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There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

Elie Wiesel

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Proctor’s Last Act

I think that Proctor’s last act was an act of honor because he knew what he was standing up for was the truth. He was not willing to lie about something that was not true and stoop down to everyone else’s level because he had standards for himself. I honor that attribute in anyone, and I do not think that standing up for what is right is prideful; it is honorable. Also, he was not willing to follow the crowd and lie about consorting with the devil, and I think that shows how honorable his act was as well.

Next, he also admits his faults, unlike everyone else who tries to cover their faults up. The fact that he tells the truth and admits to committing adultery with Abigail is very honorable because he could have covered his tail. However, he was not willing to lie and buy into the easy way out. In today’s society, I think that John Proctor's situation would be reversed because I think that people today would lie instead of tell the truth. People in our society today are willing to lie to cover their back, and they do not care about who it hurts in the process.

Also, people today follow the crowd even if they do not believe in what they are supporting. They follow the crowd for all sorts of reasons. Some people follow the crowd because they want to fit in, and they want to feel accepted. Others follow the crowd because they do not know what they believe and it is just easier to follow than to stand up for what is right. Some people follow the crowd because they feel pressured and if they do not follow the crowd people will turn against them. In this world, it is so much easier to follow the crowd, and I understand why people follow the crowd because at one point in my life I did too. However, I learned that this was not right, and I was losing who I was.

The world we live in does not have many honorable people; instead, we have dishonest people, and people who do not even know who they are anymore. John Procter never gave into peer pressure or the social norm, even though it was easier and there might not have been as many consequences. Our society today does not stand up for what they believe in because they do not want to fight for what is right; they think it is easier to buy into the lies, and eventually, their lies turn into what they think is the truth. I think his act was honorable because he set an example for everyone to be honest and tell the truth, and people today are not leaders but followers. John Proctor’s last act was not prideful but honorable in several different ways.

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False Accusations

Wiesel’s quote, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest,” means that we must never give up on what we believe, and we must be willing to fight for it. I agree with the quote because I think that you should fight for whatever you believe in and never give up on it. The parallels between the play The Crucible and The McCarthy hearings in the movie were not lost on audiences in the 1950s. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, was first performed on January 22, 1953. It exemplifies this quote through its character, John Proctor, because he stands up for what he believes in no matter the costs. In the play, we see him standing up against Abigail in court for lying, even though it forces him into admitting his adultery with Abigail. Even though his accusers came to him and tried to get him to sign his name and admit that he was bewitched, he could not bring himself to sign the paper because he knew it was not true (Miller). Instead of shifting the blame in order to avoid the punishment, he held himself accountable for his actions. Furthermore, he taught his sons to do the same. He actively showed his sons the importance of being true to their own beliefs, despite the consequences, and to never make false accusations. Later in the play, we see that his protest cost him his life, but not his integrity, because he never gave up on what he believed in.

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, was a good example of what was occurring during this time period. In both cases of the play or the 1950’s if you talked out and plead your guilty you would be okay, however, if you did not you would die or have a ruined life forever. For example, people in the American theater who refused to testify against their accusers were not seen in the film business anymore or in small television screening. Also, in the play, characters who did not confess to witchcraft were hung, like John Proctor. The play was written a couple years after the McCarthyism era started; it was used as a comment into American life and society, and people were well aware of the comment being displayed. The play shows the McCarthyism era, and how people had to deal with telling the truth or lying to save their life (Popkin).

One example occurred in 1692 when eight girls’ strange and unexplainable behavior was called witchcraft, but through later research performed by Linnda Caporael, it was evident the girl’s behavior was from ergot poisoning from fungus in the bread (“Witchcraft in Salem…”). Just like the girl’s behavioral issues were due to this fungus, Proctor knew his flaw was not because of witchcraft and he would not lie (“Witchcraft in Salem…”).

Another example of this quote is in the movie, The Majestic, directed by Frank Darabont and written by Michael Sloane and aired in theaters on December 21, 2001. Even though the character John Appleton, who was accused of communism, could have avoided being blacklisted, held in contempt, and his life ruined forever by falsely admitting to these charges, he chose honesty and acted against his lawyer's advice to plead the fifth amendment. He stood up for what he thought was right and what he believed in. He could not control what happened to him at court and he knew that; however, he fought for what he believed to be just (Darabont).

   The plays during this time period were a protest against McCarthyism, which means the practice of making accusations without regard for evidence; they were presented in several different perspectives, but they were based on what was going on during this dark era. Several authors of this time battled against McCarthyism through acts in their plays. A few of them were Sidney Kingsley, William Saroyan, Arthur Miller, and Lillian Hellman. Some of these playwrights wrote about McCarthyism in their play because they felt like there was no need to expose communists because that was against American people’s right, and other people wrote about it because they felt like communism was a threat to the American government. In fact, Arthur Miller later wrote about his own experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in his play, The Crucible, without even realizing it. The effects of McCarthyism in America were presented through the plays of this time (Wertheim).

People today need to know what they believe and need to stand up for what they believe. Standing up for what you believe is never easy, but it is necessary. The play and the movie are examples of what happens when people stand up for what they believe. They both show the struggles that anyone can go through when faced with something difficult, and they both show how much knowing what you believe matters.

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.fhu.edu/stable/pdf/373665.pdf?refreqid=search%3Ad3242d8473175ef44e471e83384282cb

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.fhu.edu/stable/pdf/3207451.pdf?refreqid=search%3A31913204658ce9c5c223284dd5398e81

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.fhu.edu/stable/pdf/3960968.pdf?refreqid=search%3Ae375a726292eee6d861c5914c72e9739

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The Underlying Problems

The Salem witch trials started occurring in 1692, and arrests were made in the months that followed. Most people were arrested and held in content; however, one man had been hung for his crimes. Neither past nor present scientists have proposed a real conclusion as to why all of this happened in Salem, until now, “According to Linnda R. Caporael of the University of California at Santa Barbara, it was not Satan but ergot, a fungus with LSD-like properties, that bewitched eight young Salem girls” (“Witchcraft in Salem…”). The eight girls’ were not held accountable for their behavior because the doctors at this time could not find a reason for it. In the absence of reasonable answers, one doctor proclaimed it was witchcraft because of all the odd behavior being proposed at the time. Everything like hysteria and the existence of witchcraft was being proposed to conclude this odd behavior by these girls. However, no accounts have provided a reason for every single fact that was occurring until Linnda Caporael’s research. Her research shows that the reason for the girl's odd behavior was the fact that they ate contaminated bread. The ergot that grew on the bread during this time showed all of the symptoms, like vertigo, convulsions, and hallucinations, that the girls were experiencing at this time. These symptoms were all concluded to be witchcraft because nobody was aware of the problem with the bread. The research in this article explains the odd behavior causing these girls to act so strangely during this time (“Witchcraft in Salem…”).

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.fhu.edu/stable/pdf/3960968.pdf?refreqid=search%3Ae375a726292eee6d861c5914c72e9739

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