Essay about Why 'the Crucible' Remains Important Today

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Why ‘The Crucible' Remains Important Today For a story of any kind to have any relevance or meaning some 50 years after being written and indeed almost 400 years after it was set, it needs to contain themes and ideas that have been uniformly felt and experienced by people from all walks of life as well as continuing to speak to and have meaning to new and changed generations of people. Years after being written, Arthur Miller's ‘The Crucible', still successfully speaks to numerous generations of people, that although live in different countries, under different governments and belong to different peer groups, experience the same issues that the characters of ‘The Crucible' experienced as well as the same issues that were experienced by …show more content…
While the Church and its clergy are no longer as powerful as they were in the past, primarily because people can now openly admit to not believing in God without the fear of being hung, there is a new group of people that are able to decide what is fact and what is fiction. Science could be considered the new religion and scientists, the new priests and ministers. Scientists are considered to be educated at a higher level than the rest of the population and so in large they are not questioned. This is the same kind of reliance that people had on the Church up until recently.

As history has shown us, the types of injustices suffered by those accused in the Sa-lem Witch Trials continue to go on. We see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and other issues even today, such as the drama that is the Schaepel Corby case. Was she a planned and predetermined scapegoat incase the narcotics were discovered or is she indeed a drug trafficker? The truth remains to be seen regarding her case, although there is a chance that, like countless other people before she has been wrongfully ac-cused and mistreated. ‘The Crucible' addresses the idea of a select group of people choosing another group to act as a scapegoat to supposed problem.

Arthur Miller's ‘The Crucible' addresses issues which are as important and relevant today as they were 50 years ago when the play was written. The idea of conforming to a social norm is one that people have faced throughout time and will