Throughout the overture for The Crucible, Arthur Miller presents two main arguments regarding the Salem Witchcraft Trials. First, he claims that the people who prolonged the Trials and led many innocent people to death were not entirely at fault. It is not unlikely that these citizens and leaders were "blindfolded" by the devil and guided to make more out of the goings on in society than there was to be made. In the overture, Miller says "It is not hard to see how easily many could have been led to believe that the time of confusion had been brought upon them by deep and darkling forces." (6) By saying this, he is demonstrating the argument that the people were not necessarily at fault when they truly believed they were being cursed by the devil. The second argument that Arthur Miller presents is that the citizens at the time of the Witchcraft Trials used the Trials as a "scapegoat" to release their personal grievances and grudges into the public. "It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for every-one so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims."(7) Miller also presents that fact that it was not rare for people to accuse their neighbor of witchcraft because they had a personal grudge against him. "Long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly ex-pressed, and vengeance taken, despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions."(7) Arthur Miller presents these two main arguments within his overture in order to lay a foundation on which he will present his play.