The Crucible, By Arthur Miller

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.

In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, one of the many themes that stands out to most people is the importance of a having a good name and reputation. Miller uses certain characters outcomes in the play to prove that reputation was actually not the biggest concern. He consistently shows that reputation means nothing when it came to being accused during the Salem Witch Trials because many innocent people were killed. People began to use these accusations for their own benefit and that’s when it became chaotic. These random accusations of witchcraft could immediately cause someone’s admirable reputation to disappear. He provides evidence in the play through most characters that we would consider to have a good reputation such as: Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor.

One of the numerous things that a man can never outrun is his reputation. Several authors throughout the history of literature have used this characteristic of citizens as major conflicts in stories and plays. One such author is Arthur Miller, playwright for the famous 1950’s play, The Crucible. In Miller’s The Crucible, reputation plays an influential role in the outcome of the play. A major portion of the population is led to plead guilty in order to save their reputation, have their reputation ruined by pleading innocent, or ruin their reputations so as to protect others. Several of these characters are Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, and John Proctor.

Every day as humans we are pushed to our limits, these circumstances test are mental strength and how strong our morals are. In Arthur Miller 's, The Crucible, several characters in Salem, Massachusetts were tested internally by the Witch Trials. In his play he uses examples of how difficult situations can bring out a person 's true self. Using the word crucible has a significance between the characters and title since the definition is a severe trial. In The Crucible John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey are characters who illustrate being tested during the severe Witch Trials. These characters all struggle against facing the deceitful court and their worst enemy, themselves.

As we all read and learned in the Crucible, a group of girls, including Tituba, went into the forest and were dancing. As they were dancing, Parris catches them dancing and his daughter faints. Abigail tells her uncle, "We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it." (Act 1) This is how "witchcraft" was brought up in the town of Salem. Once rumors start, whether they are true or not, it is very hard to stop them. This ties into bullying I believe very much. Cyber bullying can happen many different ways and I believe one of the worst ways it is done through is through spreading false rumors about one another. The girls at the Salem witch trials reflects the actions of cyber bullies today in our own communities in many ways.

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.

Today there are kids and adults that wonder why the events of the Salem witch trials actually happened because everyone was blamed for no reason and all people did was make excuses. Those types of people also wonder how the people back then were tricked into believing that witches existed and they had to deal with everything that happened in a harsh manner because everyone was in a “I can’t get in trouble let me blame someone else” type of attitude. There are many beliefs today that witches like things in the past. Many people would agree that they are no longer existent today; however Arthur Miller, author of the play, The Crucible, shows the audience that people have not progressed that far from those days when people believed during the Salem witch trials. A common belief is that witches hunt for things in the past. Many people would agree that they no longer exist today; however Arthur Miller, author of the play, The Crucible, points out that society has not come very far from the days of the Salem witch trials. All throughout this play, Arthur used the trials to parallel to the McCarthy Era because he noticed that the events were the same from the late 1600’s. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to help everyone today notice that people back then weren’t going crazy they were just believing what they heard and they were all man for themselves attitude.

Everyday as humans we are pushed to are limits, these circumstances test are mental strength and how strong our morals are. In Arthur Miller 's, The Crucible, several characters in Salem, Massachusetts were tested internally by the Witch Trials. In his play he uses examples of how tough situations can bring out a person 's true self. Using the word crucible has a significance between the characters and title since the definition is a severe trial. In The Crucible John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey are characters who illustrate being tested by the Witch Trials. These characters all struggle against facing the deceitful court and their worst enemy, themselves.

The world is built around labels and categories. People get comfortable with their nice little boxes and wish to organize everything into their specific box. However, not everything is so simple. Not everyone is so black and white; in fact, no one is. Nobody stays the same either. Everyone is always changing and interacting with different people and engaging in different activities and making different choices. The reputation of a person, although changing in small ways, often doesn 't change drastically, unless something drastic happens. An exquisite example of this is in the play The Crucible. Due to the extreme circumstances of the Salem Witch Trials people cling stubbornly to their reputations. During the time period the play was set

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.

