As Judge Danforth said, witchcraft is “an invisible crime”(93) and “who may possibly be witness to it?”
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible (1953), he shows the corruptness of the courts and their influence on the decisions of Abigail Williams. Abby was just a girl, she loved to pretend. She and the other girls of Salem loved it, they danced in the woods and pretended to be witches. That is until they were found by Reverend Parris, after which two girls pretended to be bewitched because they were afraid of the consequences. This is the beginning of the chaos that would consume Salem, ending in almost 20 innocents hung.
Lies bring chaos for not only the lair but everyone around them. In the “crucible”A small town by the name of salem had been crashing down because of witchcraft hysteria. everyone in town is accusing each other of dealing with the devils work. soon the town will struck and innocent lives will be lost. Abigail williams a young girl, is responsible for the imprisonment and execution of the innocent people because she was the first person to lie about having dealt with the devils work.
Religion In The Crucible In The Crucible, religion is a theme that aids in developing the story, it helps to begin the story and build the plot. Religion in the story is what, overall, pushes many people to talk about witchcraft, and blame it on others. Though religion is normally thought of as a thing of value amongst those who follow one, the people of Salem use it to their advantage, as trying to take someone 's land. “Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord” shows how the people of this time period could call a person evil, or a witch, in order to take their property from them, using religion all the while (Miller 8).
The Salem witch trials were a time period when any individual could be accused of witchcraft for numerous reasons. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller focuses on the deviation of the trials and how the town’s most religious and honest members of the community are tried with witchcraft. John Proctor, the town’s most honest man, is accused of being a witch and must decide if he should confess or not. Proctor’s confession will stop the town from rebelling and uphold the reputations of Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris. Hale also wishes for Proctor’s confession so he does not have to feel responsible if Proctor were to be hanged for his witchcraft accusations.
The accusers used the trials to settle situations such as the death of a loved one by blaming it on witchcraft. It was not quite like that in the Japanese Internment experience. The accuser now was the government not little girls. And there was a document that the government used to do this. This document gave the Secretary of the U.S. the power to exclude any people, citizen or alien, from certain areas in order to provide security for the U.S.
In both events, there was only one way to get out of being charged. In the Crucible, the accused would hang unless they confessed to witchcraft or gave a name of someone else who was a witch. During the McCarthy era, people put on trial for being a Communist were either expected to give names of other Communists, or they would be subject to
In The Crucible, religion and government were so closely interwoven that it blurred the lines between right and wrong which affected the way people reacted and behaved. At the peak of the witch trials, the Puritan society was considered a theocracy. They build the belief of the religion around the idea
The Salem Witch Trials accusing others of a feared crime showed definite evidence that mass hysteria was to blame. Salem was a religious settlement, following Puritan beliefs (Miller, 6). A large fear for everyone in Salem was the touch of the Devil (Miller, Arthur). According to Puritan beliefs, if a man or woman was touched by the Devil he would convince them to do witchcraft. Once word was mentioned the Devil had possibly touched Salem, the fear spread.
In the book Crucible written by Arthur Miller took place in 1692. Some may believe that Reverend Hale is not to blame for all the deaths of innocent people in Salem. The only reason Reverend Hale is involved in this case, is because he is pushing his limits to get the truth. Also, to not let any guilty doers off the chain, for the reason that they will keep repeating their dirty crimes. There has been many witch trials taken place in salem, of which many people have been accused and persecuted.
The emotion expressed by this juror created an atmosphere where his decision of the young boy’s life was dominated by his personal life rather than the murder case. Another example was when Juror number 5 changed his vote from guilty to not guilty because he could connect with the accused based on his