In 1692 colonial Massachusetts, the Salem Witch Trials were in full blast terrorizing the small, beachside town of salem along with other parts of Massachusetts. Hysteria overtook the nation, and everyone was considered guilty until proven innocent. This is seen in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, which takes place during the Salem Witch Trials. Throughout the trials, the citizens are frantic and hundreds of people are being accused of a crime that they did not commit: witchcraft. One of the crucial questions that haunts everyone’s mind is whether to admit to the accusation, and receive a lesser punishment, or keep their honor, but ultimately be killed. Similarly, in Aaron Sorkin’s movie, A Few Good Men, two marines, Harold W. Dawson and …show more content…
Despite it being illegal, the procedure takes place when a fellow marine is slacking or can’t keep up with the rest of the pack. What typically happens is: multiple marines will take matters into their own hands and physically or mentally intimidate the man in order to deter him from slacking off. In A Few Good Men, Louden Downey and Harold Dawson perform a “Code Red” on fellow marine, William Santiago. During the procedure, Santiago dies. Dawson and Downey are brought to court and they are accused of intentionally poisoning and killing the man. However, they feel that they are innocent, and they must prove that it was a medical condition, and not poison that killed Santiago. In addition to his cause of death, they must also prove that they were ordered to give him the Code Red by a higher standing officer. Ultimately, the Marines choose their honor over their freedom. Specifically, Dawson is adamant about keeping his dignity and his respect in the Marine Corps. When offered a minimal punishment, he states, “Now you're asking us to sign a piece of paper that says we have no honor. You're asking us to say we're not Marines. If a court decides that what we did was wrong, then I'll accept whatever punishment they give. But I believe I was right sir, I believe I did my job, and I will not dishonor myself, my unit, or the Corps so I can go home in six
The play The Crucible by Arthur Miller is set in Salem during the infamous witch trials. Near the end of the play, the protagonist, John Proctor, is in detained on suspicion of witchcraft. During his imprisonment, John Proctor is given an ultimatum—confess to witchcraft, or be hanged. While he originally intends to confess the sin he has not committed, he becomes resolute against it because he cannot, in good conscience, lie, and therefore sacrifice his character. Furthermore, he cannot betray anyone he loves or help perpetuate the ideologies of fear and blame that persist in Salem. Even though it will cost him his life, Proctor refuses to make a written confession because he will not let the Salem official to use his testimony for their
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a historical play set in 1962 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. As you may know, you've all placed your trust in the words and actions of someone close to you. And what do they do? They betray you! It's rarely justified, and can happen to the best of us. Based on authentic records of witchcraft trials in the seventeenth-century this play explains how a small group of girls manage to create a massive panic in their town by spreading accusations of witchcraft. These rumors in turn are the causes that many citizens are hung for. This essay will show how the lies and betrayal of a few individuals eventually leads to the downfall of Salem and its society.
Imagine spontaneously receiving an arrest warrant on allegations of anti-government campaigns. It would be especially startling for an upholding, law abiding citizen because his or her cooperation generally implies support of the government and its actions. Unfortunately, claims like this played a tremendous role in driving legal controversies throughout history. Playwright Arthur Miller’s The Crucible provides a partially fictional narrative regarding one such legal controversy - the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. When several girls are caught apparently dancing in the forest, they fabricate that witchcraft has taken over the town. The girls thrive in their newfound power, and pioneer an era of madness, fear, and betrayal in Salem through the witch trials. In the witch trials, Miller highlights the contrasting roles that Danforth’s obstinance and Rebecca Nurse's virtuosity play to demonstrate that obedience, although universally advertized as ameliorating life, fails to meet its hype.
One innocent man being crushed to death, 141 people being arrested, and 19 being hanged were some of the many gruesome events that took place during the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, some few unnatural events cause mass hysteria to sweep through a small town, placing dozens of innocent people in jail. When rumors sweep through Salem of an unconscious girl who will not wake up, people automatically point to witchcraft. Accusation after accusation, fear of being accused themselves causes people to suspect the worst about the people they associate with. In result, many people turn against themselves and others around them in fear of losing the normal life they have accustomed to. The three characters in the play that acted out of fear and caused an unnecessary hysteria against innocent people are Mary Warren, Judge Danforth, and Abigail Williams.
The year is 1692. Throughout the small, Puritan, seaside community of Salem, rumors and accusations fly like gusts of ocean wind. Neighbors turn on neighbors, and even the most holy church-goers are accused of being the devil’s servants. The Crucible details this real-life tragedy of the Salem witch trials, in which nineteen members of the Salem community were hanged for alleged witchcraft. Abigail Williams, a seemingly innocent girl, accuses dozens of Salem’s citizens of witchcraft through the support of her mob of girls and the complicity of the court officials. The title of this play gives significant insight into the experiences of several of these Salem citizens. Although a crucible is often used in chemistry for heating up substances, the title of the play carries a much greater weight. In his famous play The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the title of “crucible” to signify the severe and unrelenting tests of faith and character that many of the community members endure throughout the Salem witch trials, which he achieves through the use of figurative language and fallacies of relevance and insufficiency.
