Names usually possess a significant meaning behind them: someone could be named after a close relative, pets named after their owner’s favorite comic character, an email address named after their favorite pastime. However, sometimes the meaning of a name is less obvious. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller recreates the anxiety and hysteria of the Salem witch-trials from 1692. Although the title, not once is the word “crucible” spoken in the play. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “crucible” three ways: “A pot in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature or melted”, “a difficult test or challenge”, and “a place or situation that forces people to change or make difficult decisions” (“Crucible”). The definitions …show more content…
Amongst the dancers was Abigail Williams, an orphan and servant to Reverend Parris. When accusations of witchcraft targeted the girls, Abigail lies and confesses to Satanism: “I danced with the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss his hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller 48). The puritans fear the devil so much that they willingly believe Abigail’s accusations of those consorting with the devil and imprison those she points her finger towards. Thus, Abigail uses her newfound influence to arrest the wife of her paramour, John Proctor, revealing her true feelings of greed and passion during the madness of the witch trials. Abigail was not the only abuser of mayhem; similar acts of greed and jealousy surfaced as the trials proceeded. Giles Corey, an old farmer of Salem, accuses Thomas Putnam, a wealthy and influential citizen of Salem, of making his daughter accuse landowners of witchcraft: “If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeits up his property—that’s law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land....The day his daughter cried out on Jacobs, he said she’d given him a fair gift of land” (Miller 96). Thomas Putnam 's greed uses the trials as means of monetary gain, thus prolonging the trials. Salem became a boiling pot of madness that melted away everyone 's pure and lustrous facade,
By ending The Crucible with the hangings of innocent people Miller conveys that hysteria can have devastating effects. The play’s name “The Crucible” also has an underlying message. A crucible is a metal used for heating substances at high temperatures. The word is derived from the latin word crux meaning trial or cross and has a connotation that means a test. Metaphorically speaking, the people of salem were put in a heating pot under high temperatures for a confession. People were put to test of their faith and values. Miller uses the term “crucible” to show how inhumane the events
How many people have you met in your life that is stronger because of a difficult experience they went through? Most people are because we take these difficult experiences and grow from them and become better people. This is the exact case is expressed in the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. The story begins in Salem, Massachusetts 1692 right in the middle of a period of witchcraft hysteria. During this time many people were accused of being witches and wrongly convicted by judges Danforth and Hathorne. The characters in the story are struggling because of a girl named Abigail who gets caught practicing witchcraft and then starts naming and accusing others so that she doesn’t get in trouble; one of these people being a well-respected farmer, John Proctor’s, wife Elizabeth. The title, The Crucible, refers to a test, trial, ordeal, formation by fire, and vessel baked to resist heat, and the entire story is an allegory meaning it has a hidden meaning. John Proctor symbolizes a crucible by embodying the definition of one, as he went through a test and was formed by fire.
Crucible, a noun defined as; a container of metal or refractory material employed for heating substances to high temperatures, in the traditional sense but, it also means a severe, searching test or trial. The latter of the two definitions is exactly what Arthur Miller had in mind when he wrote the play, The Crucible. The play set in Salem Massachusetts during the start of the infamous Salem Witch Trials, is about the struggle to discover truth within the twisted and brutal lies flying about the little town, started mainly by a young girl by the name of Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams, as we quickly come to know, is the past mistress of the prominent Mr. John Proctor, a local farmer. As the tension rises in the
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 Crucible by Arthur Miller, hysteria breaks out in Salem when young girls begin pronouncing accusations of witchcraft. One of the accused, Elizabeth Proctor and her husband, John Proctor, live on a farm where he provides and cares for their family. When Elizabeth becomes sick John is unfaithful and has an affair with one of the accusers, Abigail Williams. Through the course of the story, John Proctor moves from denial and deflection of his actions and their consequences in order to maintain his public dignity, to public confession and condemnation for his actions in order to soothe his conscience and maintain his internal sense of integrity. This progression is illustrated by his interactions with his wife, their accusers and the court, who ultimately condemns them.
With all that is going on in the world today, what is more important to you freedom or Safety? In The Crucible, Abigale choose her own safety over hers of her friends and family, and in Fahrenheit 451, Guy choose his freedom over the safety of him and his wife and, in Berlin you either live on West Berlin were you were free or you lived on the other side of the wall where you had no freedom but you were safe. So which side of the wall do you want to live on?
