The Crucible
What creative ways we humans invent for persecuting each other. Isn't it
amazing that despite all our scientific and humanitarian advances we, as a race,
still feel the need to persecute each other?
The Crucible is set in Salem, Massachusetts during the famous witch hunt
held there in the late seventeenth century, but it was written in the United States
during the famous witch hunt held there in the 1950s. Isn't it simply astounding
how similar these events are? They are incomprehensible in their simplicity, if
you dislike your neighbor then you accuse them of being a witch (or a
communist). You would have thought that through two hundred and fifty years of
developing our democratic government and eliminating the scourge of Christian
religion(sorry...) from our governmental system that we could have avoided
another witch hunt, but of course being human we could not.
The ultimate message in The Crucible seems missed by the masses, we
still blindly accuse others of pseudo-crimes, and follow wholeheartedly and
blindly, when others accuse. Is it perhaps simple human nature to fear and hate
that which we do not know? Is the human race, as a whole, really this close to
the swamps and oceans from which we pulled ourselves? Has evolution really
just played some sort of immense prank on us, bestowing upon us the gifts of
reason and judgment, but blurring them with prejudice and blind hatred? (Too
many question...Not enough answers... Isn't that always the case?)
The Crucible is an incredible book, through the medium of a historical
event it manages to shine a light into the cold, dark, depths of human existence.
Anyone who is willing to put forth the time to read and truly understand is in for
quite a shock, the truth.
As for recommending this to my school's reading list, I cry out, "Yes!", let
them read it. However, the content of the book would probably be questionable,
for it deals with the ugly truth, something not very popular in school. The Crucible
would probably be acceptable because it does not portray the Salem witch trials
in a particularly "graphic" way. (However, I still stand by my proposition that the
truth is disliked in school)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, although as always I found all the
different characters hard to follow in play form. I think it's because I have a
tendency to skip over the name of who is speaking and jump right to the dialog,
thereby missing quite a bit of information.
|