The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Teenagers are often treated like children. Adults don’t respect their opinions because they are too young to understand or are too immature. The time period between childhood and adulthood are teenage years. So why do we treat teenagers like children when the teenage years are supposed to prep them for adulthood? However, there are situations were teenagers hold more power than we think. Although these are two completely different genres, The Crucible and the movie, Mean Girls, show how much destruction a group of teenage girls can do. So how could a group of teenage girls, younger than 18, possibly cause so much chaos?

The Crucible, a novel/play by Arthur Miller displays the chaos of the witch trials within the small town of Salem, Mass. Of the many characters of the novel, John Proctor and Mary Warren are both characters that serve an importance to the novel. The two characters both interact in the stories in different ways. Even though both characters can be seen as minor characters because of their inferior power in the novel, Proctor and Mary Warren serve as important characters to the story line. One reason being the fact that they both bring about problems with and/or against antagonist Abigail Williams such as Mary Warren, who likes the feeling of have authority but gets into unwanted conflict often, and Proctor, who is an very aggressive person

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible show the hysteria that took place in Salem in 1692. Even though this play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on a real historical event which was McCarthyism in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. There’re many connection in The Crucible to be considered as an allegory due to similarities themes and how the characters are being portrayed. Miller does an excellent job of portraying numerals characters used fear for benefit and they showed selfishness and malfeasance. This is also similar to how Joseph McCarthy’s oppressive by using intense fear of the spread of the economic system called communism.

It’s 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, an extremely pious Puritan settlement in the New World. You are a woman in this strict society, and you are expected to keep your mouth shut and please your husband. You have virtually no power and your opinion is often overlooked, even when you are permitted to express one. This ideal for a woman is what was present in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. While the women of Miller’s play are diverse, they were generally treated as inferiors and expected to be subservient, although most of the women were adamant to express their opinions when given the chance, and some even went to great lengths to attain power. Some of the key female characters that embody specific archetypes of women are Abigail, Mary Warren, Elizabeth, and Rebecca Nurse, and Miller uses these characters to convey both a message within the play as well as a larger message about society as a whole.

Drama is around us every day, everywhere people go no matter what is happening it is there. That is what The Crucible is about; Teenagers starting drama and spreading false rumors. Abigail is responsible for the witch hunts in Salem because of her immaturity, obsession with John Proctor, and for being a liar. This story takes place in small town Salem where you worked and went to church, until some teenagers of the town said some false things about the most innocent people of the town.

One may call self-preservation a natural, basic instinct. This will to survive is strong, but how far would you be willing to go to stay alive? In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, a series of events unfold in the 1600s when a group of girls accuse others of conspiring with the devil. These accusations spread and the mass hysteria caused neighbors and friends to turn on each other. When unexplainable things happened, they attributed it to other performing witchcraft. The religious town of Salem took action against the accusations by making a court. This court prosecuted anyone suspected of being a witch or being affiliated with one. With little to no evidence, many innocent people were arrested and even killed in Salem. A recurring theme prevalent throughout The Crucible is self-preservation.

“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community” (Proverbs 6:16-19). The seven deadly sins are named as pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth, and among all of them, pride is claimed to be the deadliest. In Arthur Miller’s play about the Salem Witch Trials, “The Crucible” pride also finds it’s way to be the most important theme of the play. Almost every character displays pride in oneself just as every person does in reality, but a select few not only condemned themselves but others. Reverend Hale, a christian man, demonstrates pride in his knowledge, the Proctors express pride in their good name and would rather die than lose their honor, and Judge Danforth is never wrong in his eyes and wants to be known as the judge who always makes the right decision. Arthur Millers “the Crucible” shows that in the town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1962, pride will kill you; if not, arrogance will.

“Corruption is the enemy of development, and of good governance. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective” (Pratibha Patil). Reverend Hale has been accounted for making many statements inspired by devout faith. His beliefs and hope lead his actions throughout everything he does and everything he thinks. This is not inherently a negative thing, but his faith can lead to him being very ignorant at times, and arguably, corrupt as well. “Theology is a fortress. No crack in a fortress shall be considered small” (Miller 64). What if this statement was actually completely true? What if Hale was not being naïve when saying this? In order to defend this statement, the truth of the situation in Salem, Massachusetts needs to be accurately assessed. Theocracy- You are truly the one to blame for all of the chaos that occurs in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and here are all of the reasons why.

Humans are inherently drawn to chaos. Humanity is involved in an endless war between madness and logic. Though society attempts to preserve logic and maintain order, a single event can trigger chaos and lead to the deaths of thousands; this has happened several times in every civilization and in every time period, and will continue to happen in the future. One example of this is the Red Scare in the 1900s, which disrupted decades of peace and harmony. The fear of McCarthyism was tangible and widespread; people were accused of being Communists based solely on circumstantial evidence and unfounded suspicions. Reputations and careers were destroyed over simple rumors. In some cases, innocent people were killed. Arthur Miller drew a parallel between the Salem witch trials in the late 1600s and the Red Scare in the 1950s in his novel, The Crucible. Through careful exposition, Miller argues that mayhem and hysteria can occur in any society at any time, and that logic and truth are needed in order to overcome the dark evil in the world.

