Name: Emma Hirsch Humanities
7th Grade March 6, 2017
Fear, and the Impacts it Has in Our Community
We are going through a time period full of hysteria, fear, power, and dishonesty. Many years of torture, death, panic, and pain, are being repeated to this day. People are throwing others lives away for their own benefits. Scapegoating is something that is done often. When someone is scapegoated, they are being blamed for something they didn’t do. The reasons someone may do this varies. Fear is often the cause of scapegoating. People are scared something bad will happen to themselves so they put the blame on others. One’s selfish actions can affect an innocent person’s life. From the Salem Witch Hunt in 1692, to the McCarthy Era in 1950, and even today, scapegoating has been used out of fear. Sometimes people scapegoat others to exonerate themselves and to gain power.
In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, many people were falsely scapegoated and put in bad positions. The whole play consists of false accusations, scapegoating, fear, and gaining power.
In this scene, Tituba was scapegoated for being a witch. There was a high level of hysteria going around in the town, everyone who was making accusations was believed. Tituba was put in a position where she either had to lie and scapegoat others, or risk her life.
“TITUBA, And I say, “You lie, Devil, you have white people belong to me.” And I look—and there was Goody Good.
PARRIS: Sarah Good!
TITUBA, rocking and weeping: Aye, sir, and Goody Osburn,” (Miller, 1953).
In this scene, Tituba had just been accused of being a witch and being loyal to the devil. People were mistreating her which made her nervous. She never wanted to scapegoat, but when her life was at risk she did whatever she had to do. Before this line, Tituba was a badly treated slave. Once she started to scapegoat others, she instantly gained power. This is an important line in the play because it was when everyone realized that white people may be associated with the devil. This took the hysteria to a whole new level. Now anyone could be accused of being a witch, and people were frightened. Innocent people’s lives were at risk, and everyone was scared they were to be accused of being a witch. Shortly after this scene, the girls started shouting out names of the people they saw with the devil. They did this because they either wanted to gain power or have the attention on them, rather than Tituba. Maybe they did this because they were scared they would be accused. There is always a deeper meaning for scapegoating. Another person who did this throughout history is Joseph McCarthy. The witch hunt that took place in The Crucible is very similar to the blacklist McCarthy had for the so-called communists.
Throughout the McCarthy Era, many people’s lives were ruined because of false accusations and lies. Have you ever felt so scared that you could believe anything anyone said even if they offered no proof? This is something that happened in the McCarthy Era. Joseph McCarthy accused around 205 people of being communists, with no real proof. There was such a high level of hysteria that people believed anything that was said. Because of his list, people lost their jobs, were sent to jail, or possibly sentenced to death. “The hysteria of the Red Scare made it easy for the public to believe McCarthy’s charges— even though he offered no real proof,” (The Red Scare, Fitzgerald, 2007).
Joseph McCarthy was scared of losing his good reputation. He cared so much that he was willing to ruin other people’s lives for his to be better. He created a blacklist, a list of people who he was accusing of being communists. He also did this because there was a high level of fear going around America. Everyone was scared of being accused of being a communist, to take the focus off themselves. Joseph was scared that he would be accused of being a communists, so he decided to blame others. He had no real proof of these people being communists, and yet everyone believed him. That showed power and reputation. Joseph McCarthy is similar to Tituba because they both decided to scapegoated others out of fear. They also did this to keep protect reputations and gain power. People always say that history repeats itself. Throughout the years scapegoating has been used in similar ways. Who would ever think that you could connect the Salem Witch hunts, to the McCarthy Era, to the current day?
Donald Trump is someone who scapegoats often for various reasons. He is someone who cares more about his reputation than other people’s lives. This is a quality that leaders shouldn’t have but often do. Donald Trump scapegoats Muslims for things they haven’t done. Trump has scapegoated many different groups for the past year or so. He never offers real proof, but because he has power he is believed. That is similar to McCarthy because both are scared, and feel the need to exonerate themselves. Donald Trump refers to all Muslims as dangerous people which is a big stereotype and something he often scapegoats them for. “Our legal system is broken! “77% of refugees allowed into U.S. since travel reprieve hail from seven suspect countries.” (WT) SO DANGEROUS!” -Trump’s Twitter. Trump accuses all countries that have mostly Muslim citizens of supporting terrorism. He does this out of fear and power. Trump has a lot of power, especially now that he is president. He is using propaganda to support his views and opinions. He is scaring others to make them conform to him. He is using fear to make himself more powerful. Trump is similar to the white empowered men in The Crucible. What these men have in common is they all want to maintain a good reputation. There are certain things about Trump that relate to Tituba. Although they have different reputations, they both scapegoated for similar reasons. Trump is also similar to Joseph McCarthy because they both want to gain power, and to do that they put other people’s lives at risk without caring. Overall, these three characters are somewhat similar.
Throughout history, fear has had a big impact on everything people do. Scapegoating is done often and mainly used out of fear. This has happened in the Salem Witch Hunts, the McCarthy Era, and even current day. Throughout these three time periods, scapegoating has been motivated by many different things. People often scapegoat others to get out of awful situations, which could then lead to a big problem in someone else’s life. If people stopped blaming others for their problems, we would be in a much better place. Society has made it hard for people to be honest and stay true to themselves because of an environment of fear that has been created. If our community could break past this environment, learn to trust ourselves, learn that it is okay to be honest and take the blame for things you have done, our community will be stronger. We need to learn not to repeat history’s mistakes and become a better community.
REFLECTION:
Above is The Crucible essay. This is a project I enjoyed because I liked connecting the three time periods. Connecting other time periods to today makes me understand current events in a clearer way. This project made me realize that it is always good to connect to other times. Something I always have trouble with in writing is my tenses. This was a challenge I faced in this one especially. When I write I seem to just write and not pay attention to tenses. Then later when I edit I have to change them. A goal for me will be to just be more aware of my tenses, and be aware of which time period I am writing about.
After we handed our essays in and got them back I realized a got mostly writing conventions wrong. That is something I need to edit better for and keep in mind. Something I did really well on was my thesis statement. Somethign else I did really well on was analyzing my ideas. Overall I am proud of this writing piece and liked it a lot.