Religion and Witchcraft Essay

The book â€Å"The Crucible† outlines the era in which Salem, where the plot took place is maneuvered by set of religious practices that must be strictly followed. These days, there is only one basis for righteousness, and allegiances are only between church as the protagonist, or question the church and its people and become looked upon as bad citizens. As such, the ten commandments is the central point wherein the people and the church base their criteria for being right. This fact, was detailed in the book, wherein John Proctor was accused of being not a Christian just because he does not regularly attend Church masses. This showed lack of reasoning from the people, no one attempted or understood how Proctor justified himself from doing so. It is only a case wherein, â€Å"everyone belongs to either God or the Devil. † This quote merely states that when someone does something, it is entirely based on being good or evil, nothing should go halfway between it. This kind situation in this era have pushed the people to discover new ways of interpreting their beliefs or disbeliefs in some cases. The emergence of the idea of witchcraft became a necessary evil that shall offer explanation to the people’s questions. For example, the deaths of Putman’s babies after birth were attributed against the existences of witches. This happened because no one was able to offer any explanation, and thus they retorted towards putting the blame on someone, or something else in order to provide explanations for those occurrences. II. Witchcraft Discovered As narrated in the book, the outbreak of witchcraft’s discovery in the Salem caused massive disturbances amongst the people. The witch hunt and trials that came after the so-called discovery of witches in the town has become a practice that sought for revenge rather than truth. The whole trial became a mockery of the disbeliefs of the people and the fact that no one could explain how things happened around them. â€Å"The witch-hunt was a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to publicly express his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims. † (Miller 7) This quotation from the books explains exactly how the trial turned out. As the book expounded, the character Abigail, who was the first to be suspected and who first confessed as having been involved in witchcrafts, was the first to pinpoint â€Å"witches† in the town. Abigail however, used this as a means to punish people who have offended her. She used her â€Å"dark† charm and manipulative ability to lure people into believing her. She has used the town’s fear to her gain and nurtured the growing chaos in the community to preserve her advantage. This misinformation about witchcraft and the religion’s constraints that limited the people to know more about the situation has lead the town to vulnerability. It caused the people more tension and fear and lead to the sufferings of people being accused, and death to those who were not convinced to lie and confess about the accusations. The death of Proctor and Corey is a significant part of the story. It teaches people the value of upholding one’s integrity and principle to save loved ones from further humiliation and injustices. It shows the value of upholding truth even if it meant dying. In this light, as religion has pushed people towards misinformation and disillusionment, people should learn from the story. Innocence and narrow-mindedness has caused detrimental effects not only to one’s self but in the society as a whole. Therefore, as religion becomes part of our life, it mustn’t dictate the way of living in general. Work Cited Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin, 1995.