Characters of the Crucible in Relation to Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Reasoning

Reverend Parris was a power-hungry minister of a church in Salem. His daughter, Betty Parris was lying in bed, inert and they were sure she was

Reverend Parris is exceedingly acquisitive as evidence by his actions towards the community of Salem. Within Act I Parris’ greedy attitude and selfish motives are brought forward and highlighted throughout stage directions, dialogue of the play, the way others react to him, and his feelings towards Betty. Although the minister of the church, he is disliked and prides himself on his reputation. Parris’ caustic attitude and monetary greed is evident to lead him to his downfall. He describes himself as “...not some preaching farmer with a book under [his] arm; [he is] a graduate of Harvard College” and assumes that the people of the village care about his education status (29).

Kohlberg’s theory is related to how people develop a sense of what is right and wrong. It was influenced by the work of Jean Piaget, on moral reasoning. He classifies the stages into three levels each containing two sublevels. The first level is called the preconventional level of moral development. Children in this level experience the world in the terms of pain or pleasure. Something considered right in this stage would be what feels good to the child. The next level would be the conventional level. This occurs in the teen years where children start to think of right or wrong in terms of what pleases their parents or follows cultural norms. Children at this stage are also learning to assess intention when determining if a situation is right or wrong. “For example, they understand that stealing food to feed one’s hungry children is not the same as stealing an iPod to sell for pocket change.” (Macionis, Pg. 90) The final stage is the postconventional level. People being to consider abstract ethical principle and not just society’s norms.

As stages in psychological development have been defined by Freud, stages in moral development have been outlined by early educators Jean Piaget and Kohlberg, who put forth differing views on the moral development of children. Piaget theorized that children process morals in stages, first one then the next, with a transition in between. The first stage (from ages 4 to about 7) is referred to as “heteronymous morality”, where children think of rules as constants, that is to say, rules are part of the world’s makeup with no input or possibility of change by people. As children progress from seven to ten years of age, they move from one stage to the next, maintaining some of the traits of the

“Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit” (Proverb 12:17). The Bible represented the law of the land in 1600’s Salem. Religion influenced peoples actions and dominated societal norms. Rules set out by the Bible had to be followed because anyone who breaks it gets sentenced to death. When the threat of witchcraft hit the town, mass hysteria questioned peoples character and integrity. The stories are chronicled in Arthur Miller’s book, The Crucible. Marry Warren is introduced as a moral ambiguous character because of her altered involvement in Elizabeth Proctors trial. Arthur Miller, author of The Crucible, provides establishing ethos, commanding logos, and decisive pathos to convey the message of integrity

Before his conversation with Abigail, Reverend Parris noticed a bunch of young girls, including his daughter Betty, and his niece Abigail dancing around a circle “conjuring spirits”. Due to the incident in the forest, rumors started about witchcraft. As a response to the fear of losing his honor, Reverend Parris calls in Hale, a doctor from another town, and also goes along with all the accusations produced of who is a witch in town causing many deaths. Overall, Reverend Parris fears of losing his honorable position in the town as reverend by being connected with

Miller interweaves Proctor's history with Salem's fate. In act I the most important characters introduce themselves when they enter to Parris's house. their rapid coming and going create tension and turmoil. The secret relationship between Proctor and Abigail makes the reader pays heed to another storyline but the bewitchment remains in control. Act II opens in a less tension way than act I. It tackles the relationship between the major couple and comes to climax by the arrest of Elizabeth. Act III is the most complicated of them all for Miller leads to the trial scene by a natural course of events. After the turmoil in the courtroom. Act IV comes with the solution of Proctor's problem through the theme of witchcraft. This proves Miller a skillful dramatist (Foulkes

