The Crucible By William Shakespeare

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

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.

Arthur Miller has created John Proctor the protagonist of The Crucible to be a 30 year old farmer in Salem, Massachusetts, powerful of body, even-tempered and not easily led. John speaks his mind when he recognizes injustice. He is highly respected, even feared, by some in Salem. His name is synonymous with honour and integrity. He takes pleasure in exposing hypocrisy and is respected for it. However John is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time but against his own vision of decent conduct, he has come to regard himself as a kind of fraud. After admitting to lechery, John is accused of witchcraft, on this charge he is condemned.

Teenagers are often treated like children. Adults don’t respect their opinions because they are too young to understand or are too immature. The time period between childhood and adulthood are teenage years. So why do we treat teenagers like children when the teenage years are supposed to prep them for adulthood? However, there are situations were teenagers hold more power than we think. Although these are two completely different genres, The Crucible and the movie, Mean Girls, show how much destruction a group of teenage girls can do. So how could a group of teenage girls, younger than 18, possibly cause so much chaos?

TV shows and Movies with a focus on cliques, either in high school or in the work force, are popular in our society today. For instance the movie Mean Girls is about a teenage girl moving to a new school and being recruited into a high school clique. In this clique, the members exhibit the behaviors of people experiencing the psychological phenomenon, Groupthink. Groupthink is the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. There are eight symptoms of Groupthink- Invulnerability, Rationale, Morality, Stereotypes, Pressure, Self-Censorship, Unanimity, and Mindguards. Groupthink has also taken place in our history a a country. The play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller is about a the real-life Salem Witch Trials that happened in 1692 - 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts. Some symptoms of Groupthink found in the Crucible are Rationale, Pressure, and Self-Censorship.

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.

In the novel The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the story was based on McCarthyism. This book is based on a real story and real people. John Proctor tore up his confession and goes to his death because he can’t lie about himself and ruin his reputations. He also doesn’t want people to think he is a bad person by confessing a lie just to save his life.

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.

Arthur Millers’ novel “ The Crucible” is a wicked story, filled with love, hatred, and mysterious scandals. The Crucible introduces us to witchcraft and strange ways people walked with the devil. In this novel you’ll find out who’s a real Christian and who is misleading others in there path. In The Crucible it reveals the truth and the lies of everyone. Mostly women were accused of lying about witchcraft. The people in Salem thought witchcraft was a suspicious thing. In The Crucible, Abigail Williams takes out her pain and love for John Proctor, out on other people just so she can be with him forever. Abigail is a sneaky , conniving “whore” who is wrapped around John Proctor. As time goes on Abigail love for John Proctor grew so intense.

When one conforms to society, it makes the general public and authorities feel as if they have nothing to worry about. The Puritan society had a strict moral code and established a rigid Theocracy to keep ones who would express individual freedom in line. Throughout Arthur Miller’s writing of The Crucible, this Puritan view of panic and freedom is described and hidden behind the Theocracy and what they would call government. In the 16th and 17th century the Puritans believed in not bending their laws, or forgiving errors; if one were to commit a sin he shall keep committing that sin because the fear of admitting flaws came with a cost. The Crucible is set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts; Miller explains,

“The conflict created when the will of an individual opposes the will of the majority is a recurring feature of drama.”

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.

Reverend Hale develops from a strong intelligent individual with no compassion, to kind & sympathetic as the story matures for example when he is begging women in prison to confess to save their lives.

The world is so full of stupendous works of literature, which are subjected to a plethora of different personal interpretations. It is inconceivable to imagine that each novel has only one prominent underlying message or theme. Arthur Miller, the American dramatist and playwright, out of The University of Michigan, was able to transform one of the most notable accounts of mass hysteria and loss of rational thought, and mold it into an elaborate and complex drama. Miller’s, The Crucible tells the story of the Salem witch trials that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts in the late seventeenth century. Literary lenses are used to assist readers in admiring and evaluating literary works, in an overabundance of ways. When analyzing The Crucible through the historical, psychological, and archetypal lenses, the reader can see the prominent niche that each lens plays within the story, significantly impacting the reader’s point of view on not only the story itself, but as well as the broader connection to society as a whole.