Miller's Characters And Actions In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

How many people have you met in your life that is stronger because of a difficult experience they went through? Most people are because we take these difficult experiences and grow from them and become better people. This is the exact case is expressed in the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. The story begins in Salem, Massachusetts 1692 right in the middle of a period of witchcraft hysteria. During this time many people were accused of being witches and wrongly convicted by judges Danforth and Hathorne. The characters in the story are struggling because of a girl named Abigail who gets caught practicing witchcraft and then starts naming and accusing others so that she doesn’t get in trouble; one of these people being a well-respected farmer, John Proctor’s, wife Elizabeth. The title, The Crucible, refers to a test, trial, ordeal, formation by fire, and vessel baked to resist heat, and the entire story is an allegory meaning it has a hidden meaning. John Proctor symbolizes a crucible by embodying the definition of one, as he went through a test and was formed by fire.

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible the witch trials in Salem were a devastating time. The entire community was in disorder and chaos because of personal vengeance. This included accusations of innocent town’s people being called witches, so they hanged and were jailed. Throughout the play certain characters help the rise of witchcraft as well as the disapproval of all the innocent people who were being convicted for no reason. Reverend Hale is a dynamic character whom comes to rid of the evil spirits in Salem, yet he later tries to end the trials. Hale realizes the accusations are false, attempts to postpone the hangings, and persuade the victims to lie conveys that he is a dynamic character and changes throughout the play.

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.

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

Mistakes are part of human nature. Mistakes can happen to anyone and anything. In the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, mistakes are shown all throughout the story. The whole idea of The Crucible is that a wild witch hunt is going on in the town. Names are being called out at random, and people are turning on one another. This story was written by Miller after the McCarthy Hearings, which was the period during the Cold War where Joseph McCarthy began to call many high level officials out for being a communist. The Crucible is right on along like the Hearings. One character who was of high respect in the town of Salem was John Proctor. Proctor is shown to the reader and throughout the play as the hero of the town. Proctor is a simple but well respected farmer in the town of Salem, who gets himself mixed up with witchcraft and the twisted and treacherous Abigail Williams. Through the writings of Arthur Miller, Proctor is shown to have many strengths and flaws that attribute him as the tragic hero of the play.

“The Crucible” is a story by Arthur Miller based on the events of the witch trials that took place in 1690’s Salem, Massachusetts. Abigail Williams, an orphaned young woman, has an extramarital relationship with John Proctor. John Proctor is a farmer in Salem, known to be sharp with hypocrites and not easily led astray. However, Proctor’s actions in the story, including withholding pertinent information about his affair and Abigail’s sins, includes him in the blame game. After events set in motion by Abigail, Judge Danforth refuses to grant release to those in his custody for accusations of witchcraft. This decision led to

 The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is a play that takes place in the sixteen nineties during the famous but tragic witch trials. The entire community is in pandemonium yet certain characters are also fighting internal conflicts. Miller uses three characters that manifest this internal battle ever so clearly: Mary Warren whose whole world turns upside down, John Proctor who must weigh the importance of his family against his reputation and Reverend Hale who must decide whether to do his job, or do what he knows to be right. 

The Crucible is a novel based on the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, written by Arthur Miller. The Crucible demonstrates forbidden temptation between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, honor and dishonor in the town of Salem, ruthless revenge, and the strive for high social status. The narrative style of this play is standard 1950s everyday language. The Crucible is set in a theocratic society of Puritanism in 1692.

From deciding whether or not to eat the last pudding, to stopping at a stop sign when no policemen are around, people face moral choices every day. However, sometimes a challenging decision finds its way to the forefront of someone’s life. A decision that does not only affect that person then and there but lingers and affects other people as well. Lawyers 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 with 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.

to the dead and she had asked her to speak to her dead babies and out

the fact that he had to tend to his crops. Also he did not agree with

Archetypal figures throughout literature play an integral role in the development of sympathy within the audience. The author of The Crucible demonstrates a comprehensive grasp of literary devices throughout the play, strengthening the use of characterisation, setting and imagery to construct characters that insight sympathy. When viewed through an archetypal perspective, Miller’s text constructs a dynamic archetypal representation of John Proctor throughout the text. The development of John Proctor’s identity throughout the text explores the character’s cross-cultural representations; evolving from an archetypal loner to the heroic figure of the text.

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the normal criteria that a central character fits, is not met by the apparent protagonist, John Proctor. Common traits one might expect to find in a traditional hero are humility, patience and caring. John Proctor, while he is the principal, has many qualities that could instead assume him the role of the antagonist and land him in the adversary box. His background and slight character flaws cause him to take on the personalities of both a protagonist and antagonist. Proctor, because he exhibits qualities of both types of characters, is what is known as a tragic hero. Tragic heroes are characters within stories that due to a judgment error, is the cause of his/her own demise. In Proctor’s case, his error was made when he refuses to give up the names of other alleged witches, and refuses to allow the court to hang his confession in the center of town. John Proctor embodies three major signs of tragic heroism. Proctor, even through the rest of the village perceives him as great, knows deep down inside that because of past sins, he will never be able to live up to his reputation. As well, John Proctor is a tragic hero because he had the power to stop his own execution, therefore his downfall was no one 's’ fault but his own. This reluctance to forfeit the names of other “witches” could be seen as a character flaw. The final criteria that Proctor meets for a tragic hero is that the punishment received is way too severe for the “crime” committed.

In every literary work, there are themes. A theme is a broad idea, moral or message of a book or story. One individual may construe the themes of a book or story differently than another, but that is the pure beauty of themes. One great literary work is The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller. Succinctly, the play is about the Salem witch trials that took place in Massachusetts in 1692. Throughout the story, the townspeople indict their neighbors of being a witch and practicing witchcraft. On the surface, this historical drama has a few universal and enduring themes. Themes are universal because regardless of where in the world, the ideas still relates to everyone and is understood. Themes are enduring because the ideas are found

Arthur Miller uses characterization in the play, The Crucible, to develop strong characters that the reader is able to visualize and relate to. The play, The Crucible, is political commentary on an event during the time period it was written, the Red Scare, as well as how the people responded. To achieve this, Arthur Miller develops characters through dialogue, actions, and thoughts that are in depth and realistic. One such character is Thomas Putnam, who shows how greed and hatred can tear down society. In the midst of a town fearful of witches and the Devil, Putnam takes the people’s fears and uses them to get what he wants. Putnam is motivated by greed, revenge, and achieves his goals by being cunning and employing fear. Arthur Miller is able to paint this character by using combinations of dialogue, thoughts, and actions, allowing the reader to visualize Thomas Putnam while reading.