Arthur Miller 's The Crucible

Characters die left and right, making it difficult to know the truth. Neighbors turned against neighbors, acquaintances became enemies when events on witchcraft could not be explained. Accusations turned into an intense witch hunt for witches who did not even exist. John Proctor faced many decisions to try to save his life. Thus, responding with his moral dilemma. One of the hardships Proctor encountered is if he should decide to reveal his affair with the 17 year old, Abigail WIlliams, and thereby admit to committing adultery. By admitting the crime, he not only faces the court and being put into jail for convicting the crime, but he also will reveal weakness in his character and destroy his good reputation in the town. Proctor must decide to risk his status and overcome his

The Crucible, a novel/play by Arthur Miller displays the chaos of the witch trials within the small town of Salem, Mass. Of the many characters of the novel, John Proctor and Mary Warren are both characters that serve an importance to the novel. The two characters both interact in the stories in different ways. Even though both characters can be seen as minor characters because of their inferior power in the novel, Proctor and Mary Warren serve as important characters to the story line. One reason being the fact that they both bring about problems with and/or against antagonist Abigail Williams such as Mary Warren, who likes the feeling of have authority but gets into unwanted conflict often, and Proctor, who is an very aggressive person

Purist Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 suffered from a rapidly increasing phenomenon: witchcraft accusations and trials. The Crucible is a play that recounts the times of this incident. For the most part, it follows a man known as John Proctor. He is a sensible, honest, and hardworking man who made the mistake of succumbing to lust which sets off a chain of events that leads to the witch trials, and to his own demise. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible’s protagonist John Proctor proves to be a flawed human being who struggles to make sense of his past relationship with Abigail, his love for his wife, and his pride.

Proctor produces a self-inflicted wound, which, only enlarges as Abigail’s jealousy of his wife, Elizabeth, increases. After Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor 's wife, is taken away by Cheever, the lawman, Proctor has a revelation, which entails, exposing Abigail`s lies with Mary Warren’s testimony. But when Abigail’s and her posse accuse Mary Warren of witchery he soon comprehends that a confession of his adulterous ways

1."Participate" in the Salem Witch Trials. Write a paragraph response, as the accused, describing your feelings.

Page 1 of 3Hai Nguyen John Proctor and the McCarthyism “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller illustrates the reflection of the anti-communist hysteria in the United States known as McCarthyism. Miller uses the character John Proctor as a force in demonstrating the way lives were destroyed by McCarthyism. Throughout the story, while Proctor is respected in the community, he has conflict secretly with many people as well as himself. John Proctor is a perfect character because the readers are able to view him as a victim in the society where McCarthyism took place. He is also an adulterer, husband of Elizabeth, and knows what is happening in and outside of the Salem society. Proctor was having a conflict with his wife, Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth did not trust John because he had an affair with Abigail Williams. Elizabeth was supposed to trust John, but she refused to because he said he was alone with Abigail for a moment. John cannot say or argue against Elizabeth because of his guilt:” Because it speaks deceit, and I am honest! But I will plead no more! I see how your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!” Elizabeth tried to make John feel guilt, so John wanted to make sure she understood her cold nature may have prompted his cheating. He also has conflict with Abigail Williams which is his mistress. John Proctor was so angry because Abigail accused his wife to witchcraft. She sent Mary Warren with a puppet that has needle inside its

Authority is the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. In society it has been something you are taught as toddler to respect authority, your elders. There are plenty of rules that as children we follow because it has been enforced in our minds that those are the rules and we must follow them. The rules do not tend to be questioned until someone disobeys them and did not think their actions were wrong. It is then that we being to question authority and resist the majority rule. No matter how unfair the laws of the governments might seem, it does not change the fact that people in society obey them. Henry Thoreau, Stanley Milgram and Martin Luther King have all considered the reasons as to why we obey authority and what the struggles of resisting majority rule may be. As a society there has come times that people themselves disobey the law and even in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the people being to resist authority. Authority may play a major role in society but when people being to come to a realization of the rules that are unjust, they being to resist and protest against them.

