Punishment In The Crucible

The blame game is a common game children take place in. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they choose to try and accuse someone else, just to avoid meanile punishment. Despite their claims of being “mature”, adults exhibit this behavior as well, but call it scapegoating. But why do people do such childish things, despite being sensible? Blame shifting is done as a result of people being unable to handle negative repercussions of a situation. A old but well analyzed example is the Salem witch hunts, which are highlighted in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”. In the book, Tituba gets accused of witchcraft, so to lessen her punishment, she claims that two others are also witches (Miller 47). Tituba cared for those around her and didn’t want people to be hurt, but when she was to be hung, things changed. She felt that by accusing others, then the court would solve things out. Thomas Drabeck and Enrico Quarantelli wrote about why people do this. They stated, “... it is felt that punishing [the accused] may bring forth the necessary remedial action”(Drabeck, Quarantelli 146). She felt that she could help, but she
For fear of people’s sweet, good, pure country being contaminated by commies, senator Joseph McCarthy accused 57 people of being communists (Kelley). A country at fear, the crime for being a communist was treason, a major offense. With no evidence to acquit themselves, the accused became the accusers, making their own claims of a hidden communist. This started a mass uproar of neighbor turning on neighbor, with accusation left and right. With all of the anti-Russia and anti-Communism propaganda, being accused of being a communist was just as bad as being Hitler. So the people’s falsified claims of communists were justified by their fear of associated with a malevolent evil and a life of jail. But that was then and this is now, things are different,