The Crucible - fear and suspicion Essays -- Essay on The Crucible

In the Crucible, Arthur Miller shows us how fear and suspicion can destroy a community. As the play develops, Miller shows us how fear and suspicion increase and destroy the community. Throughout the play it becomes apparent that the community gets more and more divided as time goes on. In the beginning there were arguments about ownership of land between some of the villagers. As the story progresses people fear for their own safety and begin accusing their neighbours of witchcraft in order to escape being hanged. Salem became overrun by the hysteria of witchcraft. Mere suspicion itself was accepted as evidence. As a Satan-fearing community, they could not think of denying the evidence, because to deny the existence of evil was to deny the existence of goodness; which was God. In the 17th century a group of Puritans migrated from England to America - the land of dreams - to escape persecution for their religious beliefs. As Arthur Miller tells us in the introduction to Act 1 'no one can really know what their lives were like.' We would never be able to imagine a life with 'no novelists' and 'their creed forbade anything resembling a theatre or vain entertainment.' 'They didn't celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer.' They led a very austere and bleak life. The people of Salem - from which the audience derive their "good" and "evil" characters - were superstitious and highly religious, and their Theocratic form of government offered them security and unity. However, this strong religious background also offered the option to use it misguidedly to promote the evil of false accusations. The excessive and blind religious fanaticism... ...n 1947 but a year later in 1958 his conviction was quashed by the Supreme Court. The play is relevant to any society destroyed by fear, suspicion, paranoia and accusation - other societies where something similar has happened include East Germany under communism after World War 2, Afghanistan under the Taliban and China under the Cultural Revolution when the Red Guards would decry people for being bourgeois reactionaries. In conclusion I think that the ideas of fear and suspicion appear throughout the play. Initially the suspicion starts on a small scale but gradually develops and destroys the community. The fear of the devil at the beginning extends and includes fear of others and neighbours but when the court comes into action the community are also afraid of the court. All the fears and suspicion mounts up and the community is thrown into turmoil.