The Crucible is a powerful and disturbing drama based on a true event in American history: The Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The Salem Witch Trials is about hearings and prosecutions of people who were accused of witchcraft. The play is written by Arthur Miller, who writes about a town minister, Reverend Parris and how he discovers his daughter Betty, niece Abigail, and other girls dancing in the forest with his slave Tituba. Betty faints in fright at being discovered, and will not wake up. Multiple people insist it is witchcraft, but, is it really? Abigail William, Parris’ niece, is the key character as to why they ended up the way they did, she is motivated through greediness and social status, causing her to react with extreme and irrational tactics; along with accusing people as an act of selfishness, and doing anything in order to not gain a bad reputation. She is the source of everything that goes wrong in the play, and the attempts to defend herself from the consequences of her own actions, end up ruining many people's lives.

Cleansing the village of witches is something that he is passionate about, but it is obvious that advancing his reputation and career is more important to him. He uses his power to set a fear within the people of Salem. He states, ”Near to four hundred are in the jails from Marblehead to Lynn, and upon my signature...and seventy-two condemned to hang by that signature" (Act 3, Page 90). Danforth states the amount of death warrants he has signed as a warning to the people to be aware of what he is capable of. He uses his job of hanging innocent people as a way to deem himself powerful.

The second level of Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral development is the Conventional Level. The Conventional level consists of stages 3 and 4. Stage 3 is based on interpersonal expectations. Those who are at this stage try to be a “good” boy or a “good” girl and live up to others’--such as close friends and family’s-- expectations. Stage 4 is based on Law-and-Order. They are not only focused on what their family and friends say; they are now focused on society. These stages are usually reached by early teens. They don’t blindly follow rules;

Abigail Williams only cares for the wellbeing of herself. In act 1 of the crucible Abigail lies about what happened in the woods. She threatens the other girls, if they told about what happened in the woods, she would “come to you in the black of some terrible night and will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you”. Which then leads to the other girls accusing others of witchcraft to take attention off of themselves. Abigail continues to act selfish by pursuing John Proctor even though he is married. Her accusing Elizabeth of stabbing her in the stomach was selfish, because she did it to get Elizabeth out of the way so she could have John to herself. In addition to all of her other selfish acts, she leads the

As The Crucible continues, Abigail manipulates the girls to lie about dancing in the woods for the Devil, in hopes of not receiving a punishment. Once Reverend Hale arrives in Salem his main goal is to decide if witchcraft is the cause of Betty’s sickness. Following Hale’s conclusion that witchcraft was taking place in Salem, an egotistical judge named Danforth, took the Salem witch trials too far. The more people that Abigail and the girls accused, the more people that were hung and excommunicated.

Some characters in “The Crucible” include Abigail, Reverend Parris, and John Proctor. In order to understand the main conflict of the play, one must understand each character’s motivation and weaknesses. Reverend Parris is the preacher of Salem, and holds himself accountable for directing the people of Salem to God. Parris, however, is deeply insecure about his position in the town, which later on causes many of his actions to be rooted from insecurity. He is afraid of losing his job as minister, and encourages a fear of God. Abigail, who is

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development were based on a moral philosopher by the name of Lawrence Kohlberg. His main interest was to observe children during growth to develop and conclude which stages they best fit into. After observing both adults and children, he concluded that, “Human beings progress consecutively from one stage to the next in an invariant sequence” (“Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development”). All of the 6 stages he created, represent the morality in which a child or adult can be at; he created an age zone for each stage. There are a total of 6 stages but each main concept consists of 3 levels. Level 1 is the preconventional stage. This stage focuses on punishment/obedience and how the person decides to act due to the

The theory of moral development, advanced by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg is one of the most well-known persuasive theories in the field of cognitive science and stems from the work of Jean Piaget, which hypothesizes on the direct correlation that exists between moral and cognitive development. Kohlberg speaks of the appearance and understanding of what is right and wrong from childhood to adulthood and explains by this transition through the identification of various levels of morality known as pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional. People will make decisions based on the understanding of the possible outcome and through reasoning of morals. (Target Concept)