In “The Crucible,” Arthur Miller portrays two females whose characters, when juxtaposed, look to vastly distinction each and every different. Although the specific phrases aren 't used, one girl is basically put forth within the story as “good” and the other woman as “evil.” Such black and white rulings of these characters would be close to ironic, in view that that Arthur Miller wrote his play to reveal the risks of judging humans with different mindsets or perception systems. Miller portrayed that such illogical reasoning is detrimental or at the very least, counterproductive. Exploring the characters and motives of the 2 predominant women, Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor, a hard microcosm comes into view, paralleling the message of the story as a entire. The reader begins to admire that extra is at play than a floor rendering of “excellent” versus “evil.”

Lucifer, Satan or his common name, the devil. From an English perspective, he is the first antagonist. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the Devil is the main cause of conflict. He is the root of Evil. Now the reaction to devilish behavior varies from person to person, possibly even society to society. The Puritan society combats evil doing with actions that could be considered worse than the Devil 's worst of deeds. This is demonstrated by Reverend Hale, whose importance starts initially as a figurehead of judgment, and his influence of judgment slowly dwindles. Another proof of imperfection in the Puritan society is the article McCarthyism. It projects the same sickening goose chase that ruins the lives of harmless people. Abigail is the ultimate icon of the mockery that is the Salem witch trials. Her “encounters” with demons in the courtroom are borderline comedic. The puritans justify all decisions with the argument that all drastic measures are necessary to remove the demons within the townspeople, for the greater good.

Between the years of 1692 and 1693, Salem, Massachusetts had a huge political conflict over religion. Spring of 1692, was the when witchcraft became the center cause of the Salem Witch Trials, thereafter spreading fear throughout the citizens by questioning their ways of life. Hysteria tortured the people located in Salem for the next year by means of having twenty-three people hung, pressed, or drowned. This essay is the understanding of how witchcraft attempted to create political order in Salem Town and Salem village and a way of achieving the knowledge of the main residents in Salem was by Arthur Miller’s famous playwright The Crucible. The first scene in the playwright is Reverend Samuel Parris calling the doctor to examine his daughter Betty and niece Abigail who claim to have been possessed by the devil from the use of witchcraft. From that moment on witchcraft was the number one subject of hysteria.

When eras of horrendous history are forgotten, along with valuable lessons learned from the turmoil, who suffers from the negligent ignorance? The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a compelling play about the undertakings of the Salem Witch Trials. Miller uses creative license to mold history into something literarily symbolic: the Witch Trials taught man no significance; the failure to learn from one 's mistakes caused history to repeat itself, the people that initially suffered having gone through their troubles for nothing. Therefore, the subsequent victims embody the consequences of the same unlearned lesson, and the cycle repeats. A product of the 1950s ' Cold War: a domestic struggle with the anxiety of communism, McCarthyism rooted from Americans ' suspicion of alien policy, a potential threat to their familiar ideals. The religiously intrinsic Puritans of 17th century colonial New England held firmly to their faith and disapproved of other ways to knowing God 's will, much like how Americans, dreadful of their government becoming something of the tyrannical enemies ' of Nazi Germany and communist Russia, held firmly to free will, democracy, and the ways of patriotic government. Thus, fear of foreign ideas that might endanger one 's safe and comforting standards puts those accused of such in a bind. To confess to witchcraft in 1692 meant life - and a blotched reputation; to deny, meant death. To confess in the 1950s meant an end to the relentless interrogation - and

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play based on the real events of the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials of 1692. The wild “witch hunt” was based on false testimony and personal vendettas but, it also brought forth a need for a hero and n this story a tragic hero will arise. A tragic is a character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his own demise. In The Crucible the character of John Procter being a tragic hero has been a big debate for many years. Based on the definition of a tragic hero as well as information directly from The Crucible, it can be concluded that John Proctor is in fact a tragic hero.