A man 's reputation in many forms is his, life’s work. To have your reputation dismantled is like taking away one 's accomplishments and life’s work. Arthur Miller 's The Crucible is a play about justice and injustice, and how our justice system can be easily corrupted. The story revolves around a man named John Proctor, the tragic hero of this story. John Protector is a symbolic character created by Arthur Miller, because he faced the justice system head on. Proctor’s biggest flaw would be his great amounts of pride, which unfortunately led to his own death. In Arthur Millers’ The Crucible, he characterizes John Proctor as the tragic hero of the story because of all that he lost, through his relentless crusade to free his wife and exposing injustice, illustrating that no hero is perfect.

When one conforms to society, it makes the general public and authorities feel as if they have nothing to worry about. The Puritan society had a strict moral code and established a rigid Theocracy to keep ones who would express individual freedom in line. Throughout Arthur Miller’s writing of The Crucible, this Puritan view of panic and freedom is described and hidden behind the Theocracy and what they would call government. In the 16th and 17th century the Puritans believed in not bending their laws, or forgiving errors; if one were to commit a sin he shall keep committing that sin because the fear of admitting flaws came with a cost. The Crucible is set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts; Miller explains,

Teenagers are often treated like children. Adults don’t respect their opinions because they are too young to understand or are too immature. The time period between childhood and adulthood are teenage years. So why do we treat teenagers like children when the teenage years are supposed to prep them for adulthood? However, there are situations were teenagers hold more power than we think. Although these are two completely different genres, The Crucible and the movie, Mean Girls, show how much destruction a group of teenage girls can do. So how could a group of teenage girls, younger than 18, possibly cause so much chaos?

The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. It all started when Reverend Parris discovers a group of girls dancing in the woods. After he found the girls in the wood, his daughter Betty fall ill. Since Betty wouldn’t wake up, people become paranoid and started believing that witchcraft was real. Fake accusations were made and innocent people kept dying. In The Crucible there are many people to blame for all for everything that occurred, characters such a Abigail Williams, Reverend Hale, and Reverend Parris. Abigail Williams is to blame because she accused everyone else just to protect herself. Reverend Hale is also blame because he was the one who got people to think that witchcraft was real. Lastly Reverend Parris is to blame because he was just worried about himself and his reputation in Salem.

Additionally, Proctor demonstrates characteristics which lead to his moral downfall as he attempts to use every possible avenue to circumvent the consequences of his adultery. Proctor manipulates Mary Warren into accusing Abigail of pretending to be afflicted by witchcraft. Proctor informs Judge Danforth that “[Mary] has signed a deposition [stating] that [the girls’ actions] were pretense” and therefore Abigail cannot be trusted (Miller 82). This signifies the reality of Proctor’s moral downfall because he further involves innocent Mary Warren in the trials. Resulting from Proctor’s insistence that Mary speak her mind about Abigail, Mary experiences a series of painful and humiliating events.

“Your reputation and integrity are everything. Follow through on what you say you’re going to do. Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions.” Maria Razumich-Zec put into words the importance that society places on reputation. It has become clear that what other people think of someone is far more important to that individual than what they may know to be true about themselves. In todays society is very rare to find people that are content with what they are, despite what the people surrounding them believe. This notion that in order to be validated there has to be external approval dates back to the seventeenth century and earlier. During the Salem Witch Trials, men and women were killed daily due to the thoughts of others. In Arthur Miller’s Crucible, it is clearly demonstrated that reputation is a huge role in the daily lives of people.

Nature dictates that survival is the key to life, improving one’s own situation is in higher consideration than improving the wellbeing of a mass. Humans are naturally corrupted in such a way that they manipulate events to their own liking and prosperity. In “The Crucible,” written by Arthur Miller, characters in Salem are driven by self-promoting ulterior motives through righteous justification. Consistently, Salemites undermine others in effort to establish self-gain. This dissembling triggers a mass adherence for a selfish cause. Righteous justification for self-promoting ulterior economic or social gains are not only exposed and characterized by Arthur Miller, but are still relevant throughout modern society.

VERYONE KNOWS THAT OUR YOUNG, innocents need to be shielded from the big, bad world that envelops them on a daily basis. But are we taking this bubble wrapping too far? Has our initial need to protect our young become an irrational fear? Does the terror of having a paedophile lurking right outside our homes, roaming our streets eyeing our children escalated to an extent identical to the hysteria in The Crucible about witches? The answer is yes.