The first two acts of this work trace a disturbing and
irrational series of events. First, when a few girls in the village become ill,
their sickness is attributed to a dance they had done in the forest the night
before with a slave from Barbados, Tituba. An investigation ensues, and when
the reason for the dance is called into question, and Tituba is accused of
witchcraft, she becomes hysterical, and begins to believe that she has indeed
been with the Devil. She then throws out several spontaneous accusations of
other women, essentially exonerating her from blame. Some of the other girls
follow her lead, including one of the ill girls, and by the end of this
sequence, dozens of villagers have been indicted of witchcraft. A few
aspects particularly struck me in this passage. First off, I found the
interrogation of some of the women, and the phrasing of the accusations, to be
quite comical. This may just be from a modern perspective, as we live in a
world where it is common knowledge that witchcraft does not exist, but the
seriousness with which Reverend Hale, in particular, carried out his business
was rather amusing. Another interesting point I observed was the way in which
people could be convinced that they were in fact guilty of witchcraft, and
given the option to free themselves from blame, they were inclined to accuse
others.
Ted- I completely agree. Further on in the play we get to see the behavior of the authorities who are determined to get confessions or some sort of information out of the accused. The girls change their stories multiple times, and from a modern perspective that would be looked at suspiciously, but the people almost want to believe that witchcraft exists and behave accordingly.
ReplyDeleteWe also get to observe how when under psychological torture, the torture of impending death, people lose their sense of self and almost got convinced that they were in fact guilty of witchcraft. People did not hesitate in doling out meaningless accusations, just to save themselves.
Ted, I agree whole-heartedly with your observation that the characters in the play are inclined to accuse others in order to free themselves from blame. A recurring theme throughout the play is the failure of the characters to accept blame; rather, they choose to absolve themselves of guilt by accusing others. The victims in the play are those who have enough integrity to not bring their peers down with them. Miller shows how human nature instinctively makes us deny guilt instead of own up to our actions.
ReplyDeleteI think your observation about how ridiculous the witchcraft questioning seemed is pretty spot on, but also disturbing; will people find articles about us questioning Iraqis about WMDs equally laughable? What else are we doing right now that may be completely wrong? It's terrifying to think that we are still prone to believing unproven concepts based on suspicion.
ReplyDeleteAlso I agree with Saniya above about the effects of psychological torture. The fact that Tituba began to believe her accusers when she panicked is just a demonstration of how interrogation often results in the opposite of the truth.