Lucy writes about some problems that exist within Puritan society, and she also provides an awesome visual of an excerpt from Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible.
Certain religions find opportunities every moment to blame it on the devil, and they were and still are firm believers in harsh punishment for ‘frivolous’ behavior such as dancing (god forbid! what are you thinking?) and forms of public affection (because it’s obviously more appropriate to ignore the feelings you have for somebody…but learning the Wasserman brush-off could keep you out of trouble!!!).
She makes a very strong point about how evil resides in religion more than anything else. And this idea is very apparent especially in the past, such as the puritan times. Our concept of evil is rooted in our faiths, where we see the devil, and any act that is not “allowed” by God to be evil. Lucy speaks about how people are beginning to realize that evil is a fabricated idea made up by the law keepers in societies to help keep people in line.
Just as people today grapple with all the negatives that the world seems to hand to us, this play highlights how important evil became in the Puritan society after the introduction of witchcraft. As stated above, evil has always been present, but it becomes more obvious sometimes than others.
I agree completely with Lucy, how evil is always present in our world, but it changes to fit into our constantly changing society. The Puritans found evil in their everyday lives with such things as witchcraft, whereas today, we have grown immune to our “everyday evils” and now only recognize evil in massive scale occurrences and examples of extreme hatred, destruction, pain and suffering.
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