Lies and Deceit

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.

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.

Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible, is a quintessential masterpiece. The Crucible provides a nuanced commentary on the lives of men and woman who are affected by the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem. Miller provides a substantial representation of personal integrity that encourages the audience to acknowledge, that when members of the community feel threaten they throw their personal integrity away. This is highlighted through the characterisation of Abigail Williams, John Proctor and Reverend Parris.

As America entered the post-war era after World War II, there was still an ongoing sense of paranoia throughout the country. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, McCarthyism, initiated by Joseph McCarthy’s accusation of 205 Communists and the use of unjust methods to hunt Communists, arose. As this era emerged, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, which highlighted and dramaticized the scandal of the 1692 Salem witch trials, gained popularity and opened on Broadway. Though the two events in American history, McCarthyism and the witch trials, lie almost 300 years apart, Miller’s The Crucible serves as an allegory to the closely mirrors the events of McCarthyism, specifically in the request of the names of those accused, the absence of reliable

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 1692 nineteen men and women and two dogs were convicted and hanged for witchcraft in a small village in eastern Massachusetts. People in Salem, Massachusetts were persecuted and accused for something that wasn’t true. The author is comparing the events of the Salem Witch Trials to McCarthyism throughout the 1950’s through the use of the morally ambiguous character Reverend Hale. Arthur Miller, author of The Crucible, utilizes convincing logos, compelling pathos, and thought provoking ethos in order to highlight the dangers of McCarthyism through the morals of Reverend Hale.

“Each time a man stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. ”(Robert Vienndy) The witch trials had just begun in Salem and several people were trying to fight against the trials but John Proctor fights injustice most effectively in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.     John Proctor, a man with a blackened secret exposes himself to save the women he loved showing his honesty to the town of Salem. At the end of the play after Elizabeth Proctor is accused, John goes into the court with Mary Warren in hopes to prove his wife's innocence.

John Proctor is motivated by his own pride and reputation, and is able to redeem himself at the end of the play in which he is able to save his own name, yet losing his own life in the process. John and his willingness to make things right is able to put an end to the

    Arthur Miller wrote the book The Crucible about the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. During this time people were wrongly accused of being witches and then were sentenced to death. Many lives were ruined because of this and families were ripped apart because of this tragic time. One of the characters that was affected by these times was John Proctor as his life was turned upside down. John stayed to his truth and said he wasn't a witch and he was noble in saying such a thing.

ublished in 1952, during a period of cold war tensions, which culminated in the ideological "witch trials" of the McCarthyism era in America; the allegorical play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is set in Salem Massachusetts, in 1692, during the Salem Witch Trials. The author has intentionally used allegory to draw parallels between the two events and invite the reader to think critically about the persecution that occurred during both time periods. One of the themes that the author has used to position the reader to recognise the immorality and idiocy of both historical events is the representation of personal integrity. Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. This is achieved through strongly contrasted characterisation through characters such as Abigail Williams and Rebecca Nurse , as well as the use of textual features such as irony,symbolism, and dialogue. In the play characters can be assorted into three distinct groups: those who have completely relinquished personal integrity in favour of personal interests, Those who have good intentions, but struggle to display integrity at times and those who continuously display integrity, even when faced with harsh punishment. In "The Crucible" Miller has utilized a multitude of textual features to create characters whose personal integrity ranges from being nonexistent to exemplary. The positive characterisation of Rebecca Nurse and the conflicted but developing characterisation of John

Through the stories and plays in literature have helped people draw batter understandings of the problems they faced and different point of views. The Crucible tells the story of events that happened in 1600s, however, they very similar to those events in our present today. The crucible, written by Arthur Miller tells the story of the Salem witch trials that start off with a group of girls that blame others for the crime of practicing witchcraft to cover themselves. As a result this cost many people in the small town to lose their lives and other to lose the reputation in the pious town. Throughout the story the use of religion and personal judgment mix with a lack of evidence was not only the law, but the final decision on many of the cases. Arthur miller stated that the reason why he wrote the crucible was to show the similarity of Salem witch trial to the McCarthyism. McCarthyism is the practice of accusing of treason with little actual evidence .Abagail Williams is the puppet master in this chaos, she able to use little proper evidence and control the whole town. As one of the main characters of the play Abigail fits into Miller’s themes of Empowerment, hysteria, and reputation and jealousy.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a work of historical fiction that illustrates the Salem witch trials that occurred between 1692 and 1693 in Salem, Massachusetts. In the play, several esteemed members of Salem are tried and hung for the crime of practicing witchcraft. A wave of hysteria washes over the town as people realize that nobody is safe. In the play Arthur Miller explores the potential of using the word “name” to create a system of checks and balances on the characters in the play.

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to show the widespread hysteria that can occur when people panic. The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during a time when neighbors were throwing accusations against each other about forming pacts with the devil and drinking blood. It is said that Abigail Williams is the main antagonist because she commenced the perjury that happens in the play. Being aware that Abigail 's faults and flaws are quite obvious in the play, she most certainly does not deserve the blame for the outcome because the supporting characters of Reverend Parris, John Proctor, and Tituba and the other girls accused of witchcraft, all added their own deception to the pandemonium that occurred and were just as responsible for the play’s outcome.

The play ‘The Crucible’ written by Arthur Miller is an allegorical reference to the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Set in the historical context of the 17th century Salem, this play explores several themes to point out how politics, greed and imaginative hysteria can tear a community apart. To further emphasize this, Miller uses different characters and develops them as the play progresses. In addition, his use of effective language intensifies the role of characters like John and Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris and many others in the play.

“I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” bellowed John Proctor to Danforth in Act IV. The Crucibles was written by Arthur Miller reminiscent of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Reputation and integrity is set forward in the story, as it causes the plot to develop and advance, and it is discernible all throughout the story, especially the end. Reputation is tremendously significant in theocratic Salem. The pernicious accusations of witchcraft cause the characters in the play to choose whether they want to salvage how they perceive themselves or how others perceive them. In the play, characters face a difficult decision of choosing their