Here is my recommended song for this post.

So we have no reached the final post in the trilogy. For this last post I’m going to be reflecting on the play and talking about my favourite scene/event of the play.

We have finished reding The Crucible. I found the play a bit of a dry read overall but it touched on some very unique points and ideas on injustice, community and revenge.

For those who don’t know the play it takes place in the 1600s when Puritans were the majority of the settlers in North America. The story takes place and illustrates the Salem Witch Trials.

My favourite scene/event from the play that I think shows some of the meaning behind the play was at the end of Act 1. In Act 1 we learned that a group of teenage girls living in Salem had been dancing in the woods and doing things which, at those times, could have been deemed witchcraft. One of the girls “falls ill” and some of the truth comes out in discussion between the adults and some select girls. At the very end of the scene there is a “Witch-Hunter”, who arrived to the town earlier after being summoned, who was asking and inquiring about what the girls were doing. During the discussion the “Witch-Hunter”, named Hale, was questioning the household slave who was present and was said to have lead the activities. The slave began talking about how the devil had taken her and told her to do bad things. Then she mentioned that other people were with the devil and she then starts listing names. Then the girls present join in and start listing names of women in the village. It turned out to be like a bunch of wolves howling at the moon.

This event was one of the big points in the play because it showcases how fast people are to shift blame onto others when they are the ones at fault. It shows that the community suppressed individual freedom in the fact that the punishment must be so severe that the girls had to shift the blame so they did not receive it. Also, throughout the rest of the play there is an underlying tone of revenge in some characters for what can be seen as petty things, like someone chopping down a tree or a property disput over a small piece of land. It all comes out at this event for the first time in the play. The girls list off names whom they don’t like for whatever reason thus putting them to blame for the “devilish” actions that occurred.

That graphic above I created using Comic Life to depict what the scene brings to mind when I read it and the way that links wolves howling at the moon to the girls screaming out names. Almost like a battlecry or the beginning of deadly events. (Wolves hunting and the beginning of hangings)