Gaining power

Throughout The Crucible there are mainly five reasons why the people of Salem keep blaming and convicting one another; either to get out of trouble, gain power, get revenge, protect the lie, or to save reputation.  The most notable one, however, is to gain power.  Condemning the innocent people in Salem of witchcraft all started when Abigail Williams and the other girls tried to gain power by pretending to have been bewitched into working with the devil, all in order to escape punishment from being caught dancing in the woods.  “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!... She send her spirit on me in church…” (act I, 187).  Once she had the people on her side, she manipulated that power even more by causing sudden attacks on herself; “The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris’s house tonight, and without a word nor warnin’ she falls to the floor… stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out… she testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.” (act II, 204).  Salem is run by her trying to gain power by deceitfulness and everyone goes along with it, because the ones that don’t end up being charged of witchcraft are sentenced to hang.  

Similar ideals are found in the McCarthyism era.  McCarthy himself tried to gain power of the government by claiming to have a list of communist politicians.  Once this got out the media flooded him for more information and everything he said was broadcasted; giving him control of the media.  With the media under his power he was then able to gain more control by accusing more and more people of being a communist, and more people became afraid to do anything about because just like in Salem if you spoke you were convicted.  This idea of naming names to gain power is found in both McCarthyism and The Crucible.  It shows how people will manipulate anyone to gain control of what they want, in both cases it was control of political power and of the people.

Even in modern times this concept of gaining power to name names is found all over the media.  One example that closely resembles McCarthyism is the NSA supposedly stopping attacks from terrorism.  In the article it mentions how “During Keith Alexander’s presentation in Las Vegas, two slides read simply “54 ATTACKS THWARTED.” The NSA, President Obama, and members of Congress have all said NSA spying programs have thwarted more than 50 terrorist plots. But there’s no evidence the claim is true.”  As a way to gain power these people are blaming terrorism to make themselves look good.  In all three cases, The Crucible, McCarthyism, and the NSA, people are blaming others to gain control.  When they blame something and make it believable, it makes people think irrationally and go against whatever is being blamed.  During The Crucible Abigail blamed the women she didn’t like and got people to believe her when she acted as if possessed by witchcraft.  The other two examples did the same thing by blaming a group, in this case communists and terrorism, and made it look believable by claiming to have stopped this many terrorist attacks or this many communists.  In the end, they all are ultimately naming names to gain power.

The crucible in the modern world

 Throughout the first parts of The Crucible, the people of Salem decided to go on an all out manhunt for witches, claiming that people were giving themselves to Lucifer and bewitching others.  But the people based their accusations off of faulty credibility of some teenage girls that were trying to get out of trouble.  “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Abigail, act 1,pg.189).  There’s no solid proof that these girls have to convict these people of witchcraft, and because no one wants to challenge that in fear that they too would be convicted, things get worse.  This same idea can be seen in McCarthyism and in modern examples; when McCarthy held up the sheet of names of people who were allegedly plotting against the government for the communists, he didn't have proof that those people were in fact with the communist party.    If the people confronted McCarthy with his lies he would  ignore the question, and most people “were willing to believe his charges without any evidence or in the face of contrary evidence.” (McCarthy,202).  People began just go along with things because if they spoke out then they too would have been wrongly accused.  Even in today’s modern world you can find examples of this, such as the  claims on “attacks thwarted” by the NSA even though there’s no solid proof.  “ The NSA, President Obama, and members of Congress have all said NSA spying programs have thwarted more than 50 terrorist plots. Two weeks after Edward Snowden’s first revelations about sweeping government surveillance, President Obama shot back. ‘We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information...’ But there's no evidence that the oft-cited figure is accurate.” (Claims on Attacks).  Just like McCarthy and the accusations of communism, we now have the president and NSA on accusations of terrorism.  Both of these not only relate to each other but to The Crucible as well.  In all three cases there was a public figure wrongfully convicting people with no proof to back themselves up on. But those watching it all happen couldn't speak up otherwise they too would be now under suspicion.

Once you were wrongfully convicted in Salem, there was nothing you could do about it. Someone would take you to the jail and from there the people would try the accused in court for witchcraft. Once deemed a witch the people took immediate action; “You know yourself I must do as I’m told… I have a warrant for your wife.” (Proctor, act 11,pg.202). There officials in Salem were arresting and throwing women into the jails because someone accused them, and they couldn't do anything about it. Similar to the Salem women, the people that McCarthy persecuted for being a communist had similar problems. “HUAC reached out to ruin the reputations from private citizens from all walks of life” (McCarthy, 210). The people ruined one another and convicted them to avoid suspicion. Not only that but government organizations made it their goal to ruin them, they were left with nothing but they had to just watch it happen. This is also relevant in modern times as well, especially with one Canadian citizen whom the government arrested and detained for more than a year because they thought he was security threat. As said in the audio, all in a matter of a couple weeks the government detained him at a New York airport and then was sent to a Syrian prison. There he underwent numerous interrogations and tortures to confess to things he didn't do. But like the Salem women and people accused of being with the communist party, there was nothing he could do to prevent it or stop it. So even though society considers the Salem witch trials to be behind us, there are still examples from today’s world that are similar to what happened. Either between people being afraid to speak out in fear of being persecuted or having to watch it all unfold and not being able to do anything about it.