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The Crucible
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The Crucible
In 1962, Massachusetts was plagued by a witchcraft craze that would result in the hanging of at least 20 people and the jailing of at least 150 others. This event is considered one of the most tragic incidents in our American history. The witchcraft hysteria originated in the small village of Salem, where most of the people were poor, uneducated, but more importantly, superstitious. The town was quick to blame witchcraft when several of the girls in the village became indisposed by a bizarre ailment involving lapses and seizures into an unconscious case. These afflicted girls were questioned for some time and submitted the names of the women who were responsible for this awful spell. Eventually, other ailing girls began to give names of those who were presumably persecuting them, leaving dozens of peopled jailed. As soon as this witchcraft hysteria began to get out of hand, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony designated several of the colony’s leading citizens to assemble a special court responsible for trying all those suspected of witchcraft. It was at this point that the Salem witch trials began and would later be the plot of a major 19th century play. It was 1953 when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, which translates to "the test", a play based on the actual events of the witch trials in Salem during 1692. Although Miller’s play is a strong story about what took place in Salem Village, it was inspired by Miller’s belief that the ma...
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