The Influence Of Witchcraft In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

A man 's reputation in many forms is his, life’s work. To have your reputation dismantled is like taking away one 's accomplishments and life’s work. Arthur Miller 's The Crucible is a play about justice and injustice, and how our justice system can be easily corrupted. The story revolves around a man named John Proctor, the tragic hero of this story. John Protector is a symbolic character created by Arthur Miller, because he faced the justice system head on. Proctor’s biggest flaw would be his great amounts of pride, which unfortunately led to his own death. In Arthur Millers’ The Crucible, he characterizes John Proctor as the tragic hero of the story because of all that he lost, through his relentless crusade to free his wife and exposing injustice, illustrating that no hero is perfect.

In the book, The Crucible Arthur Miller tries to demonstrate that the Salem Witch Trials and the red scare had a huge impact on the lives of many people. But mainly that there was lots of fear during that time. And people like for example McCarthy saw that as an opportunity to Manipulate people for personal gain. Also, Arthur Miller is showing how these two events really relate to each other and share the same concept.

“The Crucible” takes place in the late 1600’s in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. At this time, people believed that witchcraft existed and that commonly people practiced it. The town of Salem was a very religiously based settlement and was very strict about its rules towards witches and witchcraft. The play is based off of an actual time when multiple girls lied about practicing witchcraft, and about people using witchcraft to force the girls to use it. Throughout the play, the lie continues to escalate because the girls do not want to get in trouble and the trials and panic gets very out of hand. Three major factors that caused the Salem witch trials to escalate so far

On page 148 lines 340-350 states “ Betty: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” Text explain what Abigail try to do to achieve her goal. Her personality can be described as a deceptive children, who sacrifices others to achieve their greedy goal. Abigail accused other women for witchery until people are sentenced to being hanged. On the first day 14 people were jailed and on the next day over 100 were accused. She finally had the guts to accuse Elizabeth of sending her spirit to stab her in the stomach. Of course Elizabeth is arrested under a warrant from the court currently residing in

You are guilty of witch-craft, and you will be hanged immediately! In “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, written in 1953, was written during the Red Scare when people would get blacklisted for being associated with Communism. Arthur Miller published this book in order to get the message across of what was happening with McCarthyism, but instead this book deals with witch-craft in Salem. People were accused of being witches and allying with the devil. Many of them were being executed till they confessed or gave them a name of the people dealing with the devil. Innocent people were being punished due to people having more of an authority as others, especially if they have a good name in the village like Abigail. Elizabeth Proctor is a woman of God and is accused of witch-craft by Abigail. Also Elizabeth is motivated by anger and jealousy, after she finds out her husband has been cheating on her with Abigail, she decides to make him feel guilty, which leads him to confess to witch-craft.

The power dynamics in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, are based on corruption and manipulation. Multiple characters, including Abigail Williams, Reverend Samuel Parris, Deputy Governor Danforth, and Thomas Putnam, misuse their influence in the drama. This depicts how once one has been in a seat of power for an extended period of time, they are actively aware, or in Danforth’s case unaware, of their abuse of power. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, possesses characters that illustrate how excessive perversion of power corrupts the Puritan society.

How do the characters respond to the accusation of witchcraft? Why do you think they act this way? Does their religion have anything to do with their reaction?

Arthur Miller had to make a person tell or influence the judge that the girls are faking, and that they were causing all the innocent people to be killed; since some of them know that the girls are faking it, they are keeping it from the judge, instead. John Proctor and Giles Corey influenced the judge and took a mighty risk of doing what they did. Giles Corey “sent” his wife to jail because he said that he couldn’t say his prayers when his wife was reading weird books and when she stopped and left, he could. This time, he influenced the judge to reconsider all the killings and someone told him that the girls are faking it, but he didn’t say the name of the person. “Why, I-I cannot give you his name. You know well why not! He’ll lay in

People were falsely accused in court of being witches because there were girls seen dancing in the woods, flying around, and casting love spells. The girls are now being accused of being witches, and accused of witchcraft by the people of Salem. In fact, in the crucible, on page 15, Mrs. Putnam accused Tituba of knowing how to speak to the dead. Also on page 15, Parris accused Abigail of conjuring spirits that night. Abigail is the character that accuses others the most in the book. She will do whatever she can to make herself look the best. Furthermore, she says “We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some

In The Crucible, A meeting I recently sat in on started with Sarah discussing the accusations by saying, "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!" Betty goes on to say, "I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!" After this MAJOR event, the accusations became more frequent and grew until the jails were filled to over capacity with citizens accuse of witch craft. After all, “children are to be seen and not heard in Puritan society.” In the beginning of Act Three, the girls were ordered to convince the judge and everyone else that that they were not just acting. To prove their innocence, Abigail has been leading the other girls in an act to save their innocence. Abby acted as if Mary Warren sent her spirit up to the rafters and began to talk to the spirit. "Oh Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it's God's work I do." The other girls followed in Abby’s footsteps and began talking to the ceiling too. Finally, the girls act caused Mary Warren to accuse John Proctor of witchcraft. This started what would be a whirlwind of fake

In The Crucible Abigail mistrusts the girls to keep their secret that witchcraft is not real, she makes them fear her and makes them go against their own beliefs so that Abigail will not get into trouble. “Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sister.

One person in the crucible that was accused of participating in witchcraft is a woman

Many crucial events lead to the Salem Witch trials. The trials ended in a gruesome manner, and conflicts were at the root of the cause. The Salem Witch trials were the result of illogical-mass hysteria, and were induced by grudge holding people who used the trials to harm their foes.

Witnessing first hand real life “witch hunts” during the McCarthy era gave Arthur Miller a knack for pinpointing motivations for people to lie, and the ability to create compelling scenes in which characters rely on, in varying degrees, circumventing the truth.

The role of women have transformed over the past century. Up until recently, women had no power or say in anything they did. Women have been held to different standards up until recent times. The role of women in the past was to stay at home and take care of her children and to cook for her family. Arthur Miller examines the role of women throughout the play The Crucible. In the beginning of the play the women begin with no power because it’s in the period of time where women aren’t as important as men. Women were generalized as keepers of the home who did not possess any power. They were not in charge of anything important because women have been sexualized to not be able to do the same tasks as men. Arthur miller showed us that women who start with no power and then gain a large amount in a short span of time, can end up abusing it.