Politics In The Crucible

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail is a young teeneage girl, working as a servant for the Proctor family, having an affair with John Proctor. John works to end the relationship before anyone finds out, due to the suspicion his wife already has. Abigail is devastated by this because she fell in love with John, and thought he’d leave his wife, Elizabeth, for her. Abigail confronts John, because he has been avoiding her, outside her house after he comes to see her cousin who is sick. “Give me a word, John.

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.

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor, the protagonist, is a farmer in his middle thirties. The author gives little to no detailed physical description of him, but from Proctor’s speech, we can still picture him as a strong and powerful man who is able to keep every situation under the control, the kind of personality which earns him deep respect and even fear from the people in town. On the other hand, Abigail Williams, the antagonist, plays an inferior role as an orphan who has no social status in a place like Salem. Over the course of the play, John Proctor is absolutely awakened and transformed by Abigail Williams. In the end, he overcomes the crucible by releasing himself from his guilt of

The character of Abigail is the reason behind many of the influential and devastating events, which occur during the play of “The Crucible”. Abigail is a character that has a longing for power and is determined to acquire it. She also has a frightening self-belief that she can achieve any objective even if it involves carrying out morally corrupt and selfish plans. I also believe that Abigail has a longing to become recognised as an adult. During the first act, Abigail is depicted as a victim since she appears more naive and therefore vulnerable, one example of this is when she is seen in the company of John Proctor and although the audience still receives inklings to her darker personality she seems to be depicted as an inferior.

Furthermore, According to, John Proctor and the Crucible of Individuation in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Michelle I Pearson, states, “Proctor's hypocrisy surrounds his dealings with and about Abigail. In committing adultery with Abigail, Proctor has sinnednot only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct" (18). He wishes, however, to deny this sin both to himself and to others.” This criticism helps

The characters in Arthur millers The Crucible can teach a lot about people. People can be horrible and terribly deceptive. When placed under pressures and after experiencing trauma peoples real character can come out. In the case of The Crucible Abigail is shown for what she really is. She gets a kind of power and this corrupts her to use the situation to have Elizabeth Proctor sent to jail. Abigail is not the only one who takes advantage of the

There are multiple types of conflict in The Crucible that forwards the plot, these types of conflict are in the play and most characters have some type of conflict with another person, the town, or themselves. The Crucible is a play that is absolutely filled to the brim with conflict and is set in the time period of the Salem Witch Trials that lasted from February 1692 up until May 1693. In the play, many people were deceived, accusations were thrown around town, and people were hung or burned at the stake.

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail’s flaws- lust, jealousy, and mendacity- that led her to be responsible the most for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem. The Crucible focuses of the finding of young girls and a slave messing around in the woods, trying to conjure spirits from the dead. Rather than admit to their actions and face the consequences, the girls accuse everyone else of the crimes they were guilty of. Abigail Williams is the person who caused much of the drama in this story. She bears much responsibility for everyone meeting with Tituba in the woods. Once Parris discovers this meeting, Abigail attempts to keep her actions a secret because it would possibly reveal her affair with Proctor. Abigail lies to cover up her affair with proctor, and to stop the charges of witchcraft in order to prevent the terrible punishments that go along with the accusations.

Political conflicts may arise from individual’s desire to gain power. Arthur Miller’s allegory, The Crucible portrays a community engulfed by hysteria creating social injustice and antagonistic conflicts. The fear of communist regimes which dominated the citizenry of America, heavily influenced Miller’s representation of the dangers of political authority and tensions it may create, in particular, the manipulation of mass hysteria for political gain. Miller renders hysteria tearing apart the community of Salem, creating individuals abnormal behaviour eventually ruining personals in the process. This is exemplified by the vindictive character Abigail Williams when the political situation which leads her to deny such accusations in, “Why do you

In 1692, in Salem Massachusetts a small group of girls joined together to go in the woods at night to meet a slave woman name Tituba. Tituba is a slave of Reverend Parris. During their meeting all the girls are dancing

In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible Abigail Williams, an unmarried orphan in the Massachusetts town of Salem, incessantly grows more jealous, her desire for vengeance only grows stronger, and her selfishness escalates. She repeatedly lies to save herself by denying her involvement in witchcraft. Abigail's Jealousy of Elizabeth Proctor intensifies in attempt to realize her desire for Elizabeth's husband John Proctor. In order to save herself she accuses the innocent, without any sense of ethical violation. Abigail proves to be a selfish antagonist in The Crucible that shows no sense of right and wrong.

Through the characterization of Abigail’s Machiavellian nature, playing her uncle for a fool and using lies and her deceit to achieve power, Miller enables the reader to draw a direct feministic comparison between her and the powerless woman in The Crucible. The use of adultery and its connection to humiliation and lack of respect allows for a greater representation of Elizabeth’s and Proctor’s relationship with respect to Abigail. Elizabeth is victimised as she finds herself stumbling through her husband’s evident adultery “(Abigail) charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor! and his reprimands “Enough… Elizabeth! “I’ll whip you”. Submissive to his anger and with her own “She’d dare not call out such a farmer’s wife!” Elizabeth understands that it is Abigail who has driven a wedge between her and Proctor’s marriage. As a result, her situation contrives sympathy, a reaction that is similar to the highly respected Rebecca Nurse who Hale has “heard of your giving great charities”. Nurse, as a direct result of Abigail’s machinations is thrown in jail, labelled a “witch”. The helplessness of these woman is directly attributable Abigail’s lust for influence and recognition and represents the power imbalance between the woman of Salem.

The play, “The Crucible” is written by Arthur Miller in 1953. During this time of American history, a war had just ended and there was a deeply rooted fear of communists infiltrating American soil; Americans had begun to turn on each other out of fear that people around them were against American ideals. Arthur Miller expressed his concern for the time by writing “The Crucible,” which is written about a witch hunt that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Arthur Miller used the themes of an earlier American event to remind people of his time that their actions were indeed following a historical pattern of fear. The play, “The Crucible” takes place in America in a time of deeply rooted religion, fear of the unknown, and early civilization. The juxtaposition of this play, it’s characters, and the time in which the play was written, teaches a very difficult, yet important, lesson about fear and it’s position in a society of people.

As stated by the great Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke, “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse” (braniyquotes.com). Burke’s words are proven true in many facets of the human experience. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, a shift of power is portrayed through Abigal’s sly manipulation. Arthur Miller takes a historical context, that of the Salem Witch Trials, and shows how simple actions can alter the course of history. The disintegration of an orderly Puritan society into one that is governed by chaos and hysteria is caused by a radical change in the normally male dominated power by a woman whose pride has been bruised.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible presents Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Williams who serve important roles through their unique characteristics and thinking. John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, has two defining characteristics that show throughout this play: she not only lives to please everyone around her and behaves passively, but she lacks the assertiveness to confront what lies directly under her nose. However, Abigail, the girl John Proctor commits the crime of adultery with, manipulates those around her. She is keen to act upon an opportunity when one arises and feels a determination to get her way. While Elizabeth and Abigail are similar in their love for John Proctor, Elizabeth differs from Abigail through her tendency to try to please everyone and keep her own emotions bottled up, while Abigail believes the world revolves around her and works to make things go her own way.