Hey guys, I'm aware this essay is a little long but any form of advice and feedback would be much appreciated
Prompt: “It is alright, Anna,” she whispered. You can breathe, there is air. You must school your mind and not let fears be your master” Brooks and Miller reflect on the powerful notion of fear and how it affects both individuals and society. Discuss.
Geraldine Brooks and Arthur Miller reveal the varying consequences on both individuals and society as fear is introduced to a community in their novels “Year of Wonders” and “The Crucible”. Both authors illustrate the courage of individuals amidst a community whose culture had become deep panick and irrational. This representation of tenacity is reflected through characters Elinor and Anna in Brook’s speculative fiction as they brave “terrors” and “horrors” in the pursuit of enhancing the towns prospects for survival. Miller portrays the powerful dynamic which can be established between women, even when confined to a male-dominated society such the likes of Purtian ruled Eyam. Alternatively, the detrimental effects which hysteria can inflict on society is demonstrated through the role of religion in “The Crucible” as Miller connotes the comparison of Salem’s corrupt nature to Mccarthyism, the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. This can be contrasted with Brooks more favourable depictions of religion as Eyam’s resolve is considerably tied with their remaining faith in God and His “mercy”.
While blind faith to religion lends impetus to Salem’s dismantling social order, religion becomes the crux of Eyam’s surviving hope and control. When the Plague first enters Eyam’s walls, and panic begins to set into the community, villagers continuously seek refuge in church and prayer. It is their agreement to quarantine themselves and “let the boundaries of [the] village become [their] whole world” that gives villagers the resolve to brave the decimating Plague. Mompellion’s inspiring sermon sparks courage into villagers as “the rector’s words penetrated [their] understanding”, “carrying [them] away into a strange ecstasy”. Brooks is underpinning the powerful influence which religion can possess over fear; how their belief that the “gift” of the Plague, and all its “boils and its blains and its great carbuncles” has given them an opportunity to “emulate [their] Blessed Lord”, and through there suffering of “Grim Death” are then able to “carry away [the] riches”. While Mompellion wishes to clear thoughts that the “Plague is [brought] because [they] have earned it in [their] sinning”, Salem residents embrace this ideology. In further contrast, Miller elucidates how Salem’s more zealous principles led to the inevitable “perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes” where villagers were “whipped for dancin’” and in the case of Giles Corey, placed “great stones… on [their] chest until they plead aye or nay” to a crime with no proof that they committed. This intense loyalty towards their Christian creed helps pave the path towards “social disorder” and the mass hysteria which overcomes Salem as the judgement of a person’s character rests on their devotion to the Puritan religion. Miller highlights that this information is not lost on Salem villagers, as the succession of accusations are in large part attributed to “swear[ing] to anything before they'll hang” for the “invisible” crime of witchcraft. This fear of death by the noose is what sets the chaos that causes the inordinate persecution of hundreds, and Miller brings an emphasis to the corrupt nature of Salem’s judicial system as official judges fail to heed the pleas that they “take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.” Through this, Miller condemns authoritarian judicial systems which neglect true evidence, the Salem witch-trials being an imitation for the Mccarthyism which Miller himself was victim to.
Both Brooks and Miller, in their respective texts, demonstrate the opposing human responses to fear; to brave its pressures and evolve as a person, or succumb and lose both rationale and their principles in the process. The most distinct portrayal of perseverance through hardship is the powerful dynamic between Elinor and Anna in Year of Wonders. Brooks traces Anna’s uncertain journey from the “timid” and obedient housemaid who was “ruled..by people [she] loathed”, with the women who “had faced more terrors than many warriors”, and had become an independent woman at the novel’s closure. Elinor Mompellion is in large part responsible for Anna’s considerable growth, as she ‘shovel[ed]] knowledge [Anna’s] way”, replacing the vacant mother role to Anna by “making herself indispensable in any number of ways”. The powerful relationship which develops between these two women is pivotal in their ability to face the “King of Terrors that marches at [their] heels”. Not only does their newfound bravery allow them to “not let [their] fears be [their] master”, the realisation that their “lives hang by a thread”, that even if they were “spared today, [they] may well be felled by Plague on the morrow’,this empowers them in a way which life prior to the “Grim Death” brought on by the Plague ever could. In a similar vein, when chaos governs the town of Salem, and hysteria is rife, John Proctor and Reverend Hale endanger their safety as they resist giving in to the frenzy which holds Salem. As ignorant accusations of witchcraft and allegations of “loose spirits” run “all about” Salem, villagers on the receiving end of these rumours are faced with the choice to either resist the “lies”, or give into them for their own ratified survival. John Proctor and Reverend Hale fight for the truth as they attempt to reveal to the Salem court that Abigail’s torrent of accusations were only a “whores vengeance”, simply a child’s dream to “dance with [John Proctor] on [his] wife’s grave”. Ultimately, their principles conflict with strict Puritan doctrine, and John Proctor finds himself confronted with the choice of “trad[ing] [his] life for a lie”. Still, Proctor remains resolute in his decision to not perpetuate the lies propagating within Salem.
As Eyam’s faith in the puritan religion begins to deteriorate and panic heightens in counterpoint to the rising number of dead, individuals and collective groups’ creed deviates towards more extreme, and superstitious ideologies. Brooks traces the villagers’ waning faith as Mompellion desperately tries to preach that they must “suffer” through the “trials” manifest of the bubonic plague, that they “accept this gift” of “venom in the blood”. For a time, Mompellion succeeds, having persuaded the villagers that their suffering is endured for a gallant and holy cause. Yet, through the increasing tension which constricts Eyam society, Brooks demonstrates how the villagers growing fear that the arrival of the plague stems from sinister causes drives them towards “evil-doubting of one another”, murder and self-mutilation. This widespread irrationality which brews within Eyam is most predominantly emulated by the town’s steadfast acceptance of witchcraft. Brooks’ villagers are quick to blindly proclaim that the Gowdies’ “malice has brought Plague” amongst Eyam, compelling them to “bring the crime of murder” based on the claim that Anys and Mem “lay with Satan”. Brooks is emphasising the inevitability of Eyam’s downfall, considerably as a result of their Puritan traditions and beliefs being sorely tested. Likewise, as fear is introduced to the tight-knit community of Salem, irrationality is quick to propagate and cloud the judgement of Salem residents in the form of gross accusations built upon religious superstitions. While the inflicted onslaught was unleashed due to the suppression of unregulated emotions, as opposed to the infectious bubonic plague, the villagers of Salem, too, abuse the notion of witchcraft to exercise the full “force of their frustrations”. Miller is illustrating through the “rumours of witchcraft” that run “all about Salem” that fear drives people to lash out towards the most accessible outlet, in this case being the accusations of witchcraft. Nearing the conclusion of Brooks novel, however, she also underscores individuals self-destructive behaviour as a sense of futility arises. This is illuminated through the first Eyam flagellant, John Gordan, as “fear.. led him upon the queerest path” which entailed using a scourge to “strike himself’, until skin “caught and tore away.. flesh.”
Brooks’ ‘Year of Wonders’ and Millers’ ‘The Crucible’ are texts exploring the harrowing relationship between the cultivation of hysteria and Puritan superstitions. Both works expose the inevitability of each town’s downfall, as religious superstition becomes catalyst to unfounded accusations, and in several cases, murder. Brook’s and Miller’s forward portrayal of adverse religious beliefs are a means to condemn religious superstitions that oppress the freedoms and actions of individuals and classes.
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