The Crucible Critical Analysis

Others could find more emotions shown in metaphors to show a deeper meaning. In the third act of the play, Proctor confesses that he is an adulterer and he explains why he would not lie about it. When Proctor said that Abigail was the person he was having an affair with it shows that his name is now tainted. Since his respectable name is tainted it has shown his sincerity in his claim that Abigail had an affair with

The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the time of the Salem witch trials. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses revenge as the main theme throughout the playwright. Revenge is the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong done to someone else. Revenge is shown throughout the characters actions in the play. Witch craft is used to represent revenge. If someone didn't like another, they could accuse that person of witch craft and inflict harm on him or her. Many characters in the play are motivated by their desire to seek revenge. During the course of the play, revenge motivates the characters and has a huge significance in the play.

Proctor 's decision to tell the court about his affair ironically demonstrates his goodness. He also spoke up for the innocent girls that had their names branded. He willingly sacrifices his good name in order to protect his wife and others who are wrongly accused. Only through his public acknowledgment of the affair does Proctor regain his wife 's trust. At the end of the play, Proctor refuses to slander himself by allowing the court to make him make a false confession. The court told him to lie, and that if he lies that he would not be sent to the gallows. He did the right decision by telling the truth about his affair with Abigail. He honestly told the truth about the affair, and that he was not part of the witchcraft. His response further exemplifies Proctor 's integrity. But John was not guilty. He had nothing to do with witchcraft, he admitted to his own mistakes. Proctor knows that if he confesses that he will be damned himself, yet again, if he agrees to confess, he will also be free from the torment from the demon inside him and set others free too. This realization, along with Elizabeth 's forgiveness, enables Proctor to forgive himself and finally regain his good name and self-respect. As the court

In the play, The Crucible, MIller allows the reader to learn something about the world by showing us that the sins that we have committed will keep weighing us down, until we confess them. John Proctor commits adultery with Abigail Williams, and keeps this affair a secret from Elizabeth. Proctor starts to feel guilty, and mad at himself. He attempts to pretend that the affair never happened. “But I will cut off my hand before I reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind, we never touched, Abby…..Proctor, angered--at himself as well: You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth!” (24) This piece of textual evidence proves that Proctor is unable to forgive himself for what he has done to Elizabeth, and what he has done to himself to lose his goodness.

This speech shows that Proctor is blaming himself for this tragedy. Proctor's guilt still continues about his affair with Abigail and he is also now guilty for hesitating to act earlier.

Proctor's desire to preserve his good name earlier keeps him from testifying against Abigail, leading to disastrous consequences. Now,

John Proctor’s anxiety from his affair with Abigail has a huge effect on him. Seen as a moral and upright man in the town, his true sins of adultery trouble him as they must remain suppressed inside him. Proctor reveals this when he states, “Spare me! You forget nothin' and

He feels that he can never be with Abigail again. He is haunted by this because when he talks to her, he is nervous. “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched” (Page 22). In this quote, two betrayals are revealed by Proctor. First, his betrayal of his wife and second his betrayal of Abigail.  These two betrayals are crucial to the play seeing as it is due to Proctor’s betrayal of his wife, by cheating on her, and his betrayal of Abigail, by leaving her without taking responsibility, that initiated the conflict. Furthermore, because Proctor is not willing to admit his deceit, both he and his wife got caught in disorder. Ultimately, Proctor’s betrayal and dishonesty lead to his downfall.

