The Jealousy Assignment : The Crucible

Purist Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 suffered from a rapidly increasing phenomenon: witchcraft accusations and trials. The Crucible is a play that recounts the times of this incident. For the most part, it follows a man known as John Proctor. He is a sensible, honest, and hardworking man who made the mistake of succumbing to lust which sets off a chain of events that leads to the witch trials, and to his own demise. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible’s protagonist John Proctor proves to be a flawed human being who struggles to make sense of his past relationship with Abigail, his love for his wife, and his pride.

American playwright Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible (1952) displays to us that which hunt still exists in American society. Miller supports this claim by drawing parallels between the Salem Witch trials and the senator Joseph McCarthy. His purpose is to warn his readers of the dangers of mass hysteria. He uses emotional appeals and logic to convince the readers that mass “hunts” are still a danger to Americans today. The crucial way however, that Miller achieves his supreme objective of revealing the risks of reputation vs. integrity is through a fascinating character, John Proctor. John is an example of an internally conflicted character because he had a huge argument with Elizabeth over Abigail, Proctor also had an affair with Abigail, and lastly John had a choice between life and death at the end of the play.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible presents Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Williams who serve important roles through their unique characteristics and thinking. John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, has two defining characteristics that show throughout this play: she not only lives to please everyone around her and behaves passively, but she lacks the assertiveness to confront what lies directly under her nose. However, Abigail, the girl John Proctor commits the crime of adultery with, manipulates those around her. She is keen to act upon an opportunity when one arises and feels a determination to get her way. While Elizabeth and Abigail are similar in their love for John Proctor, Elizabeth differs from Abigail through her tendency to try to please everyone and keep her own emotions bottled up, while Abigail believes the world revolves around her and works to make things go her own way.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started”(Henry Ward Beecher). In 1692 Salem, Massachusetts Madness is consuming Salem, and everyone is accused of being with the devil. John Proctor’s affair with Abigail jump starts the witch hunts. In the Crucible Arthur Miller embodies Proctor as a tragic hero with many flaws but his fatal flaw was his pride which caused his demise. Throughout the play we witness Proctor’s transformation as a person from a sinful remorseless adulterer, repentant, and to an honorable man.

The importance of reputation in Salem is illustrated through John Proctor’s personal struggle. Proctor is conflicted with the two options he encounters- telling the truth, or confessing to a crime he did not commit. This opposing conflict is displayed through ethos within the play The Crucible. Arthur Miller establishes this fundamental concept of reputation by applying anaphora as well as characterization to his writing.

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, many rhetorical elements illuminate the meaning behind the text. Examples of rhetorical elements in The Crucible are tone, author’s purpose, and the overall mood. During the closing scene and its final lines the tone might be described as suspenseful and melancholy, while Miller’s purpose relays the events in Salem to the accusations of Communists in 1950’s America. However, in the end of the play, the audience should feel pensive about the death of Proctor and what Proctor’s motives truly are.

In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a story that displays a tragic hero and many women who deceived about interacting with witchery. Proctor's life completely turned upside down when Abigail started all these lies and put the people he loved and cared to their death or jail.  John Proctor's fatal flaw was his great amount of pride, that continued a series of unfortunate events. Unfortunately, Proctor died for a crime he did not commit.

Paranoia and the fear of the unknown often serve as motives of characters in literature. These characters do whatever they deem necessary, no matter how unjust their actions may be when they feel threatened. In times of distress, some of these actions can become questionable. The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, emphasizes people’s boundless reactions to anxiety and questions the morality of their rationale. In The Crucible, Miller makes desperation and fear the motivations for Abigail Williams’s action to illustrate how depraved people can become when protecting themselves.

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.

Lying is a common occurrence throughout the play of The Crucible despite every character being a “believer.” In this play, Miller demonstrates characters being freed by the sin of lying. This theme has shown that the people of Salem lied to protect themselves or others. This also happens in everyday life and is a common issue that can be shown through false confession. The Crucible has shown many ways of how this theme is influenced in the real world. The two main situations from the play that show this theme of lying for self-freedom or the freedom of others involves John Proctor and Abigail Williams.

As an unseen instigator of the movement against false confession during the trials of Salem, John Proctor shows a great deal of Integrity, ripping up the confession. This action is crucial to the events in the play and a running theme throughout. “Hysterically, as if the tearing paper were his life” both Parris and Hale plead with Proctor “Man you will hang.”. In the same way, Arthur Miller acts with integrity during his own trial, suggesting that that aspects of his own character have been translated in John Proctor. This reoccurring feature of drama, the effects of individual versus society, may also be identified as a reoccurring situation in society. That John Proctor’s life-affirming choice should lead to death is the greatest irony of the play, and yet another example of injustice in our society.

The play about a wicked society who are deceiving and vengeful, the town of Salem is impacted by wicked, deceiving men or women as innocent people die in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. In this play, a man named John Proctor tries to help his friends after he has an affair with Abigail, who is now trying to kill everyone by hanging them to be with John. After being with Abigail, John then is motivated to try to support not just his wife but his friends this motive is what prompts John to hang and this creates a deeper play and makes John the most important character in the play. But at the end, his pride destroys him because he does not want to sully his name, not just trying to help his friends in an extreme manner that John is prone to doing.

From The Crucible and my own experience there have been some types of jealousies, selfish ambitions, and peer pressures, etc. They are both the same from the story and into real life experience. So let’s start with The Crucible there is a lot going on in there because there is proctor and elizabeth and abigail and more there is jealousies and more. And in my life experience there has been the same thing like friend.From the author Victor Hugo he explained on society is a republic. Well it’s referring from the crucible where everyone in the story was in a part of jealousies. In my own life i’ve seen that there are people who have been jealous and prue pressured, etc. Well from The Crucible there was proctor and abigail and elizabeth but more

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible uses the ideals of Puritan morals to convey the dangers of hysteria and paranoia. This demonstrates the individual’s struggle to weigh integrity and ethics, for themselves and the community during times of distress. Within the play, Miller uses the lechery of John Proctor and Abigail Williams to exemplify the skewed theocratic system that bases law and virtues off Puritan morals. Throughout the crucible, many characters are forced into actions against their principles in Puritan society, striving to escape persecution of themselves and loved ones. Elizabeth Proctor lies for her husband John Proctor, due to her belief in puritan morals, marital vows and a “good name”.

She wants John Proctor to herself, and is doing things to try and get with him. Abigail and John Proctor once had an affair going on, but his wife Elizabeth found out and fired Abigail from working in their house. Jealousy is also shown when Another theme I found was reputation. In this time period, reputation was everything. A bad reputation