C. Han
Mr. Curington
AP English 3
27 February 2009
The Critique Harlem Renaissance Essay
Between February 1692 and May 1693, over one hundred fifty people were arrested and imprisoned and nineteen of the accused were hanged as the results of the Salem witchcraft trials in the small parish of Salem Village, Massachusetts. The exterior surface of this horrifying event seems like, it is motivated by strong Puritan believers who tried to stop the spread of evil spirit. But as going to the inside, people realize that the real motivation was the imprudent decisions and the dark greed made by people, and they begin to doubt about the Puritanism. After few generations, two legendary American writers, Arthur Miller and Nathaniel Hawthorne begin to express their idea on the Puritan theology. Arthur Miller criticizes the Puritan beliefs by describing the hypocrite characters and McCarthyism in The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthorne criticizes the Puritan theology by the characters’ behaviors and symbolizing one’s sin as a black veil in “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
Arthur Miller criticizes the Puritan beliefs and ideology by opposing their main belief and the ideology in his writing. In World News Digest Encyclopedia, it is clearly stated that the central belief of the Puritans include the absolute sovereignty of God and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. But through the Salem witchcraft trials, he begins to believe that the actions taken by Puritans can’t be justified by either faith or God because the true reason for the witchcraft trials was to satisfy each individual’s own greed and desire. As a result, Arthur Miller begins to write about the Salem witch craft trials based on both facts and his opposing opinions.
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller indirectly states the Puritan characters as hypocrites of God in order to criticize the Puritan theology. The characters in his writing can be divided into two main groups: the accused and the...