The Crucible and The Salem Witch Trials, Essay Example

The Crucible movie took place during the Salem Witch trials of 1692. The Salem witch trials are infamous in the American history with trials inspired Arthur miller’s “The Crucible”. The Crucible gives rise to heated arguments concerning people in their attempt of highlighting controversial subjects as they appear in the movie. The conspicuous subjects include moral choice, witchcraft, truth vs. lie, injustice vs. justice, evil vs. good powers, and a trial of a person who has been accused innocently. The literary creation has its basis on the historical facts evident in Salem Witch Trials. One key theme demonstrated in “The Crucible” is guilt while Salem Witch Trials depicts features are associated with “village” witchcraft along with European witch craze features. Salem Witch Trials also puts some pressure to people accused of witches so that they can repent. Salem Witch Trials suggests that it is possible for the accused people to save their lives through confession and also naming other people involved.

The Crucible also displays characters based on existing individuals whose judgment was based on hysteria. In the play, there are three judges presiding over the trial but in the reality there were nine judges. Despite the discrepancies that are revealed in the crucible with the reality in Salem village, the two share some similarities. In the movie and the actual trials, the slave of Samuel Parris, Tituba is the one who is first accused and admitted to practicing witch craft to save her life. Additionally, the play reveals the hysteria and baseless accusations that were the fundamental forces during the real cases.

The website www.salemwitchtrials.com has served to account for the conspicuous events associated with US history darkest moments. They included political agendas, voodoo, personal vendettas, witchcraft and free speech prior to constitution. Abigail William is refereed to as Rev. Parris “niece” in the crucible. But in reality, there is no genealogical evidence to prove their family relationships.

The Crucible provides that Abigail tells Betty, “your mama’s dead and buried!” (Screen play, scene 21; play, act1, scene1). The reality is that Betty Parris mother was not dead and was alive in 1692. Four years after the witchcraft trials, on July 14, 1696, is when Elizabeth Parris died at the age of 48 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd_wOCIbssw).

The Crucible depicts Parris as a widower who is greedy and fraud. However, in the historical Salem village, Parris had a wife and two more children other than Betty, Thomas and Susannah. The fact that he had lost 31 pounds to Abigail does not exist. In reality he could not have lost such an amount to Abigail, when, 31 pounds was a half of his salary yearly. It could mean that he had saved all his money and yet he dad people who depended on him for support.

The Crucible depicts there existed a strong love relationship between characters Abigail Williams and John proctor. This is a great discrepancy, since; there was no love affair between the two as revealed by Susan Cocalis, professor at the University of Massachuests at Amherst. Susan argues that, the two hardly came in contact at all. In fact, John proctor was old enough to be Abigail’s grandfather.

Works Citied

Salem Witch Trials >>http://salemwitchtrials.com/<<, 10^th Feb, 2012.

“The Crucible” >>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd_wOCIbssw <<11^th Feb, 2012.

>>http://www.fullmoviezone.com/older-releases/the-crucible<< 11^th Feb, 2012.