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
Page 1 of 3Hai Nguyen John Proctor and the McCarthyism “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller illustrates the reflection of the anti-communist hysteria in the United States known as McCarthyism. Miller uses the character John Proctor as a force in demonstrating the way lives were destroyed by McCarthyism. Throughout the story, while Proctor is respected in the community, he has conflict secretly with many people as well as himself. John Proctor is a perfect character because the readers are able to view him as a victim in the society where McCarthyism took place. He is also an adulterer, husband of Elizabeth, and knows what is happening in and outside of the Salem society. Proctor was having a conflict with his wife, Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth did not trust John because he had an affair with Abigail Williams. Elizabeth was supposed to trust John, but she refused to because he said he was alone with Abigail for a moment. John cannot say or argue against Elizabeth because of his guilt:” Because it speaks deceit, and I am honest! But I will plead no more! I see how your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!” Elizabeth tried to make John feel guilt, so John wanted to make sure she understood her cold nature may have prompted his cheating. He also has conflict with Abigail Williams which is his mistress. John Proctor was so angry because Abigail accused his wife to witchcraft. She sent Mary Warren with a puppet that has needle inside its
Most people would not like to be known as a coward. Mary Warren was not aiming for that title, but that is what she ended up with. She gave herself this negative reputation. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play about the undergoing of the Salem Witchcraft Trials in 1692. A group of Salems girls, are caught dancing in the woods. To take allegation off of themselves, they accuse other innocent townspeople of practicing witchcraft. Multiple victims are murdered or imprisoned. Mary Warren, one of the accusers, plays a big role in this play. Mary Warren’s character changes from cowardly, to brave, and back to cowardly, throughout the story which shows how she evolved throughout The Crucible.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. It all started when Reverend Parris discovers a group of girls dancing in the woods. After he found the girls in the wood, his daughter Betty fall ill. Since Betty wouldn’t wake up, people become paranoid and started believing that witchcraft was real. Fake accusations were made and innocent people kept dying. In The Crucible there are many people to blame for all for everything that occurred, characters such a Abigail Williams, Reverend Hale, and Reverend Parris. Abigail Williams is to blame because she accused everyone else just to protect herself. Reverend Hale is also blame because he was the one who got people to think that witchcraft was real. Lastly Reverend Parris is to blame because he was just worried about himself and his reputation in Salem.
The Crucible was a play written by Arthur Miller during the era of McCarthyism. This time period and person experiences helped influence the outcomes and aspects of the play written to mimic the Salem Witch Trials. Many characters were accused and even tried for witchcraft, while the audience is clear of whom the guilty party is the entire play. Elizabeth Proctor, the wife to John Proctor the wrongly one wrongly accused and executed, had many conflicts in this play as many others did. Elizabeth Proctor was met with conflicts of wrong accusations, adultery, death threats, and eventually, losing her husband. Elizabeth Proctor endured an incredible amount of pain and conflict throughout the play, The Crucible. She was met with many conflicts that involved many the people she loved, or once trusted. Elizabeth Proctor ended one of the only characters that would feel the pain of the trials forever.
The play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, withholds many conflicts that arise resulting in many themes as well. Such as weight, Reputation, and Good vs. Evil. These themes form from the Salem witch trials. Repeatedly people become accused of witchcraft, throughout the play this continues to drag out due to the people of Salem’s accusations and deceit for one another. The play continues to move to a tense and moving climax resulting in the death of many prominent people of Salem.
“And they feel if only they can demolish that person, then everything’s going to be okay.” -Margaret Atwood the author of “Half-Hanged Mary”. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, ¨Why I Wrote The Crucible¨an essay by Arthur Miller, and ¨Half-Hanged Mary¨ a poem by Margaret Atwood, it shows that a society under stress will always scapegoat a person or a group of people. Defending this statement, people from each of these sources have felt betrayed by being blamed and persecuted for actions they have not done. In The Crucible, Abigail and her friends choose to scapegoat people in their society to push the attention away from them. In “Why I Wrote The Crucible”, Arthur shares with us about the communists and how it was a scapegoating society. In “Half-Hanged Mary”, Mary is blamed for witchcraft and hung for having land and being an independent woman.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller in a play based off of the Salem Witch Trials. The play ends with the town in mass hysteria. A girl is struck with lust, an innocent slave is accused, and a man struggles to do the right thing. Three characters that influenced the development of mass hysteria throughout the play are Abigail Williams, Tituba, and John Proctor.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, it takes place in 1962 in Salem, Massachusetts. The main conflict the characters face throughout the play is identifying who is the one to blame for the witchcraft. While figuring out who is behind all the witchcraft, there is a lot of reactions towards the methods the characters use to figure out who it is. The title, The Crucible, has a figurative and literal meaning that goes along with the play. The literal meaning of the crucible is that it is a piece of laboratory equipment used to heat chemical compounds to very high temperatures or to melt metal, and is full of violent reactions. Meanwhile, the figurative meaning of it is that it is a test or trial. Miller’s title, The Crucible, is significant to play since both the literal and figurative definitions is portrayed throughout the play.