Welcome to English III. This is our blog spot. Here we will share our feelings and ideas about the works we are studying. I encourage you to be honest, but I EXPECT you to be mature and respectful.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
According to the Playwright
Read the essay on the following link. Then, comment on what you believe to be the point of the essay. Cite a line that you think really shows the focus of the essay. (The deadline to post a response to this blog question is midnight Wednesday, February 23, 2011). http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/miller-mccarthyism.html
I think that the focus of this essay is to be a lasting reminder to humans that we should never allow our fears to overcome our rationality. We as a race needs to reflect upon our actions and evaluate our sanity. Humanity must stop episodes of distrust and suspicion before it reaches the bounds of ludicrous zealotry. This pattern used in the red hunt and the witch hunts, of using a possible culprit to find even culprits that are even less probable without any proof of a crime having even occurred, is sheer idiocy. This panic can only be called, as Arthur Miller said," a built-in pestilence in the human mind: a fatality forever awaiting the right conditions for its always unique, forever unprecedented outbreak of distrust, alarm,suspicion, and murder." His message is that we must not allow ourselves to become so wrapped up in the thrill of the controversy and the accusation that we cannot look back and say," Wait, what are we doing? These people have done nothing wrong, what were we thinking?"
I believe that the focus of this essay is to show people that humans can be easily scared and persuaded. Yet, if they are left without taking into account their own sanity are doomed to repeat the most terrible eras in history. The line I choose was towards the end of the essay. It stated "Where ever the play is preformed on any five continents, there is always a certain amazement the the same terror that is happening to them or that is threatening them, has happened before to others". This line I feel best describes the main focus of the essay. This line opens our eyes towards if we do not learn from the past we will become our own demise.
I believe the essay was used to enlighten people of his reason behind writing The Crucible. He felt that his ideals of seeing the nature of humans following the "band-wagon". He speaks of war that humans declare physically and mentally. When he states "I refer to the anti-communist rage that threatened to reach hysterical proportions and sometimes did" he opens with the main idea that humans have made this error countless times in history. Although the play was on the Salem Witchcraft Trails he based his writings on the anti-communist rage that he encountered in America. The Crucible was written, and plainly seen through the essay, to transform how people viewed on another and learn to question not only the accused but the accuser.
3 comments:
I think that the focus of this essay is to be a lasting reminder to humans that we should never allow our fears to overcome our rationality. We as a race needs to reflect upon our actions and evaluate our sanity. Humanity must stop episodes of distrust and suspicion before it reaches the bounds of ludicrous zealotry. This pattern used in the red hunt and the witch hunts, of using a possible culprit to find even culprits that are even less probable without any proof of a crime having even occurred, is sheer idiocy. This panic can only be called, as Arthur Miller said," a built-in pestilence in the human mind: a fatality forever awaiting the right conditions for its always unique, forever unprecedented outbreak of distrust, alarm,suspicion, and murder." His message is that we must not allow ourselves to become so wrapped up in the thrill of the controversy and the accusation that we cannot look back and say," Wait, what are we doing? These people have done nothing wrong, what were we thinking?"
I believe that the focus of this essay is to show people that humans can be easily scared and persuaded. Yet, if they are left without taking into account their own sanity are doomed to repeat the most terrible eras in history. The line I choose was towards the end of the essay. It stated "Where ever the play is preformed on any five continents, there is always a certain amazement the the same terror that is happening to them or that is threatening them, has happened before to others". This line I feel best describes the main focus of the essay. This line opens our eyes towards if we do not learn from the past we will become our own demise.
I believe the essay was used to enlighten people of his reason behind writing The Crucible. He felt that his ideals of seeing the nature of humans following the "band-wagon". He speaks of war that humans declare physically and mentally. When he states "I refer to the anti-communist rage that threatened to reach hysterical proportions and sometimes did" he opens with the main idea that humans have made this error countless times in history. Although the play was on the Salem Witchcraft Trails he based his writings on the anti-communist rage that he encountered in America. The Crucible was written, and plainly seen through the essay, to transform how people viewed on another and learn to question not only the accused but the accuser.
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