In the Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is both an allegory and tragedy where the Puritan society of Salem is attacked with the agitation of witchcraft. It all started with five young girls of the Salem society caught dancing naked around a bonfire. This practice is viewed upon by the Puritans as the task of the devil. In the beginning of the play, there was controversy about ownership of land between some of the villagers. Later in the story, people fear for their own safety and begin pointing fingers and accusing their neighbors of witchcraft in order to escape being hanged. This caused the society to get more and more separated as time went on. This emphasizes the idea of how fear and suspicion can destroy a society due to accusations, roundups, and forced confessions. Miller captures the evil of paranoia and fear in his play through emotions by letting them shine through his characters to make the audience feel the tension, the angst and the desperation throughout the play.
Arthur Miller includes a large number of logical fallacies such as scare tactic and slippery slope in order to emphasize the evil or paranoia and fear in his play through emotions of the characters. Miller exemplifies scare tactic when Abigail says “... I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ head upon the pillow next to mine, and I have seen reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!” (Miller 20). This emphasizes paranoia and fear because Abigail is trying to scare her friends into not telling everyone that they danced and conjured up spirits instead of not giving them a logical reason why they should not tell the truth. Miller organizes this conversation between the girls in a mysterious manner. Betty accuses Abigail of drinking blood, to which Abigail reacts by telling her to shut up. Abigail feels threatened by the other girls, and she reveals this frustration by offering a threat of her own. Another example of scare tactic is when Paris says “You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to death, Tituba!” (Miller 44). This emphasizes paranoia and fear because Tituba is pressured into "confessing" and also she is also pressured into denouncing others who are
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, a play written by Arthur Miller, is a chronological narrative including a large cast of characters with a constantly moving setting.* The Crucible is a dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and an allegory of the McCarthyism period. Throughout the play, Miller explores the destruction of freedom by the ignorant and tyrannical society in which his characters live.* By exhibiting how easily a member of the community can become an outcast, Arthur Miller displays social criticism in the Puritan society as well as in today's society in The Crucible.
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, was a historical play written about the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692-93. The Salem witch trials created mass hysteria throughout the entire village of Salem, which was also mainly inhabited by Puritans. Puritans had a set ideal of firm beliefs that managed how they lived. Essentially, they were living as an elect, which meant they (referring to the Puritans) had a place in heaven for the righteous acts they have done in the physical world. Meaning, any sinful acts could potentially hinder the chances of entering heaven as an elect. The Crucible, questioned everything the Puritans abided by. It questioned the basic morals of a pure lifestyle, adultery and
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an interpretation of the Salem witch trials of 1692 in Puritan Massachusetts in which religion, justice, individuality and dignity play a vital role. These factors define the characteristics of many of the most significant characters in the play. Some of them being John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, Reverend Hale, Danforth and many others. The Salem witch trials were a result of the lack of expression of individuality and the fact that no individual could expect justice from the majority culture as a result of the deterioration of human dignity in the Puritan society of Salem.
A society that praises moral righteousness and piety is destroyed by a series of witch trials that are ironically immoral and unfair. The Salem Witch Trials are fueled by personal motives and feuds that emerge because of the restrictions in Puritan society. The society nurtures a culture of fear and distrust that stems from dread of the devil and strict adherence to the Bible. Salem is the perfect environment for fear and vengeance to spread through witchcraft accusations, because people have no other means to gain power or get revenge on enemies. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays how the Puritan society in Salem influences the witch trials and increases their impact, because of the religion-based justice system, women and
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a historical play set in 1962 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. As you may know, you've all placed your trust in the words and actions of someone close to you. And what do they do? They betray you! It's rarely justified, and can happen to the best of us. Based on authentic records of witchcraft trials in the seventeenth-century this play explains how a small group of girls manage to create a massive panic in their town by spreading accusations of witchcraft. These rumors in turn are the causes that many citizens are hung for. This essay will show how the lies and betrayal of a few individuals eventually leads to the downfall of Salem and its society.
