A Comparison of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and "The West Memphis Three"

Essay by undrthstrsHigh School, 11th gradeA, November 2007

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Unjust Justice Systems;A comparison of the West Memphis Three and The CrucibleImagine sitting at home one night and having police officers show up at your hose and arrest you for a crime you had no idea was committed. Three teenage boys in West Memphis, Arkansas and over thirty-nine characters in The Crucible went through exactly that. The West memphis three is the trial of three teenage boys who were charged with killing two eight-year-old oys in the woods and leading a hate group. The trial portrayed in The Crucible are based on the real life Salem Witch Trials, the accused in the play were charged with witchcraft. Evidence in both cases was insufficient and mostly eye witnessed. Both crimes committed were abstract and referred to as the devil’s work. All accused in both trials were doomed from the beginning. In The Crucible to save oneself if accused one must confess to something they didn’t do and then name people that did do it, basically if they wanted to live thy had to lie and accuse other innocent people.

The West Memphis three had to go through the court system with corrupt people lying and no way to prove themselves innocent.

Arthur Miller portrayed the evidence in The Crucible as only eye witness accounts and petty reasoning, such as the ability to fake a faint. The characters that danced in the woods were considered reliable and what they said was all that was needed to convict the people of witchcraft. In the real life accounts of the West Memphis three, the evidence used against the teenagers were black Metallica shirts, the confession that didn’t match the incident, and peers that told the police that they overheard one of the teenagers say they were going to kill two boys. The peers’ story...