Examples Of Scapegoat In The Crucible

Words: 1028
Pages: 5
Open Document
In biblical context, a scapegoat is defined as “a goat sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it”. In modern vernacular, the term ‘scapegoat’ is used to describe a person who is made to bear the weight of other people’s wrongdoings. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, both ordinary townspeople and high level authority figures deflect their own sins onto a seemingly more obvious perpetrator. People exploit the wrongdoings of others to excuse their own sinful actions, leading to the exposure of weaknesses within the society as a whole. In Puritanism, adultery is a very obvious sin, and the reason for Hester Prynne’s societal …show more content…
In The Crucible, the citizens of Salem readily accuse their neighbors of carrying out witchcraft in order to remove themselves from the eye of public scrutiny. Abigail Williams, niece of the Reverend Parris, has her mind set on destroying Elizabeth Proctor, whose husband Abigail had an affair with, by attempting to use witchcraft. Abigail drinks a potion which she believes will kill Elizabeth, but when she is caught and accused of witchcraft, she points a finger at Reverend Parris’ slave Tituba, saying “She made me do it… She comes to me while I sleep; she’s always making me dream corruptions!” (Miller 43-44). Abigail preys on Tituba’s low social status and vulnerability to avoid being punished for her misdeeds. The mass hysteria of witchcraft quickly spirals out of control, as “social disorder at any age breeds such mystical suspicions, as when, in Salem, wonders are brought forth from below the social surface, it is too much to expect people to hold back very long from laying on the victims with all the force of their frustrations” (Miller 6). Salem citizens often had ulterior motives for branding their fellow citizens with the word ‘witch’, and people became willing to sell out anyone if it guaranteed their reputation would remained unscathed. Under the guise of witchcraft, Salem residents were able to escape the guilt of their own sins by
Show More

Related Documents: Examples Of Scapegoat In The Crucible

Examples Of Scapegoats In The Crucible

play The Crucible scapegoating is used by many of his characters being accused of witchcraft. The play takes place in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. At this time Salem was ruled by Theocracy, a government that is ruled in the name of God. When young girls in the town are found performing acts of alleged witchcraft they confess themselves to God, and claim their actions were forced by village people who had sent their souls out to the girls. Miller’s message in this play is that using a scapegoat for yourself…

Words 620 - Pages 3

Examples Of Scapegoating In The Crucible

Tituba as a scapegoat so that she does not get in trouble. Tituba gets whipped from Abby’s false accusations and she realizes that if she would not have used Tituba as a scapegoat she would have been the one who got whipped. In The Crucible scapegoating is an important theme. Miller was comparing The Crucible to McCarthyism. People would each under the bus to escape the trouble they would be in if they admitted to be a communist when they were not even communist. It relates to The Crucible to when everyone…

Words 615 - Pages 3

Essay about Why 'the Crucible' Remains Important Today

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…

Words 1015 - Pages 5

Examples Of Honesty In The Crucible

their life being based on pleasing him, which was said to result in going to heaven once they were deceased. Therefore, pleasing him had included being honorable about all of their actions, never committing any crime throughout their life. In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, the value of honesty throughout Salem was heavily valued, mostly by judges. However, a majority of the people who inhabited there did not completely live up to this. Honesty is usually linked to being truthful, yet this…

Words 499 - Pages 2

Essay about Our Similarities

Our Similarities At first glance, the 1600’s and the 1950’s seem to have nothing in common. The Crucible written in the 50’s by Arthur Miller is set in the 1600’s in Salem when much binary oppositions were present. Rich against poor, powerful against powerless, and men against women are some examples. There was also the struggle to keep their social order the same. Arthur Miller portrays McCarthy’s motives as similar to those of the characters in…

Words 672 - Pages 3

Adolf Hitler Manipulate German Populas

Since the first appearance of mankind humans have used fear as a tool to survive; fear tells people when to run away, fear tells people to be aware of our surroundings to avoid danger, and fear tells people not to repeat harmful mistakes. But just like anything, too much of a good thing can be detrimental, and too much fear is detrimental to society as a whole. When primitive humans began to appear on the African savannas humans used fear to keep them alive,now fear is not used to keep humans alive…

Words 421 - Pages 2

The Crucible Struggles

The Crucible Essay In 1953, Arthur Miller debuted his now world renowned play, The Crucible. Largely inspired by the McCarthy trials of the time, his play depicts the small town of Salem being overcome by a frenzy of witch accusations, and later trials. Miller wrote with a purpose; to undercut the McCarthy trials for what they were, a scam. Characters conflicts caused by varying desires in The Crucible, such as those of Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Parris, shows how one's inner weakness…

Words 704 - Pages 3

What Does Greed Symbolize In The Crucible

Massachusetts, the citizens of Salem started to use witchcraft to blame each other for any wrongdoings they had committed in the past. Many factors motivated the people of Salem to use witchcraft as a scapegoat, which resulted in the chaos and destruction of the town. In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, fear, revenge, and greed are all motivating factors behind the witchcraft hysteria. Of all the factors that motivate the people of Salem, fear is the most prominent. Fear, as defined by the Merriam-Webster…

Words 626 - Pages 3

Hysteria In The Crucible

traumatic event occurs, it could change the point of view of everyone and everything around them. When this happens, people start believing what they hear going around, and everyone plays along with it. This is known as hysteria. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, hysteria plays a major role in shaping the Puritan community. All of the people in the town of Salem began to suspect sudden occurrences of witchcraft. A group of girls were exhibiting strange behavior. Betty Parris, Reverend Parris’s daughter,…

Words 902 - Pages 4

Rock On Essay

Inverted syntax- what’s at the end is coming at the beginning (EX: “Whose woods these are I think I know,” when it should be “I think I know whose woods these are”) Idiomatic diction- you can’t take it literally (EX: lets hit the road, jack) The Crucible Logical Fallacies Help: 1. Appeal to Authority: accepting someone’s argument because of his or her field unrelated to the argument. EX: Whatever Abigail says, the judge, Rev. Hale, and Rev. Parris believe it. 2. Appeal to Emotion: FEAR. Abigail…

Words 1610 - Pages 7