The infamous play, The Crucible written by Arthur Miller takes place in the town of Salem, Massachusetts when a group of girls accuses innocent people in the puritan society of witchcraft. Abigail Williams, a young girl and her friends are caught doing a forbidden action considered to the puritan community, and try to draw the community’s attention away from their wrongdoing. As the puritan civilization starts to believe these juvenile girls about the devil being present in certain individuals, other authentic personals try to fight for their society as a whole. Throughout the book, characters show that the community is more important than the individual by sacrificing their perseverance, passion, and integrity when their morals are challenged.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller, explains the marvels of witchcraft and the world of “magic”, which unravels a set of confusing disasters in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. While confronted between a choice of life and death, situations hastily get out of hand, and soon become uncontrollable. These events are based on true happenings that led to the writing of this play, which contains the themes mass hysteria, groupthink, and abuse of power. The vast world of witchcraft may not have seemed too intimidating, but it is proven that it’s more dangerous than one can truly imagine.
The Crucible is a dramatic play written by Arthur Miller in 1953. Miller intrigues his audience with the story of the Salem witch trials, which he loosely based on real events and people from that time period. While there are many different themes at work in this tragedy, the most thought provoking of these is the theme of religion. Puritanism was a large part of everyday life in Salem and this play clearly demonstrates its effect on society back then. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible exposes the evils committed under the guise of religion and the terrible things people are capable of doing in the name of God.
The year is 1692. Throughout the small, Puritan, seaside community of Salem, rumors and accusations fly like gusts of ocean wind. Neighbors turn on neighbors, and even the most holy church-goers are accused of being the devil’s servants. The Crucible details this real-life tragedy of the Salem witch trials, in which nineteen members of the Salem community were hanged for alleged witchcraft. Abigail Williams, a seemingly innocent girl, accuses dozens of Salem’s citizens of witchcraft through the support of her mob of girls and the complicity of the court officials. The title of this play gives significant insight into the experiences of several of these Salem citizens. Although a crucible is often used in chemistry for heating up substances, the title of the play carries a much greater weight. In his famous play The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the title of “crucible” to signify the severe and unrelenting tests of faith and character that many of the community members endure throughout the Salem witch trials, which he achieves through the use of figurative language and fallacies of relevance and insufficiency.
The play The Crucible, was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It is a story he wrote after his own experience being accused of communism. This affected a lot of well-known people in the United States during this time, and was considered a witch hunt similar to the Salem witch hunts. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible about a man, John Proctor, who has an affair with Abigail Williams. She catches feelings for him and tries to cast a spell on John Proctor’s wife to kill her; this gets out of hand when Abigail’s uncle catches her and some other girls dancing during the spell in the woods. Suddenly, the whole town is living in fear of who is practicing witchcraft, who could be a witch, and innocent people are killed if they don’t confess to being witches. Overall, mass fear and panic, and false accusations are seen over and over throughout the play.
The Crucible is a play that takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the 17th century and is based on true events. The Puritans believed in witchcraft and were gullible. At the start of the play, the audience learns some girls were caught dancing naked in the woods by Reverend Parris. They had supposedly “conjured up spirits” and this led to the accusations of the girls as witches. In order to escape the punishment, they accuse other women of the town of being witches. They say that they were approached by the devil but did not go over to his side so they are used as members of the jury.
Arthur Miller writes about the tragic results of human failings in his play, The Crucible. He presents characters from the past and infuses them with renewed vitality and color. Miller demonstrates the horrifying results of succumbing to personal motives and flaws as he writes the painful story of the Salem witch trials. Not only do the trials stem from human failings but also from neglect of moral and religious considerations of that time. Characters begin to overlook Puritan values of thrift and hope for salvation. Focusing on the flawed characters, they begin to exhibit land lust, envy of the miserable and self-preservation.
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.)”
One concept is capable of more destruction than almost anything else. It can change a person’s life, or end it. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play that is set in Salem, Massachusetts in the early 1690’s. The play revolves around the infamous Salem Witch Hunts and their proceedings both within the court and outside of the court. Within this plotline, a theme of greed functions in the play, influencing the actions of certain characters, including Reverend Parris, Thomas Putnam, and Abigail.