Crucible Reading Response

Crucible Reading Response The Crucible is a play based on a society ruled by theocracy. Danforth ‘s statement of “–a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it , there be no road between” clearly demonstrates the Puritan’s prospective of seeing everything in black and white. Arthur Miller’s purpose of writing The Crucible was due to the close resemblance between the Salem Witch-trails and McCarthyism. They are both human tragedies that are driven by human fear.
In The Crucible, Danforth and others suspect a person is either with the Devil or with God. There’s no doubt of witchcraft as God doesn’t tell lies. Likewise, people during the McCarthy period have been viewed as black or white too; if you don’t support jailing the “communists,” you must be one of them. This view may secretly denied by people at that time, but the hysteria is like a snowball rolling down a mountaintop, it became unstoppable.
Like Danforth said: “-reprieve or pardon must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now” (124), there is too much risk in try to put an end to the execution as people will start to doubt the government and the Church. During our thousand years of existence, mass hysteria always occurred. When those in authority make a wrong decision, people are forced to go along with it or they will be marked as traitors of their society. McCarthyism and the Salem Witchcraft established that the authority are entitled to be the only rightful opinion.