Throughout the play, Proctor struggles with his honor as he changes from viewing it as his reputation to believing it is based on his own private moral of truth. The isolated Puritan community in which Proctor lives forces him to try and achieve a pious and perfect lifestyle, which ultimately pressures him into lying about his affair with Abigail in order to maintain a good reputation. This view changes in the courtroom, when Proctor becomes extremely frustrated with the lies and deceit that Abigail is telling the judges, Proctor screams in anger, “I beg you sir, I beg you - see her what she is… She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me; I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a

John Proctor was a truly honest man, as his personality continued to remain unwavering, even when confronted with the harshest situation. Honesty can be defined as the pursuit of vindicating the innocent and ending the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller explores Proctor’s honesty and its consequences in his play The Crucible. Aggravated by his wife’s false condemnation for witchcraft, Proctor demonstrates his resolve to help her, which will cause the court to antagonize him. Additionally, his desire to stop Abigail’s rampage leads to his imprisonment for witchcraft. Guilty of lechery, Proctor embarks on his final path to redemption, which will lead him to his death. Ultimately, John Proctor’s honesty leads to his downfall.

As Vladimir Lenin once stated, “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” This quote indicates that if you constantly repeat a lie, eventually people will come to believe it. I definitely agree with Lenin. A lie won’t stay a secret forever. Lenin’s quote remains true and evident in Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible. There are many characters Miller uses to prove this quote true through the literary elements Characterization, Theme, and Setting. Some characters include Abigail, John Proctor, and Thomas Putnam.

The theme one could say in the play is, believing and spreading false accusations can be life threatening. In The Crucible, this happened quite often as people who had no relation to Abigail’s spell in the woods were accused of witchcraft. If they refused to confess to practicing witchcraft, they would be killed. If they confessed to practicing witchcraft, (even if it wasn’t true), they would be jailed and have their lives saved, but their reputations ruined forever. I think the author, Arthur Miller, is trying to teach readers and viewers a lesson that even innocent people can be accused of crimes they did not commit and to not believe everything we hear when people are panicking and are in fear. Abigail Williams is a prime example of spreading false accusations, even early on in the play when she falsely blames Tituba for everything Abigail says,“She made me do it! She made Betty do it! She makes me drink blood!”(23). In Salem, everyone was panicked and spreading rumors out of fear, and falsely accusing people of witchcraft, even unexpected people, like John Proctor’s maid, Mary Warren when she turned on him to save herself and said to him in court, “Don’t touch me - don’t touch me … you’re the Devil’s man!” (52). This betrayal and false accusation is what eventually causes Proctor to give up his fight.

The Crucible presents itself as one of the most controversial books of all time, seeing as its written by a man who got not just accused of communism, but asked by the FBI to change one of his screenplays because he got wrapped up the ‘witch hunt’ of his time. This books written not only to convey the messages and important lesson from the Salem Trials, but to also draw parallels to the modern events in the lives of the audience. Arthur Miller came up with the richly significant name of his book by sampling bits from linguistic, scientific, and biblical definitions of the word “crucible.”

Lying leads to terrible tragedies. Lying for so long will make it unpleasant to move on and the more difficult it will become. Just like how The Crucible ends. The Crucible is set in Salem, Massachusetts, at the beginning of the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials. The story is centralized around John Proctor, a white, landowning Puritan who betrayed his wife, Elizabeth by having sex with Abigail Williams. Back in the day, everything was black and white, meaning if something isn’t about God then it must’ve been about the Devil, they were religious people and they would not accept the fact that he had sex with someone else outside of marriage. He denied that nothing ever happened between him and Abigail. While Proctor is not taking responsibility for his actions, he causes a big commotion: people getting arrested and hanged, Abigail and a group of other girls are being accused of being part of Witchcraft. In the fourth act, Proctor is stuck in a situation where he either says the truth about who is part of witchcraft or he gets hanged. Proctor does not confess because he does not want people to use his name in vain and he knows that if he confesses it will leave a bad example for his sons, he decided to die an honest man than to live a fraud. At the end, Proctor ripped the confession knowing that he will be hung. Throughout the play, Arthur Miller creates two themes: the past will always haunt you and as people run away from their problems, their problems will continue to follow

There’s a handful of plays that you just can’t go through life without watching. The soul-shattering immortal plays that lose no impact or resonance as time goes on. For Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the emotional connection to present day is arguably stronger than at the time of production; transforming it from a historical tragedy to a contemporary morality play.