Children's False Reputations In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

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The Salem Witch Trials were fueled by the court’s disbelief in hard evidence and total trust in children’s false accusations. While some could say that it was because of the children giving these false accusations, the grown adults could have (and should have) recognized that they could not base hundreds of condemnations on the whims of children and their antics. Arthur Miller takes us through the time when children could tear down a person’s entire life and reputation by putting on a show in this story The Crucible. Through the lack of common sense and belief in children’s antics, the court affected the problem more than the outside influences ever could.
First of all, the court was influenced by outside factors. They had many opportunities …show more content…
They ignored hard evidence brought before them, chose to make their court very unofficial (no lawyers) and listened only to the children. How can they not be blamed for what happened? They had every chance to stop this awful time in history from occurring and did not. They could have examined the children; they could have used another form of finding the truth- but they did not. Those who say the children- and more specifically, Abigail- were to blame are not entirely wrong, but those who think this are ignoring the larger picture. The children could only go so far in the community and the trials. The basic fact is that they truly were only kids. They had to have an outlet for their accusations. This landed square on the shoulders of once well-respected adults who now are looked down upon in the history books in shame and disgust. It is most certainly true that if these adults could have found some common sense, they could have ended the most embarrassing moment in our nation’s history. However, they did not, and for this, they are to blame for the Salem Witch
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