The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller truly does depict a fine summary of the true treacherous consequences of lying within his play The Crucible. Centered on the Salem Witch trials, a common theme emerges among some characters to betray others to save one’s own personal self, while others decide to retain their own dignity and moral compass. A select few characters even try to heal the damage and evil done to the townspeople and the court. Lust, fear, and cowardice drive the true evil force of betrayal, while logic, care, and forgiveness allow others to begin the process of moving on and helping other characters to also heal. No two characters represent each side better than those of Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor.

Imagine if today in the law courts, the defendants were always convicted, while all the plaintiffs were always pronounced correct. Many innocent people would be going to prison and serving sentences that they did not deserve! Well that is exactly what went on in Salem, Massachusetts. In The Crucible, there is a large widespread of hysteria due to witchcraft, causing many innocent lives to be taken. All it took was a small group of girls spreading lies about witchcraft to cause chaos throughout Salem, and many other villages. Through multiple characters in this story, Arthur Miller suggests that dishonesty and scapegoating is sometimes more rewarding than honesty.

In Act three of The Crucible (1953), Arthur Miller expresses his frustration at the perpetual power grab under the façade of justice. Miller uses juxtaposition, dramatic irony, and selective dialogue in order to show how in the struggle of innocence, cold-hard facts are often overlooked in exchange for the promise of influence. The purpose of the act is to demonstrate that in every play for power, there must be pawns to manipulate and facts to twist in in order to remind the audience to compare with McCarthyism in Miller’s time and how in all power plays, there will always contain innocent losses. The implied ethical argument lies in the court of Salem where it would be better to accept the truth and sacrifice power, or perpetuate a lie and

American playwright, Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible (1952), suggests that witch hunts still exist in American society. Miller supports this claim by drawing parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and the Senator Joseph McCarthy Trials. His purpose is to warn his readers of the dangers of mass hysteria. He uses emotional appeals (pathos) and logic (logos) to convince the reader that mass “hunts” are still a danger to Americans today. The main way, however, that Miller achieves his ultimate goal of demonstrating the dangers of individuality vs. ideology is through the vivid characterization of Mary Warren. Mary Warren is an example of an outwardly conforming character because in the play she tells Abigail that she wants to tell

Mackenzie Siverson Ms. Firavanti English 2H October 2014 As a child, we are taught honesty is always the best policy, and we would have punishment for lying. In the well known play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, he uses the characters to show honestly during the trials and the benefits and consequences of it. The girls of Salem, being accused of witchery is often faced with the choice to lie or tell the truth about the actions and choices they made, and it would be the deciding factor on whether they are imprisoned, or set free. He also shows how it affects the characters emotionally, whether it frees them, or harms them. The examples that Miller uses in The Crucible, clearly shows how honesty affects the characters and the outcomes of

In conclusion, the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism both accused numerous people based on ambiguous evidence. In “The Crucible,” the Salem Witch Trials illustrated the gullibility of American society at the time. Similarly, Sarah Good and Miller were accused of crimes they never committed based purely off of spectral evidence. From these accusations, Miller’s passport was confiscated and Sarah Good was executed. Therefore, “The Crucible” served as a mirror reflecting McCarthyism in

In a scene where Abigail is abusing her new found power she ruins tituba by saying .”She sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer!” (Miller 44). In this moment Abigail who has shown a constant string of selfishness and hatred is taking advantage of someone who is trying to stop these claims before they get out of hand, thus failing and spiraling out of the hands of everyone. This connects to the actions Joseph McCarthy took to earn his reputation, he slandered innocent peoples names to gain his own following. These actions of Abigail mimic the ones of McCarthy in an abundance of ways greed, power, hatred enveloped each of them until they spent a lifetime ruining others lives.

By the standards of virtually any society, lying is an act that is almost certain to result in some form of contempt, hatred, or even ostracism. However, not all liars are regarded in the same way- there is an obvious difference of morality between a fraudulent politician and one lying to protect his own life. In his play The Crucible, Arthur Miller demonstrates the moral and societal differences between and consequences of different types of lies: A liar’s virtue is determined primarily by intention, and while some forms of dishonesty are more acceptable than others, truth under all circumstances is vital to true morality. Miller’s stance is a rational and realistic one and can be seen not only in his play,