Throughout the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the main theme was reputation. Reputation is the general estimation in which a person is held by the public. Reputation is very important in Salem town because the town’s people care what they think of them. Witchcraft plays a huge role throughout the book and if someone is being named a witch then their reputation will be greatly affected. Focused on maintaining good public reputation, the people in the town of Salem feared that the sins of their friends and associates will taint or ruin their names. Mandy characters for example John Proctor and Reverend Parris, base their actions on the desire to protect their personal reputation.

People will do almost anything to take down the person they believe to be the cause of their problems. McCarthyism blew up in the 1940’s when America and Russia (a communist country) had a race with technology. With this McCarty saw his opportunity to take down his competition by accusing them of being a communist; which at the time, was seen as being a large threat to the American government. Sense that Russia was a communist country, and threatening war against America, being a communist was punishable by incarceration. While with the Salem Witch Trials of sixteen-ninety two the court and townspeople were pushed into unthinkable things by their own fears of few people. In The Crucible (written based off of the records Miller read when he visited Salem) Abigail was determined to get what and who she wanted, and in trying to achieve that goal Abigail accused women in the town of witchcraft to protect herself. Being accused of witchcraft in Salem was the equivalent of being accused of being a communist in the nineteen-forties. Miller wrote the Crucible to point out the underlying ridiculousness that sparked real fear in both the time of McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials; McCarthy and Abigail protecting themselves, punishment being the best option, and having no proof but still ruined people 's lives.

“I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller 45). In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, residents of Salem habitually ‘cry witch’, driven by fear, paranoia, and vengeance. Under a strict theocracy, where the court’s ruling and religious beliefs are exclusively bound to one another, death is practically inevitable for those branded as witches, their names perpetually tarnished. From atop his high horse, one may look upon The Crucible and harshly judge the irrational actions of Salem’s community; however, human emotion drove these injudicious acts, the very raw emotion that often overpowers logic in today’s society. Though theocracy has dissolved in America, one can never rid the world of blind emotions or the mishaps that may follow them. Currently, fear, paranoia, and vengeance drive racial profiling in society, inciting scores of people to ‘cry terrorist’. Unjustified displays of racism, witnessed in the persecution of Muslims as result of the 9/11 and the Paris attacks, verify that society today is a reflection of The Crucible’s in unfortunate ways.

A prominent and influential twentieth century American playwright from Harlem, New York, Arthur Miller was a dramatist whose works are focused on human purpose. Some of his most famous works include Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, and The Crucible. Miller 's play, The Crucible, is based in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. Throughout Salem in the spring of 1692, a wave of hysteria, fear, and panic fell on the settlers of the town caused by an increase in the belief of witches in the village. The tension of the situation increases when Reverend Parris catches his niece and the former servant of John Proctor, Abigail Williams, dancing and singing naked in the forest with about ten other girls from the village. Parris now suspects Abigail is a witch and attempts to get to the bottom of what was going on in the woods that fateful night by inviting Reverend Hale, a famous exorcist in the region, to help out. The appearance of Hale sets off a chain reaction in Salem which eventually results in the trials and hangings of many people who are falsely accused in the village. Throughout the entire process of these trials, many of the characters under go changes caused by the heat and pressure of the situation brought about by the mass fear of witchcraft in the village. John Proctor constantly changes as the play progresses moving from a guilt-ridden, independent farmer, to a person completely open to confessing his sin, and finally to a defiant man who has great

In 1952 Arthur Miller published one of his best and well respected novels, The Crucible. The story tells about the dreary town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 and how the town became infamous after the occurrence of the well-known witch trials. In these trials, people would be accused of being witches, and having consultations with the Devil (which was the most unforgivable thing a person could do in a hyper-religious environment) which would result in death, by hanging. In the story, things become blatantly out of hand when a group of people started accusing members of the town of witchcraft, without actual proof. Many innocent people suffered and were executed, as a result of envy and greed (which is ironic in a town of strict Christians). Of course, the premise of this tale is just a cover story for the true meaning behind the context. Miller wrote his story during the time of the Red Scare in the 1950s, when an epidemic of fear spread about the rise and spread of communism in America. The internal interpretation of the story regards the fear of McCarthyism, and parallels the external interpretation on how many innocents were accused of false wrong-doings. At the end of the story it can be deduced that what Miller was truly asking was, ‘Are we, the human race, actually any different now than we were back then?’ One would think so, but the truth is that human nature has remained relatively the same. The chief topics of hysteria and greed can not only be linked to the

The Crucible was a novel written by Arthur Miller in the 1950’s. It was written in a format of the play, portraying an allegory of the Salem Witch-Hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. The book is known to have a inexplicable plot. This plot is advanced by multiple characters in the book in order to ensure that the reader maintains interest with the material that is being read. The farmer, John Proctor, would be the individual capable of evolving the plot in this masterpiece of writing.