Loss Of Power In The Crucible

Power can be as easily obtained as it can be abused by any given person. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible displays the use of power dynamics in many of its characters. The exert of power presented by the proposed children of God, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren, rose to the extent of mass murder through the witch trials.

Imagine never being able to speak in public or talk to a man other than your husband. This is how the women of Salem had to act and live during the 1600s, they were deprived of any social power in the public eye. However, during the year 1692 the Salem witch trials occurred allowing powerless women to finally develop a social standing. In the play, “The Crucible”, written by Arthur Miller, the witch trials empowered powerless women by allowing the female gender to develop a voice, bestowing social power within themselves, instilling fear in others.

There has been a statement about The Crucible being “essentially about courage, weakness and truth.” I agree that this statement is true due to the events and characters in The Crucible. The reason others believe The Crucible is described as courage, weakness and truth is also because of the characters and events that went on. Some characters have showed their weakness in certain situations when they are afraid to face the truth. The courage in the play is when the characters still fighting for either themselves or others, even when they think they have a small chance of them succeed to win their fight. Now, the truth in the story has to do with most of the characters saying the truth about the devil and the witchcraft that is going on in their town because the town and everyone who lives in it are big god believers and to them being connected to the devil or witchcraft is dangerous and a sin to them.

The consequences of a patriarchal, theocratic state based on the foundation of Puritanism is first challenged by The Crucible, which evaluates its effect on the women in its society. This specific form of religion seemed unhealthy to Miller, as in the search for the perfect people, Puritans became obsessed with seeking out the damned and condemning them. Perfection was seen as a responsibility to these people as they wanted to ensure the Devil could not harm them, and the playwright attributes this paranoia as one of the main reasons behind the mass hysteria in Salem that followed. The townspeople were constantly looking for evil in everything that went wrong, and

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.

Overwhelming dictators take control of every part of your life, the world around you, as you know, is full of pompous, selfish, narcissistic dictators. While these people make the world more unbearable than it already is, a few act as leaders for other people, making the word “unbearable” a monumental understatement. The Crucible by Arthur Miller has a character named Reverend Samuel Parris that matches this description pretty well. He is a man with religious power in a religious town giving him a pretty high rank in his community; however, as you go further into the play you see his power slowly degrade until it carries less weight than that of an average person. His slow loss of power is due to his materialistic desires and narcissistic beliefs to gain more power: how ironic.

Life teaches one very valuable lesson: with power comes the abuse of power, which results in hysteria and fear. Fear comes in many forms; fear for loved ones, fear for health, fear of losing reputation and fear of reprisal. Throughout history, a powerful few have abused their power. An example of this dilemma occurred in the 1950’s when Senator Joseph McCarthy started accusing innocent people of being communist sympathizers. Contemporary author, Arthur Miller, visited this concept of corrupt power and disapproval of McCarthyism in his classic, The Crucible. Good Night and Good Luck, a movie which was about the hysteria McCarthy caused to innocent lives, and The Crucible have one major thing in common: the corruption of power. This thematic idea reveals that the corruption of power can not only affect and impair mainstream society, but also the people which live within it.

Danforth has an great power and he shows that throughout the play. As he states on page 35, “Peace, Judge Hathorne. Do you know who i am, Mr. Nurse?” Mr. Nurse thinks he is someone more important than Judge Hathorne, he feels he should have the upper hand in the situation that they are in. Nurse thinks that he is more important and that his word has more power than Judge Hathorne because they are not the highest branch of government.

Throughout history, women have always struggled to hold power in American and religious societies. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the author depicts women in early Puritan societies who struggle with the same issue. Women in The Crucible are incapable of successfully holding power over their society unless they are using fear against others. Characters such as Abigail and Elizabeth, although they may appear to hold some status or control over others, are ultimately powerless.

Sparknotes emphasizes the role of empowerment by stating, “The witch trials empower several characters in the play who are marginalized in Salem’s society”. In fact, by empowering individuals who were previously powerless, the society (in The Crucible) crumbles. Arthur Miller is trying to convey that absolute power will often lead to corruption.

Power is something almost everybody strives for at least once in their life. In Salem, the men who own the most land or people who have a great reputation for being very religious are the people with the utmost power. Slaves and women, especially unmarried ones, are the people with the lowest status. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the power dynamic dramatically shifts. Tituba, Betty’s family’s slave, brings a group of Puritans girls, including Betty, into the woods. Tituba is from Barbados and practices a different religion, which goes against parts of the Puritan beliefs. When the girls are in the woods, Reverend Parris, Betty’s father, sees them and they all scatter. Betty worries she will get in trouble, so she falls into a trance,

Another lesson I learned from reading The Crucible, is to not abuse power. Abusing power is using power to an advantage in a bad way. Good leaders use their power to influence people in a positive way, while bad leaders use their power mainly for personal benefits. In the play, many of the characters with power abused it. They took complete control of situations influencing other characters to do bad things. One character from the book that abuses his power is Judge Danforth. Danforth ran all the trials for the witches , and was completely unfair. He made it basically impossible for an accused witch to be innocent. He also didn’t allow suspects to have lawyers or anyone give information that disagreed with him. He considered different opinions as “contempt of court”. When Mr. Nurse was clashing with Danforth over the issue, Danforth said, “do you know who I am, Mr. Nurse?”(Act lll, Scene l) This shows that Danforth has the cocky mindset that he is above everyone. Good leaders should be able to listen to critics. Danforth believed that everyone accused was a witch; so he didn’t even bother giving them a fair chance. Many people died under his signature. He used his power to contribute to the destruction of the town and many lives.

Feminist theory is the advocacy of gender equality in terms of respect, opportunities and social rights. The Crucible by Arthur Miller represents the conventional feminist gender struggle, through the medium of an androcentric patriarchal society built on the ideals of religion. In Salem, woman are portrayed as the lower class of society, patronised by men such as Proctor “I am looking for you more often than my cows!" comparing Mary to a farm animal is indicative of their perceived place. Furthermore, the violent way the men within Salem converse with woman “You will confess yourself or I will whip you to death, Tituba! demonstrates the lack of impartiality and feelings that theyhave on a woman’s fundamental rights. Miller’s use of

The main quality admired and expected of women in The Crucible is submissiveness. It is clear from the play that Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, was largely a patriarchal society. Power in the hands of women was looked down on and even feared. Any leverage that women had was gained solely through manipulation. If the men suspected a woman of interacting with the Devil, she was expected to submit to their authority and confess her crime. If she rebelled and refused to confess, she was sentenced to death, no questions asked. However, the same was also true for men, though they were much more seldom found guilty of witchcraft.

A second theme revealed in The Crucible is empowerment. During the trials in the play, many characters were given power, which they never had before. These characters were the women. Women in Salem are generalized to be governed by the men and have no choice in anything. The women either work as servants to men or get married and have children. An example of this theme is Abigail Williams. She’s seventeen-years-old and has a great amount of power with the witch trials. In one scene with Reverend Hale, Reverend Parris, Abigail, Mrs. Putnam and Tituba, Abigail is explaining to Reverend Hale about the incident with Betty. Once she sees Tituba, Abigail points at her and says to Reverend Hale, “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” Abigail also says, “She sends her spirit on me in church, she makes me laugh at prayer!”With these serious accusations, Tituba is imprisoned just because Abigail accused her of practicing witchcraft. The idea of empowerment is universal and enduring because anyone in the world with no supremacy, can suddenly have all the power. Today in modern society, people all over the world set aspirations in order to gain authority and be ahead of everyone else. Furthermore, many people in the world have power and authority over others. Empowerment will always be in societies around the world.