The Crucible By Arthur Miller

In 1951, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play referring to the time in Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials. The Salem Witch Trials was a time period when people were being randomly accused of being witches by one another. The people who were accused of being witches had to either give false confessions or were executed in terrible ways. In The Crucible, the accused were sentenced to death by hangings, pressings, died in prison. In the play, nineteen people were hung, about thirteen died in prison, and one died by being pressed. In the play, the author Miller uses many examples of hyperbole and exaggeration as the characters are talking . The author also used imagery to describe the settings in the play. In The Crucible, the author wanted to give us a real life description of how that time period might have been. As the story goes on, we see the craziness of the Salem witch trials and how absurd it was.

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.

The definition of crucible is a container that is used to heat metal in order to separate the pure from

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.

It is necessary to have trust, loyalty, forgiveness, and honesty when living in a healthy community. But when people within the community begin to show betrayal, revenge, deceit, and suspicion, then the balance of the community is disrupted. In the Puritan community, they focused on doing God’s work by taking care of their neighbors and made sure to not be distracted by matters unrelated to God. Their extremely religious and simplistic lives isolated them from any disruption in the community. However, motivations of others led to the accusations of those in the community, which resulted in chaos. This occurred in the event known as the Salem Witch Trials, where twenty were executed and hundreds of others were accused. Arthur Miller, in his play, The Crucible, demonstrates how the thirst for revenge fuels the devastation of a community through the characters of Thomas Putnam, Ann Putnam, and Abigail Williams.

In the english dictionary, there are three definitions of the word crucible. One is a metal container in which metals are mixed and melted. Another is a severe test. But the third definition, and the one that I think fits the best for this book, is a place or situation in which different elements interact to create something new. In my mind, this fits because all of the characters had their little grudges and dirty secrets. But when all those seemingly little things interact, they formed something new and a lot bigger: a witch hunt. This strange transformation that happened, occurred because of people exacting revenge. Revenge is a theme in the crucible because Abigail Williams, Mr Proctor, and Ann Putnam acted out of revenge.

Our English II class approached Arthur Miller’s The Crucible from a way unique to any previous English assignment. We decided to operate as an unified ensemble to generate a singular and complete project that demonstrated our growth as readers, writers, and thinkers. Originally we were scared at the prospect of this unorthodox assignment; as Jada put it, “[we] thought it was gonna be a hot mess” (Jant). But in the end, I believe it was correct to do it as an ensemble. We were able to work as individual members of a group, each producing our own contribution to the final product. Our class eventually produced a completed project that emerged as a representation of our ability to analyze the play deeper than we could have as individuals.

The human mind can be a dangerous weapon; how it is used is a grave responsibility, one that, not everyone can control. Some see the mind as a commodity, a plaything to warp reality and torture others with, and while that might work for now, it will always turn on them. This perception is often mirrored in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The Crucible takes on the advantageous backdrop of Salem, Massachusetts during one of the darkest times in American history, the Salem Witch Trials. With swiftly changing times, the townspeople of Salem must prepare to defend themselves against Abigail Williams and the girls of Salem, for they are on a quest for revenge. With accusations being thrown at anyone with an opinion, one wrong move will most certainly mean death. Abigail Williams takes on the role of lustful greed that becomes her eventual ruin. This transformation is catalyzed through her ability to manipulate perception, her apparent control over Salem, and her narcissistic personality.

Published 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 Massechutsets, 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.

A Crucible is a test trial, or a way to find the outcome through an experiment; A crucible can be used for many things, including a preseason scrimmage or a science experiment during science class. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is set in seventeenth century Salem, MA, during the Salem Witch Trials. In Act One, Miller explains the panic that is imbued in the community during the witch hunt, and he analyzes the inevitable outcome of a theocracy: collapse (7). Religion and government are two opposite things and “cannot occupy the same space” (7), so when the Puritans try to merge the two, a good outcome is neither possible nor plausible. Before the witch hunt, the citizens of Salem had insufficient human rights, but as the witch hunt begins and continues, the people slowly break free from the stringent theocracy. Breaking free from the theocracy is only possible because of individualism, and circumventing the Puritan norm and Puritan law. In The Crucible, John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and Martha and Giles Corey cause a panic within the Puritan authorities and community, and wreak havoc in the Puritan theocratic government.

The Salem Witch Trials was period in history that was known for its innocent slaughter

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the belief of witchcraft held poisonous consequences as accusations increase to devour the entire village. Since the Salem witch trials started, they heavily influenced the people and town of Salem. People of Salem were accused of being a witch on poor evidence. Such accusations of being a witch sacrificed many human lives. Even though the people of Salem realized that they were murdering the innocent, it does not make up for their deaths. The Puritan community of Salem became gripped with mass hysteria over activities that they believed to be witchcraft. It started with a strong belief system towards God but ended with on an irrational note. The death of the many witches cannot be justified by the mere

The performance of Arthur Millers drama, The Crucible, put on by the WolfPack Players is one that has taken a fair bit of polishing to go from an average high school show, to a great show; the director, Patrica Scarborough, can certainly attest to such a bold claim. While we were held back by petty issues such as lines, we were, as a company, able to pull it together, just in time for opening. I can honestly say, in my heart, that this show could have gone better. In no way am I marking this a shameful show, nay, in my opinion, the show is quite good. I, for one, love the cast that had been assigned to perform this drama. But the basic act of line memorization had bogged us down, and I primarily attribute that to the language of Arthur Miller's piece; The Crucible is indeed a heavy show, the Director had announced to us that many times before. Even for myself, The Crucible is a dense, heavy story. From my transition from the auditions to the performance, I can say that personal growth had happened, not continuously, but in small spurts. At the audition, I had felt like this wasn't really my show. That feeling I had made me nervous and uncomfortable about auditioning, but I had decided to keep at it; I put on a straight face and acted happy to be there, auditioning, even though I was unsure about the show. I had learned, later on, that even if insecurity strikes during an audition, that its always better to act like its not there at all. Keeping a straight face, as opposed to

Only one concept is capable of more destruction than almost any other, as it can change a person’s life, or end it. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play set in Salem, Massachusetts in the early 1690’s. The play revolves around the infamous Salem Witch Hunts and their proceedings, both within the court and outside of the court. Within this plotline, a theme of greed functions in the play, influencing the actions of certain characters, including Reverend Parris, Thomas Putnam, and Abigail.