How Envy Drives Unfair Judgment: Comparing The Crucible (Drama) and The Dressmaker (Novel) Forest Lin 12th Grade

In Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and Rosalie Ham's "The Dressmaker", an unbalanced power distribution stemming from an unjust social hierarchy causes much jealousy displayed amongst the citizens of Salem and Dungatar, influencing their judgements on other individuals. The 17th century Puritan collective of Salem, fraught with economic disparity, are blinded by a desire for money and the power that it brings in their flawed hierarchy, unfairly judging and accusing individuals in order to achieve monetary gain. The rural Australian town of Dungatar, despite being set 300 years later, have the same socioeconomic inequities in their society, with the richer and more influential population still envious over the poorer collective, oppressing them to satisfy the greed for wealth. Both Miller and Ham similarly explore the dangers of an unfair patriarchal system in communities as well, exposing the capacity for this oppression to cause women to be envious of one another, influencing their judgements and ideas as a whole. Miller and Ham analogously highlight the capacity for an individual with a lower social status to eventually despise their lack of influence enough to seek revenge on the collective which mistreated them, which can be...