Walking the Wall

I had picked up The Crucible by Arthur Miller this summer at a library sale, and it is well worth the .50 cents I paid for it and then some. The introduction itself, written by Christopher Bigsby, was almost as interesting as the play, the first line reads, "In 1692 nineteen men and women and two dogs were convicted and hanged for witchcraft…" Many, many more had their lives ruined by accusations, forced confessions, and the general insanity of the time. He wrote, "The question is not the reality of witches but the power of authority to define the nature of the real, and the desire, on the part of individuals and the state, to identify those whose purging will relieve a sense of anxiety and guilt" (xi). Another place: "The purity of one’s religious principles is confirmed by collaborating, at least by proxy, in the punishment of those who reject them" (xvii). Very interesting reading this account of the trials in 1692 and think about them in terms of the McCarthyism period it was written about of the 1950s–and has much to teach about issues even in the year 2006. People always have a need to make someone else the "other" in order to try and bolster their self image and sometimes the effects can be terrifying.