The Crucible Lessons Analysis

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a rich and enticing play set in the late 1600’s describing the epic horrors and emotions through the events of the Salem witch trials. The Crucible, focuses primarily on the inconsistencies of the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior that can result from dark desires and hidden agendas. The play begins with the discovery of several young girls and an African American slave, Tituba, in the woods just outside of Salem, dancing and pretending to conjure spirits. The Puritans of Salem stood for complete religious intolerance and stressed the need to follow the ways of the bible literally without exception. The actions of the women in

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.

The Crucible teaches us any lessons that we will encounter somewhere in our lives. It teaches us that people are scared of other people being different than them. It also teaches is that when it comes to people obtaining what they want their morals won't matter at all. These lessons are shown throughout the story, our history, and our everyday lives.

In any community, the people rely on the power of law and justice to protect them. When the guardians of the law and order misuse their power it brings tragedy upon the town. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible the inappropriate actions of the character of Judge Danforth, the voice of authority of the community leads to the tragedy of social disruption of the town accompanied by breakdown in communal solidarity.

(TS)The play begins with much hearsay that the town has become infested by witches, and soon this gossip develops into a fear that spread quicker than the plague. (R)The fear intensifies to such an extent that the powerful folks, such as the town priest and the wealthy class, must respond by handling the treatment of said witches with extreme strategies: the trials and eventual hanging of the accused, innocent or not. (I)When the other townsfolk saw how the higher ups were handling the situation, the fear set in and convinced otherwise sensible people to believe in very irrational ideas. (C) In act two, lines 389-390, John Proctor states “I‘ll tell you what‘s walking Salem—vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem… common vengeance writes the law! This warrant's vengeance! I'll not give my wife to vengeance! (Miller.II.389-390)” Through the use of repetition, the word vengeance expresses the anger and resent that John Proctor has for the unjust treatment of the people accused and for the overall people of Salem. In this scene John is trying to defend the

Another lesson I learned from reading The Crucible, is to not abuse power. Abusing power is using power to an advantage in a bad way. Good leaders use their power to influence people in a positive way, while bad leaders use their power mainly for personal benefits. In the play, many of the characters with power abused it. They took complete control of situations influencing other characters to do bad things. One character from the book that abuses his power is Judge Danforth. Danforth ran all the trials for the witches , and was completely unfair. He made it basically impossible for an accused witch to be innocent. He also didn’t allow suspects to have lawyers or anyone give information that disagreed with him. He considered different opinions as “contempt of court”. When Mr. Nurse was clashing with Danforth over the issue, Danforth said, “do you know who I am, Mr. Nurse?”(Act lll, Scene l) This shows that Danforth has the cocky mindset that he is above everyone. Good leaders should be able to listen to critics. Danforth believed that everyone accused was a witch; so he didn’t even bother giving them a fair chance. Many people died under his signature. He used his power to contribute to the destruction of the town and many lives.

In “The Crucible” written by Arthur Miller tells the gruesome story of the Salem Witch trials and what people went through when it happened. Throughout the “The Crucible” they are many themes the author reveals such as revenge, guilt, hypocrisy, and authority. The most common theme in “The crucible” is integrity and courage, that justice and truth into any situation.

Martin Luther King, Jr once commented:”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The Crucible written by Arthur Miller in 1953 introduces us a story of this kind that injustice brought by a character named Danforth brings the social malfunction of Salem accompanied by a breakdown of humanity and faith which destroys the interpersonal trust, social relationships and even many lives of many Salem residents. Obviously, when the structures become shackles and the judges mute off their voice of the truth, it leads the affliction and misery to the people. In our modern society, the public requires the power and presence of a fair justice system to protect their rights and convince, punish the offenders.

