preview

Analysis Of Arthur Miller 's ' The Crucible '

Good Essays

A.P. English Language
August 11, 2014

Novel Analysis Assignment
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Plot and Conflict At its core, The Crucible is a chilling depiction of a community engulfed by hysteria. A fanatically religious community in Salem, Massachusetts becomes embroiled in a witch-hunt initiated by a group of adolescent girls. At the start of the play, Reverend Parris finds his teenage daughter, Betty Parris, “sick” in bed after she, along with his niece Abigail, his slave Tituba, and a few other town girls, is discovered dancing, mixing potions, and singing strange songs in the forest. As talks of witchcraft sweep through the town, people soon suspect that hidden witches have cursed the girls, and the girls support the rumors by claiming to have been possessed by Satan’s servant, Tituba, in hopes of shifting blame from themselves. This sets off a chain of accusations around town and the girls drag others into the chicanery—including Elizabeth Proctor, the object of Abigail’s selfish vengeance. Elizabeth’s predicament forces John Proctor to confront his adulterous past with Abigail, leading to the novel’s main conflict between Proctor’s desire to maintain his integrity and his instinct to survive. To save his wife and reveal the girls’ fraudulent acts in court, Proctor confesses his relationship with Abigail, but the hysteria caused by witch-hunting had already risen beyond logical reasoning. The climax is reached when Proctor is accused of being a witch and must

Get Access