The Crucible By Arthur Miller

The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the year of 1692 and during this time, the Salem witch-hunts began. The Salem witch-hunt was one of the oddest and most fearsome epochs in human history. The numerous amounts of people that were prosecuted were all innocent and their lives were taken away due to the fallacious accusations of the Puritan’s belief in superstition and their paranoia that witches had walked among them. One accuser that is the reason this all started was Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams is to blame because she possesses the evil qualities of being remorselessness, jealous, and also having the quality of vengefulness. These qualities that Abigail have are direct contributions to the murder of many people who were unjustly hanged to death.

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.

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 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.

Hysteria is the vital aspect in the act “The Crucible” about witchcraft which spreads throughout the small town called Salem and involved having tragic events without any facts. Abigail Williams is a major character in the play “The Crucible” Arthur Miller, but she is portrayed as an great antagonist who drives the wheel in the play. She has an unnatural power to manipulate others and gain control over them. Abigail states "I want to open myself! . . . I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for 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). While confessing to witchcraft gets Tituba positive attention, and makes her a believable to accuse others, along with Betty she uses same technique to develop trust toward others. A major theme of the play is blame, revenge, and mistaken innocence. Abigail shifts the focus away from herself by accusing others of witchcraft. This furious act of selfishness soon becomes Abigail drive of power.

Fear can cause people to make bad decisions causing the situation to worsen. According to the play The Crucible is about a group of girls who were caught practicing witchcraft who were forced to tell lies about the devil forcing them to participate in villainous actions and then forced to name those involved in the fear of being hanged by the court. Head of the group was a young woman named Abigail Williams, who was infatuated with a married man and determined to get rid of his wife. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller personifies Abigail Williams as a manipulative character as seen when she successfully manages to convince the court that Elizabeth and other innocent citizens work with the devil and how she controlled the group of girls into pretending to have encounters with evil spirits of the accused. Arthur Miller wrote the play as an allegory of the McCarthyism in the 1950s. Focusing on the inconsistencies of the Salem witch trials in seventeenth-century in Salem Massachusetts, and the extreme behavior that can result from dark desires.

Fictionalizing the historically famous event of the sixteenth century, Arthur Miller retells The Salem Witch Trials in his dramatized play, The Crucible. Interpreting the horrific witch trials through the play’s characters and actions, Miller is successfully able to scrutinize the hysteria that took place in Salem Massachusetts while synonymously demonstrating the devastating effects of a theocratic government. Although the trials were filled with paranoia and injustice, Miller simply publicized the trials for what they were: a series of hearings and prosecutions. By relaying the accusations and trials that occurred in The Salem Witch Trials, Miller expresses the posing dangers of combining church and state into one supreme power. Given the [ By receiving] power through religious and governmental means, a theocratic government’s ecclesiastical authorities were able to interpret sins and crimes as one [one what?]. Although Salem was supposed to be a very honest and religious Puritan community, multiple sources say otherwise. There was said to be many disputes within Salem, those of which involved animosity over church positions, bitterness over grazing rights, as well as arguments regarding property lines. “Despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions” Miller writes, “long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly expressed, and vengeance taken” (Miller 1129). Abusing this power found between the thin lines of religion and government, the residents of Salem blamed witch

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, written in 1953 the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts around 1692. The most despicable character in The Crucible is Abigail Williams because she is the reason for many peoples’ deaths. Abigail’s lies and manipulative actions lead to pain for others characters in the play. Abigail’s lies caused destruction and harm to the Proctor family. Such as when Abigail convicted Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft just so Abigail could be with John Proctor. Abigail’s main goal is to see Elizabeth dead because she and John had an affair seven months prior to the play. These points demonstrate that Abigail is the most despicable person in The Crucible.

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.

When a person is backed into a corner and facing serious consequences, it is common for them to begin self-preservation and attempt to put the blame on others, lie, or do whatever it takes for them to get free of their accusations. Abigail Williams uses such approach when accused of witchcraft along with multiple other girls in The Crucible. However, Abigail is manipulative and selfish, which aids her ability to keep herself from being charged with witchcraft and killed. In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, the author uses direct and indirect characterization to reveal that Abigail Williams is as much of a dynamic character, as she is a round character. Arthur Miller immediately shows direct characterization by stating, “...

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,

Abigail is the primary antagonist of Arthur Miller’s 1953 play, The Crucible. She is a seventeen year-old girl who is the niece of Reverend Parris and previously served as a servant for the Proctors' before being discharged by Elizabeth for having an affair with her husband, John. Abigail is portrayed as a vengeful, vindictive girl who, in attempt to protect herself from punishment after Parris catches them dancing in the woods, starts the Salem witch trials and remains in control of accusations. Abigail’s heartless nature stems mainly from childhood trauma, for she was raised as an orphan, who witnessed Indians smash her parents’ head on the pillow next to hers. Communitarianism clearly illustrates the role that Abigail

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to show the widespread hysteria that can occur when people panic. The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during a time when neighbors were throwing accusations against each other about forming pacts with the devil and drinking blood. It is said that Abigail Williams is the main antagonist because she commenced the perjury that happens in the play. Being aware that Abigail 's faults and flaws are quite obvious in the play, she most certainly does not deserve the blame for the outcome because the supporting characters of Reverend Parris, John Proctor, and Tituba and the other girls accused of witchcraft, all added their own deception to the pandemonium that occurred and were just as responsible for the play’s outcome.

Throughout this past semester, we have covered a lot of plays and their films that correspond within those plays. While I have learned a lot along the way I have found that there are certain plays that stuck out. Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and The Importance of Being Earnest were among some of these plays from this semester. However, one of my personal favorites is The Crucible. I was able to uncover many themes from this play such as secret sin, lies and deceit, and religion.