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Intolerance to Difference: Social Realities and Norms in the Crucible, The Guest, And the Old Chief Mshlanga
Human societies have, throughout the years, established norms, values, and artifacts that are collectively agreed-upon by its members. The culture of a society can be both advantageous and disadvantageous to its people. Norms and values held important by members of a society can be advantageous in that it provides people with social structure and order. It is disadvantageous when members of the society become intolerant to individuals or groups that deviate or differ from the majority in the society. When cases like this happen, social conflicts and destabilization occur, leading to the marginalization and eventual displacement of some members from their society. Miller, Camus, and Lessing's works center on the situation where an individual is confronted in deciding whether to conform to the norms dictated by the society or not. Camus and Lessing's written works discuss the issue of racial differences, while Miller's center on the dominance of the Christian religion against the taboo rituals and tradition of non-Christian practices, which the characters refer to and symbolize through witchcraft.
Intolerance to social deviation and differences are the main themes discussed in three works of literature. The Crucible by Arthur Miller, The Guest by Albert Camus, and The Old Chief Mshlanga by Doris Lessing are examples of literary works that reflect on the issue of rigidity of social
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A character analysis of the protagonists in the three authors' works show that all of them share the same internal conflict: whether or not they should conform or deviate from the strict rules and norms imposed by their society. This is explicitly shown in the short story by Lessing, The Old…
While he resists coming completely clean and exposing his affair, he eventually tells the whole truth, but only after the town is in chaos. The climax of The Crucible occurs toward the end of the play when Mary accuses Proctor of being a witch and he is summarily arrested. Prior to this the action builds as several girls in the play get caught up in the witch hysteria. Proctor's arrest
Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller with layers of meaning and subtext. Miller's mission was to draw a direct analogy between the social and political themes of the 20th century with those of pre-Revolutionary America. Setting the play in Puritan New England, in the town of Salem, allows the playwright to explore the thematic connections between the witch trials and McCarthyism. Doing so seems seamless, as the audience perceives
Crucible Dramatic Tension in the Crucible One of the reasons that The Crucible is such a successful play is that the drama is established early. A consideration of the first 20 pages of the play will show that Arthur Miller creates dramatic tension in the first scene and establishes the themes, setting, and plots that will continue throughout the play. The play opens the day after the girls were seen dancing in the
He was labeled for a belief that he did not openly admitted subsisting to; he was labeled based on the fact that he refused to testify against an ideology. It is not surprising, then, that the primary message of "The Crucible" resonated his thoughts and feelings about the McCarthy administration's containment policy against Communism. The arguments he presented in the play showed how Miller viewed the government's offensive action against
However, using today's less rigid religious standards make the outcome of the trials seem ridiculous and completely unjust. Today, most people do not consider witchcraft a reality, and so, basing a court decision on the confession of bewitched young women seems almost ludicrous. As critic Bloom maintains, "Today's audience cannot take the possibility of witchcraft seriously; the implication for us is that no enlightened citizen of any age would
Crucible Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" is set in Salem, Massachusetts in the last part of the 17th century. The play itself is based on the Salem witch trials that took place during that time. People who lived during that time period were very religious, and also very superstitious. The play revolves around power, jealousy, and superstition, all of which were very common during the Salem witch trials and the