“Your reputation and integrity are everything. Follow through on what you say you’re going to do. Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions.” Maria Razumich-Zec put into words the importance that society places on reputation. It has become clear that what other people think of someone is far more important to that individual than what they may know to be true about themselves. In todays society is very rare to find people that are content with what they are, despite what the people surrounding them believe. This notion that in order to be validated there has to be external approval dates back to the seventeenth century and earlier. During the Salem Witch Trials, men and women were killed daily due to the thoughts of others. In Arthur Miller’s Crucible, it is clearly demonstrated that reputation is a huge role in the daily lives of people.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a tragic play set in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, where Miller uses the Salem Trials as a metaphor for the 1950s McCarthy hearings. In Salem, people value their good names. The Puritan community acts as a theocracy in which there appears to be no right to privacy, and people must conform to a strict moral code. The theme of reputation, lying, and deceit are shown in Abigail, John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Mary Warren, and other characters. In the play’s dialogue, Miller uses Biblical allusions, situational irony, and dramatic irony to develop these themes.

Liu XiaoBo, a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist single-party rule once said, “Hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nations progress to freedom and democracy.” (www.brainyquotes.com) He asserted that hatred is what erodes and causes harm to a person’s own self-being, their friends and family, and the environment around them. Hatred can blind a person from seeing the truth, and instead of helping, they cause more harm. The Crucible, a playwright by Arthur Miller, illustrates the effects of what revenge, fear, and hatred has a role on hysteria. In Salem, Massachusetts, 1692, a community of strict Puritan rules had to be obeyed. Playing around, having past times were strictly not allowed, as many thought doing these things were related to the Devil, or Satan. They were strong believers in Christianity, and anyone who showed signs of evil, would be placed in jail or executed for the whole town to see. Reverend Parris, a minister of Salem discovered his daughter, Betty Parris, and her friends including Abigail Williams, dancing naked in the woods. The woods were seen as the only place to still be inhabited by the Devil. Abigail was in fear of what would happen to her if people were to find out what she had done. Betty

Nature dictates that survival is the key to life, improving one’s own situation is in higher consideration than improving the wellbeing of a mass. Humans are naturally corrupted in such a way that they manipulate events to their own liking and prosperity. In “The Crucible,” written by Arthur Miller, characters in Salem are driven by self-promoting ulterior motives through righteous justification. Consistently, Salemites undermine others in effort to establish self-gain. This dissembling triggers a mass adherence for a selfish cause. Righteous justification for self-promoting ulterior economic or social gains are not only exposed and characterized by Arthur Miller, but are still relevant throughout modern society.

Thomas J. Watson once said, “If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.” Due to the fear fueling in the atmosphere during the Salem witch trials, a numerous amount of citizens allow themselves to be trampled on by conformity. Consequently, nineteen innocent citizens were hanged, and one brutally crushed to death. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible stages the theme of social conformity through the characters Reverend Parris, Abigail Williams, and John Proctor as they venture on a journey throughout the Salem Witch Trials displaying that joining society’s assembly of deceivers may preserve their lives, though not their integrity.

The quality most necessary in a leader and a catalyst for hysteria is the ability to manipulate. The play The Crucible by Arthur Miller depicts the events that occurred in 1690s in Massachusetts best known as the Salem Witch Trials. These events center on a group of young girls who are found dancing in the woods with a black slave. Among them is Abigail Williams, a 17 year-old-girl desperate to conceal her affair with a married man and escape charges of witchcraft. In an attempt to pull the spotlight away from themselves, this group of girls, led by Abigail, begin to accuse countless people of witchcraft and as a result 19 people are hanged. The Crucible serves as an example of an individual’s ability to create hysteria, as well as the factors that are necessary for the rest of a society to participate in it. Despite the negative puritan perceptions of women, Abigail’s accusations are still acknowledged and believed by important members of society. Furthermore, the combined actions of Abigail as well as the rest of the girls spark a movement of panic and frenzy among all members of her society. The way in which Abigail manipulated people using the shortcomings of her society in The Crucible, the strict religious and cultural values of puritan society, as well as the ability of the people in The Crucible to oppose hysteria demonstrate the factors that allow for an individual to create hysteria and other people’s willingness to go along with it.

Further, as with the alleged witches of Salem, suspected Communists were encouraged to confess their crimes and to “name names,” identifying others sympathetic to their radical cause. Some have criticized Miller for oversimplifying matters, in that while there were (as far as we know) no actual witches in Salem, there were certainly Communists in 1950s America. However, one can argue that Miller’s concern in The Crucible is not with whether the accused actually are witches, but rather with the unwillingness of the court officials to believe that they are not. In light of McCarthyist excesses, which wronged many innocents, this parallel was felt strongly in Miller’s own time