Paranoia In The Crucible

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Death may be inevitable, however, an individual's reputation could be seen more important. In the spring of 1692, the Salem Witch Trials had occurred. These trials took place because a group of girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. In fact, The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller depicting the Salem Witch Trials, has a strong correlation with a modern witch hunt in the Holocaust. The Holocaust, regarded as one of humanity’s darkest times, was a genocide orchestrated by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in which about six million Jews were killed. The lack of importance of truth, paranoia, and valuing one’s reputation over what’s considered right are characteristics …show more content…
In the time period The Crucible is set in, the citizens of Salem gave into the witchcraft hysteria, believing in the accusations of witchcraft despite them being true or not. This is comparable to the Germans during the Holocaust, as they too gave into a hysteria, the mass hysteria led by Hitler. Both the German and Salem citizens were incapable of identifying the …show more content…
If one were to be accused of witchcraft in The Crucible, they would be sent to trial. In trial, they’d would be questioned about having practiced witchcraft, and would either plead guilty of witchcraft, or not guilty. Pleading both guilty or not guilty have have terrifying consequences. This is comparable to the Holocaust, as the Jews faced horrifying consequences as well. In a Holocaust magazine written by Scholastic, the Nazi’s Final Solution is described. The Final Solution was a plan intended to annihilate all the Jews of Europe (Sudo). The Final Solution was simply a planned genocide of the Jewish population. It instilled fear towards the Jewish people, as they were fearful of the persecution they’d experience with the Germans. Jews were scared of being shipped to one of the hundreds of concentration camps located around the continent where they would either starve, work to death in slave-labor conditions, or be killed in gas chambers. Comparably, in Act I of The Crucible after Tituba confesses to witchcraft, Abigail yells, ¨I want to open myself! I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!¨ (Miller). Because of the witchcraft hysteria, Abigail is
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