In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, Arthur intrigues audience time and time again with the historical context, social implications, and the Salem, Massachusetts Witchcraft Trials of 1962. Most members in Salem feel the need to prove their authority in ways such as accusing those who have done nothing or hanging them without proving their innocence first. The thing is authority is not made up by an authority figure, but by society. Miller’s The Crucible, demonstrates how people misuse their authority for cruel purposes through a fascinating plot, well-crafted characters, and well-set theme. During the hysteria of witchcraft trials in Salem, there were multiple figures of authority or per say the community who abused their power, Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris and Judge Danforth.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, is a play that replicates the actual events of the Salem Witch Trials. The event is considered mass hysteria because there was a vast group of people who were behaving completely irrationally. The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts throughout 1962 and 1963. Salem was a theocratic town, meaning their laws were derived from religion. Children dancing in the woods with Tituba, the slave of the town Reverend, led to accusations of witchcraft because dancing was thought of as the devil's work. There were, of course, a few members of Salem who did not believe in witchcraft, but their opinions were ignored. The reason this became a hysteria is, all one had to in order to get someone arrested for witchcraft was state their name. These accusations then became a way to get revenge on someone who had done wrong to them. The large number of victims of the Salem Witch Trials, and the speed and senselessness of the spreading of accusations, makes this event a tragic part of our history.
“As the most dangerous inmates, the witches were kept in the dungeons. These were perpetually dark, bitterly cold, and so damp that water ran down the walls” (Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials). Throughout the late 1600s, the accusations of witchcraft in Salem became a common thread. Over 200 people were accused and more than twenty were hanged. The idea of empowerment was altered when girls of Salem made profound accusations against well known people of the town. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, portrays the empowerment of characters that forever affected the lives of people in Salem through rhetorical questions, pathos, and imagery.
Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible features a group of religious people struggling under a harsh lifestyle in the town of Salem in 1692. Throughout the play, Miller developed the theme of hysteria and referred to the witchcraft trials as a giant “crucible” that tests with fire those who are weak in spirit. Along with the protagonist John Proctor, many of the witchcraft victims are driven to grim and tragic end in the face of undeserved judgements. By unfolding John Proctor’s path to reconciliation and comparing different positions take by other characters, Miller affirms that is better to suffer death and maintain one’s integrity, than to live a life of moral compromise and hypocrisy.
In the 1690’s based play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays and displays the danger of assumed accusations, emphasizing the importance of a fair adversarial judicial system. During these times of religious governing, the puritan town of Salem accumulated a great deal of grudges, as it was the duty of God only to judge his people. This religion submerged town was unable to express nor confess it sins and confrontations, and as a direct result, each citizen was forced to bottle up their individual affairs, left to fester up inside of them, bound to boil until someday these emotions might burst, as the housing market one did, causing great chaos and downfall. The individuals of Salem finally saw their chance to out these emotions, inflicting their victims with vengeance, through the epidemic of witch crazed accusations brought to the town.
People face moral choices every day, from deciding whether or not to eat the last pudding, to stopping at a stop sign when no policemen are around. However, sometimes a challenging decision finds its way to the forefront of someone’s life, one that does not only affect that person then and there but lingers and affects other people as well. Lawyers who must defend people they know are guilty, witnesses of crimes may not speak out in fear of their lives, and politicians lie about their opinions in order to save their public image until they get into power. A historical example a major moral test took place in Salem, 1692. When accusations of witchcraft were thrown left and right, innocent citizens were faced were the decision of saving their lives while potentially damning their souls, or saving their souls in exchange for their worldly lives. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible highlights the difficult test of maintaining moral integrity during these times, primarily through the characters of Proctor, Elizabeth, and Mary Warren-- some pass their crucibles while others fail.
Charles Spurgeon once said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” The Salem Witch Trials occurred back in 1692, yet they were brought to life once again during the 1950s by Arthur Miller in his play “The Crucible.” Here, he retells the famous story in which a Puritan town falls victim to witchcraft. Although Miller retells the facts of the trials, he made some history changes in the play in order to make it more of a suspenseful drama and to incorporate other writing aspects into the story. Manipulating key factors in the play brought about different literary aspects that Miller used to send his message to the people of the 1950s to today. In “The Crucible” Arthur Miller made changes to history that developed the theme that lying and deceit can negatively impact a person and their community.
Approximately nineteen people hanged and one crushed to death, yet all of this could have been prevented if one man would have dropped his good name and confess. In the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, tells a story og the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem witch trials, was basically a bunch of girls in the village of Salem saying that other people in the village were witches, and the people who “confess” were set free but the people who told the truth were hanged. It’s mostly centered around two type of people, the people speaking out against the group of girls, as well as the group of girls and the people keeping silent or encouraging the girls to reveal the witches to save their reputation. Though I could wag my
Imagine the year is 1692. In a small Massachusetts town a culture of highly religious folk live in peace. Salem. It´s late January and the reverendś young niece Abigail and only daughter begin to act strangely. Rumors of witchcraft fly through town and fear runs rampant.In around a year 200 people are unjustifiably accused and 20 sentenced to capital punishment. Who is next? The strange widow down the road? The Coreys? In a time of obscured justice, line were crossed and innocent lives lost. In his breakthrough play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller spins a tale not far from the truth.Letting his readers explore a gruesome tale of blind hatred. In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Abigail Williams embodies the wrongdoings of the Salem Witch Trials.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is about the people of 17th century.Salem, Massachusetts situated in a dangerous and dynamic period. The Puritans of Salem joined the bandwagon of the witch hysteria that was first caused by girls falsely accusing others. The inhabitants of Salem feared for their lives as the people who were accused were subjected to death. However, the accused have a chance to save themselves by admitting to a crime they did not commit. Many took the opportunity for self-preservation because it is a human instinct of survival. However, there others who chose to uphold their ideals, name, and reputation. Self-preservation is the motivates the characters to behave and act when they are situated in a compromising situation about the involvement of witchcraft, but there are also times when it is abandoned.