preview

Analysis Of The Crucible

Decent Essays
Open Document

The play The Crucible, was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It is a story he wrote after his own experience being accused of communism. This affected a lot of well-known people in the United States during this time, and was considered a witch hunt similar to the Salem witch hunts. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible about a man, John Proctor, who has an affair with Abigail Williams. She catches feelings for him and tries to cast a spell on John Proctor’s wife to kill her; this gets out of hand when Abigail’s uncle catches her and some other girls dancing during the spell in the woods. Suddenly, the whole town is living in fear of who is practicing witchcraft, who could be a witch, and innocent people are killed if they don’t confess to being witches. Overall, mass fear and panic, and false accusations are seen over and over throughout the play. The theme one could say in the play is, believing and spreading false accusations can be life threatening. In The Crucible, this happened quite often as people who had no relation to Abigail’s spell in the woods were accused of witchcraft. If they refused to confess to practicing witchcraft, they would be killed. If they confessed to practicing witchcraft, (even if it wasn’t true), they would be jailed and have their lives saved, but their reputations ruined forever. I think the author, Arthur Miller, is trying to teach readers and viewers a lesson that even innocent people can be accused of crimes they did not commit and to not believe everything we hear when people are panicking and are in fear. Abigail Williams is a prime example of spreading false accusations, even early on in the play when she falsely blames Tituba for everything Abigail says,“She made me do it! She made Betty do it! She makes me drink blood!”(23). In Salem, everyone was panicked and spreading rumors out of fear, and falsely accusing people of witchcraft, even unexpected people, like John Proctor’s maid, Mary Warren when she turned on him to save herself and said to him in court, “Don’t touch me - don’t touch me … you’re the Devil’s man!” (52). This betrayal and false accusation is what eventually causes Proctor to give up his fight. This is similar to what Arthur Miller lived through with people

Get Access