Social Structure

For readers interested in The Crucible, you should already know that this famous play was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It depicted the time period of the Salem witch-hunts when many innocent people were murdered under chasing heresy. Basically, there were many puritans who believed that these victims were guilty of witchcraft so that they needed to be condemned to die.

You need to understand that the mass hysteria spread through many puritan and other communities. Besides, many accused witches couldn’t defend themselves due to the lack of the necessary evidence. As judges in this book explain, there are no witnesses, only victims and accused people. The only evidence that courts had to make their verdict was the testimony of some victims, but many of them lied about accused people as they simply wanted to get their land or just disliked them for any other reason.

The Crucible is the play that takes place in the 17th century and tells readers a story of sadly-known witch trials. Keep in mind that this book contains a number of struggles that were resulted by strict puritan settings. Pay attention to the depiction of Salem witch trials given by Arthur Miller because it deals with the community that starts out with its church loving façade.

However, when the so-called finger pointing at witches started, this community keeps accusing each other. This means that hidden agendas and mass hysteria broke down this kind of social structure so that all people needed to protect themselves from others. When it comes to the legal system and justice, they died because people needed to protect their social status.

The puritan society of that time was influenced by the church that promoted its isolation from other groups if they had different beliefs. It’s clear that the church was against everything related to devil worshipping, including chanting and dancing. The period of time depicted by Miller in The Crucible was full of suspicions and uneasiness. For example, when women were caught dancing in the woods, some of them were bewitched only for that.

There are many important themes expressed in this famous play by the author and they serve as its effective undertone. Remember that the mass hysteria was a huge problem at that time. Don’t forget about another important subject discussed, and it’s all about the way that religions rule and ruin people’s lives in addition to unfair courts and bad people.