The more I read The Crucible, the more I realize it is not about the Salem Witch Trials whatsoever, or about anticommunism. It is about the human nature and the roles of perpetrator and victim. It is about the unity that comes about from false accusations. Most recently, it mirrors something very close to the hearts of Americans: The War on Terror. Through some research, I discovered something shockingly eerie.
In act III of the Crucible, Danforth states, “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there is no road between." Forty-eight years after the play was written and three hundred and nine years after the play took place, our dear President said shockingly similar words. September 20th, 2001 in a press conference George Bush exclaimed, “ Either you are with us or your are with the terrorists.” These mumblings of “you are either with us, or against us" can be seen throughout history and literature, in times of peril.
It is a very polarizing, one-sided view of a situation. It was used by Lenin in communist Russia and Mussolini in fascist Italy. It seems to work magic. People hear these words, and with a strong desire to both belong and not be accused themselves, support the speaker of these words. This two-sided view brings us back to an earlier blog post, B & W. Just as Americans view race in America as black or white, Americans viewed the War on Terrorism. It seems as though in “Perilous Times”, the people’s perspective and open-mindedness is replaced with a black-and-white view of the situation. And this, in itself, is often quite perilous.
No comments:
Post a Comment