In “The Crucible” children’s lies lead to allegations of witchcraft and the breaking up of a community. Why do people lie and what can the consequences be?
The word lie means “a false statement deliberately presented as being true” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, and it’s a very common habit in everyone. When it comes to lying, we can find white and normal lies. White lies are often harmless, whereas normal lies can be dangerous because of the various consequences they might have. In this essay I’m going to present two arguments explaining the reasons why lies are used, which are to protect their reputation or get themselves out of a compromising situation, and to have a motive in order to commit an act of vengeance or violence. Then, I will give four examples regarding the book “The crucible” and modern day events, which I will then compare.
One of the main reasons why people make use of lies is because when they are accused of something that can get them into trouble, the best option at that moment seems to be denying their acts. However, lying can have severe consequences depending on how much you twist the truth when doing it, and even if it doesn’t make much sense, people are actually aware of what can happen later but since they feel there’s no other choice, they lie anyways. A clear example of this can be found in “The crucible” by Arthur Miller, where a group of girls are caught performing witchcraft, and some dancing naked around a fire. In the time of the book, dancing was strictly forbidden and witchcraft was a matter nobody dared to discuss. Therefore, anyone being related to any of these would be punished. The group of girls had a leader who was Reverend Parris’ niece, Abigail, and whose cousin, also in the group, was Betty, Parris’ daughter. They were performing witchcraft in order to get men to fall in love with them, but Abigail threatened the other girls making them lie about their actions so that she wasn’t punished. Even though they could have disobeyed her, telling the truth would have also jeopardized them given that they had as well taken part in the event. This big lie led to several false allegations against many innocent people whose families were torn apart because of the whole scandal, and also ruined important people’s reputations in the society.
An example of modern day would be the Lewinsky scandal which first broke on January 17, 1998, basically involving the then current president Bill Clinton and one of the White house’s employees, Monica Lewinsky. It started as rumors in websites, but people seemed to be very interested since they regarded the nation’s leader. Clinton denied everything a million times as we can see in the following statement: “…I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false…” However, after further investigations, evidence such as recorded tapes and a dress of Lewinsky’s stained with his semen were taken into consideration and it was concluded that President Clinton had indeed, had sexual relations with her. Overwhelmed by accusations and strong proof, Clinton finally admitted on August 17, 1998, to have had an inappropriate physical relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Even though Clinton’s wife forgave him, many people had a new opinion of their president and lost some respect for him.