“I decline to make any such statement which I found demeaning; what right had any organization to demand anyones pledge of loyalty?” Those words, were Arthur Miller’s reply to the House of Un-American Activities Commision. In which he was being questioned and then later indicted and found guilty of contempt of congress. Just like the many characters in his book The Crucible, who refused to comply with the unjust questioning and in turn, point to another in order to keep their integrity amongst the court. The story is based on false accusations which lead to the downfall of their town, by the multiple deaths due to the corrupt system of court; which is very much similar to the McCarthyism era. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an allegory considering, the fear of the respective crimes, biased acustations which lead to tainted trials and then the effects on one's life due to those corrupt sentences.

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, it takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during colonial America. Throughout the story a group of girls makes accusations a mass of people of practicing witchcraft, one of the worst crimes to commit during that period, and people are being sentenced to hang for denying witchery. In the Crucible there are many lessons that Arthur Miller wants to teach you. To me a lot of the lessons that were taught in this story are important but I feel like one of them is the most important. Arthur Miller demonstrates that one of the lessons implied in the story is people’s character and how it affects those people and others. Examples of character are Giles Corey, John Proctor, Abigail Williams.

In the second act of the book, Proctor tries to convince Cheever, the sheriff, to not arrest Elizabeth for witchery. He uses a simile to question if the girls are reliable accusers. Proctor questions, “Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers” (Miller, 77). In this sentence he also uses logos, he wants Cheever to consider if the girls are reliable and trustworthy. He claims that the people of the town are deifying the girls. John Proctor soon realizes arguing is useless and changes his diction from a persuasive tone to a cautioning tone. He POWER VERB, “ I’ll tell you what's walking Salem- vengeance is walking Salem”(Miller, 77). In this quote, John Proctor personifies the act of vengeance. He is warning them the witchcraft is all a lie and that these accusations are coming from the girls because of spite and vengeance towards other in the town. Although no one knows yet that he has had an affair with Abigail, he wants them to realize that Elizabeth is only being accused by Abigail due to resentment. He personifies vengeance

In Act II, John Proctor is furious from being told by Reverend Hale that his wife, Elizabeth, was accused of witchcraft and he would like to ask them some questions. Then, later in the Act others add on to his growing anger by informing him that his wife is to be arrested for witchcraft. To quote him, John Proctor states, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”. Through this quote, Proctor is responding to the illogical claims that surround him and the continuous support and arguments for the courts despite their corruption. Proctor is explaining that Salem is the same that it has always been, the people feel the same way that they have

John Proctor states, “I never spoke on witches one way or the other. Will you come, Giles?”(Miller, 82). Abigail is not only John Proctor’s mistress, but she is also one of the girls who are accusing innocent people in the town of being seen with the devil. Abigail is the character who has the most influence on the town’s hysteria. John regrets his affair with Abigail, but she thinks what they had was love.  Because Abigail wants to be with John Proctor, she and few other girls from the village, and Tituba (a slave) dance around because they believe it will somehow kill Proctor's wife. Abigail is asked about her affair with John, but she says none of it is true. She is does not want to get caught.  While coming up with more lies along with Betty (Reverend Parris’s daughter), she tells the other girls, “If anyone breathe a word or the edge of a word about the other things, I will come to you in the black of some terrible night (The Crucible.)”

:”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, said by Martin Luther King, Jr. The Crucible written by Arthur Miller in 1953 introduces us a story of this kind that injustice brought by a character named Danforth brings the social malfunction of Salem accompanied by a breakdown of humanity and faith. In our modern society, the public requires the power and presence of laws and justice system to protect their rights. However, when the structures become shackles and the judges mute off their voice of the truth, it leads the tragedy and misery to the people.

The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is a tragic story of injustice suffered by an innocent community who are subjected to the hypocritical, prideful judges of their trial. These Judges use their power to eliminate evidence of their mistakes and return their community to puritanical ways. The leaders of Salem are not concerned with seeking the truth and justice, but with maintaining their authority and reputations; this objective leads them to consistently rejecting truth, against all logic and evidence of their senses.