Us versus Them

This weeks topic is us versus them. In the book, the Crucible, there are like factions of the community of Salem that are against each other. There could be many types of groupings. You could say that there are four groups, the accusers, the judges, the neutral, and the accused. The accusers would be the girls, the Putnams, and anyone else accusing people of being witches. The judges would be Danforth and maybe Parris. The neutral people would be Reverend Hale, all the other people who didn't live in Salem, and maybe Parris. The accused would be Rebecca Nurse, the Proctors, Corey, and all the others.

The accusers obviously want the accused dead. Each accuser has a different reason. The Putnams want Corey and Rebecca Nurse dead because they want Corey's land and they accuse Goody Nurse for being the reason that so many of their children died. The girls and Tituba shouted out who they wanted dead, and there were a lot including Goody Osbourn and Goody Nurse. The book doesn't give a reason for the girls wanting them dead. My idea is that the women did not like the girls in the first place. Parris, who is a important religious figure, thinks children should be obedient and grateful, so the women probably thought that too and openly expressed it. However, the girls could not do anything about that because they would get in trouble, so this is like a way to get payback on them. The case could also be like Anne Putnam's, where she accused some people for her family.

Today, we would think that all of these reasons would be terrible grounds for murder, so why did these people kill for this? Salem was a very religious town. You could not lie; you could not steal; and showing hate was probably looked down upon. Being Puritans, they probably did not express their hate and kept it hidden. So the anger probably build up over the years and got to this extreme. An example for the girls was that they had to be orderly and obedient there whole lifes. Now they had power and could do anything they wanted. They could scream and blame it on witchcraft. They could take revenge and blame it on witchcraft. So, like I said before, they had power and some people who gain too much power become dictators. Most dictators will kill anyone that opposes them or that they just don't like, which is what the girls did.