Essay On Aids In The Crucible

Dishonest Salem and The AIDS Epidemic
Marty Rubin, a gay activist and journalist, once said “We forget more than we remember, we assume more than we know.” We, as people, may forget our moral standards and assume what others are like. Both The Crucible written by Arthur Miller and the AIDS epidemic share some commonalities though there are some differences between the two.
“Hysteria is an overwhelming fear and excitement that overrides all logic, and is often enhanced and intensified by the presence of others who are acting out on that fear” (Campbell). The play The Crucible takes place in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. The story is centered around a group of girls who terrorized their neighbors by accusing them of witchcraft. One of the girls in the group is named Abigail. Her straitlaced uncle, Reverend
Parris, saw the Abigail and her friends dancing in the woods. Back then, the forest was symbolic of evil. Many believed this was where the devil resided.. Dancing was also frowned upon because of Puritan values. The girls’ fractious actions lead to accusations that they were witches. The ones who were accused of being involved in witchcraft were hanged unless they confessed. To survive, the girls confessed and blamed others for the alleged “witchcraft.” Hysteria played a role in The Crucible because every time the girls would accuse someone in court, they would act like they were being controlled by the innocent victim (Miller). Violating mores was a heinous crime to the Puritans in the 17th century. Punishments included jail time or be hanging. In 1981 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered a new disease that attacked the immune system. Years later it had spread across the entire globe. Currently, AIDS has taken over twenty million lives and it is still rising (“AIDS Epidemic”).
The actions in The Crucible and from the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s differ greatly. When AIDS was first discovered, many people associated this disease with homosexuals because the majority of people who contracted the disease were a part of the LGBTQ community. Furthermore, no one really had a complete understanding on how it was transferred from one person to the other. If a person knew that another was a sufferer of AIDS, his or her immediate reaction would be to stay away from them. Many times this isolated the person from his or her community. The account of a sixty year old gay man details what he along with his friends and family did to help with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. He had a large circle of friends before the epidemic became a huge problem. It didn’t surprise him that a couple of his friends died each month because of AIDS. There was no cure for AIDS, and there still isn’t one today. This, however, did not stop many from supporting those with AIDS. AIDS activists formed support groups for those who have contracted the disease. These support groups helped feed , dress, and bathe them. They also held memorial services, but didn’t get the proper time to grieve because once they held the memorial service for one friend They were preoccupied preparing for another memorial in a couple of days (Morgan). Unlike the actions the people had from AIDS, in The Crucible the characters didn’t mourn the death of the victims. They encouraged the death of the people accused of witchcraft. They also didn’t have a complete understanding of the issue. Instead of figuring out ways to help treat it, they wanted to kill the accused to get rid of the evil spirits. In the play, Giles Corey had accidently associated his wife with witchcraft because she was reading strange books that prevented him from praying. He wasn’t trying to get her sent to jail on purpose; he mentioned something unsettling at the wrong time. The rest of the town was quick to assume that Martha Corey, Giles Corey’s wife, was a witch. They killed Martha because she was a seen as a witch (Miller 3.70-73). No one mourned her death because the town thought that she was evil. Salem scourged the ones they thought were witches.
Victims are treated differently in The Crucible than those of AIDS.
The victims in The Crucible were all innocent. This was a terrible thing because tons of people were being punished and hanged for no good reason. Innocent people were being castigated by the rest of the town because of one assumption. Many children became orphans because their parents were in jail or hanged Their livestock was roaming around the town because no one was around to take care of them (Miller). People with AIDS tend to get sick, then feel better, and repeat several times a day. The victims of AIDS were not innocent, they are going to live with it their entire lives. The people's reactions toward AIDS victims today is totally different from 30 years ago. In the past, if someone was gay others would assume he or she had AIDS. Now, people understand what AIDS is for the most part and can tell that there is no chance to contract the disease from just physical touch. Both victims are different because in The Crucible, the people are falsely accused of being a witch, and the victims of AIDS live with the disease and people around them subconsciously fearing they will contract it
somehow.
The outcome of both events are very different from each other. In The Crucible 19 people in Salem died for being involved in witchcraft. This had a great impact on the rest of the citizens in Salem. Towards the end of the play, the people of Salem started to understand the cruelty and scathing of their actions. The court was afraid of the backlash they would get for punishing innocent people. “Andover have thrown out the court, they say, and will have no part of witchcraft. There be a faction here, feeding on that news, and I tell you true, sir, I fear there will be riot” (Miller 4.179-183). Parris feared that they would not be able to withstand the insurgents and the court will fall, and Parris’ reputation will fall with it. The death toll from AIDS is much higher than that of the Salem witch trials. Almost forty million people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS (“AIDS Epidemic”). It didn’t take long to realize that the disease was not contracted from touching or sneezing on someone.
There are more differences than commonalities between Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and the AIDS epidemic. Assumptions are what drive both of these events, and it leads to conflict. The Crucible and the AIDS epidemic both share some commonalities and have some differences.