Aristotle once said: “Men are more influenced by fear than by respect. » It is generally recognized that fear is a motivating factor in a given situation. This is evident in many real-life situations such as the Red Scare or the Salem Witch Trials of 1962. Arthur Miller was a playwright victim of McCarthyism in the Second Red Scare who recounted his experience at the Salem Witch Trials. He was oppressed because he had communist sympathies. In the midst of this oppression, he looked into the Salem witch trials and saw similarities to the Red Scare. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller shows his belief that humanity is driven by fear and self-preservation, which often leads people to abandon their morality. One of the driving fears that comes up quite often in The Crucible is the fear of a bad reputation. People fear that others will think badly of them and will often act to avoid being seen as "different" or bad by others, regardless of their morals. An example of this is Reverend Parris when he speaks to Abigail after Betty falls ill: "But if you trafficked in spirits in the forest, I must know it now, for my enemies will surely know it, and they will ruin me with it that” (10). . Parris saw the girls attempting witchcraft in the woods, but as the play progresses he says nothing about it for fear that his enemies will ruin him and take away his reputation as a minister. If he had admitted that his family was involved, far fewer people would have died. He knew it, but he continued to hide the truth to protect himself. This also comes up when Reverend Hale speaks with John Proctor about the trials. Proctor asks Hale if he thinks that perhaps the reason so many people confess to their witchcraft is because they will be hanged if they are in the middle of a paper... and quite often in places like the Ghana. Often, the belief in witchcraft is deeply rooted in society and witches are believed to curse and kill people purely for entertainment purposes. This causes fear of being cursed or killed by a witch, and ultimately leads to trials without any proper evidence as well as people torturing or killing the accused. Fear of witchcraft causes these people to abandon their morals and kill or seriously injure anyone who has even the slightest possibility of posing a threat to them. People will do anything to prevent their fears from becoming reality and to save themselves. Maybe it's just a natural instinct: "survival of the fittest." Or maybe it's something darker, something that drives us to hurt others out of trivial fear. The human mind is full of complexities, and Arthur Miller tells it simply..