The Crucible Group

Topic: the theme for the essay is law and justice are not the same thing.

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1

mar3n

. we have to write abt how this is shown in the play and in modern times... 

any examples???

2

I can't really help you with the play, but if you think about it, there are a lot of instances in modern times where you can see laws that are unjust.  Take, for example, the fact that penalties for possession of crack cocaine are way higher than those for powder cocaine.  Both drugs are destructive, but one is punished way more harshly than the other.  So what's just about that?

Another example, not from the US, is the fact that the laws of Saudi Arabia do not allow women to drive.  Is that just?

So the point that you can make is that laws tend to be made by people with power.  What they see as good may not always seem good or just to most people.

I can't give you examples from the play, but I do know that Tituba, for example, is in a powerless position -- she's both non-white and a woman.  The laws end up getting her, right?

3

I think that the topic is driven by the idea that justice is seen as an idyll to which all social orders strive.  The law is the vehicle that help deliver societies to the realm of justice.  The challenge, as presented in Miller's work, is what happens if the vehicle is usurped by those who do not have the selfless aim of justice in mind.  Instead, these individuals are "driving under the influence" of personal agenda and the consolidation of power.  Indeed, in these situations justice and the law are very different, for the latter becomes subject to the whims of individuals.  The previous post does a stellar job of pointing this out in terms of disproportionate sentencing for drug use and abuse.  Miller is suggesting that if the law falls into the wrong hands, when there is no institutional checks against abuse of power, then justice is in fact denied, even if the legal system says it to be delivered.  I would examine how the inauthenticity of the trials in Salem prove this.

4

jhig
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