Bridget Bishop was found guilty of practicing witchcraft and was sentenced to death. She was hanged at Proctor’s Ledge, a small hill near Gallows Hill; she was the first victim of the trials. Other people who were also hanged were Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor, along with sixteen others. One of the victims that had a painful death was Giles Corey, who refused to plead guilty. For this reason, he was tortured until he pleaded, but he never did. His punishment was being pressed, which is when a person is laid on the ground with a board placed on top of them, and heavy stones are placed on top of them until the weight is too much for them, so they either enter a plea or die. In spite of being tortured for three days, Giles never pleaded guilty…
1.) Hale said at the end of act three, “I believe him! (Pointing at Abigail:) This girl has always struck me false!”…
characters to exploit other people in the book. This is demonstrated in a story based off the Salem Witch Trials and a major problem in the McCarthy Era. Arthur Miller was living through this McCarthy Era where people were accused for being communists yet there was none. He wrote The Crucible based off the that. Mass hysteria is used within the story by Abigail, Hale, and Mary Warren to exploit the people around them.…
Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ is based upon the Salem Witch Trials which occurred in the year 1692. The text also serves as an allegorical warning about much more recent events, in particular the McCarthy Trials of 1953. The McCarthy Trials were exploring communism. ‘The Crucible’ was written to highlight the similarities between McCarthyism and communism in the 1950’s in the United States of America and the witch hunts of Europe in the 17th century. The play is literally written about the witch trials but it is figuratively about the society Miller lived in, in 1953. Thousands of Americans were accused of being communists like in ‘The Crucible’; hundreds of the town’s people were accused of being witches. Three major ideologies that are still relevant in society today are evident in the play, intolerance, mass hysteria and reputation.…
The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is a story that takes place around the Salem witch trials in 1692. The play mainly focuses around the Proctor family, John and Elizabeth Proctor are wrongfully accused of witchcraft just like the rest of the town. Giles Corey is a local senior citizen and well known throughout the town, he mentions that his wife reads strange books and his wife gets accused even though she just reads. Giles Corey starts to realise the reasons for some of the accusations and starts to accuse the accusers and inform the judges thats its all a lie to try to preserve peoples honor and integrity. Giles character reflects a major question raised in the play: What does it take to be a truly honorable person? As Giles efforts to stay an honorable person and help keep other peoples honor, he is willing to go to great lengths to keep his honor.…
Giles Corey is an 81 year-old man he has a wife name Martha Corey who is a 72 year-old woman they live in a town called Salem, Massachusetts. In the play The Crucible we find out that Giles Corey is a not-so-smart man, but towards the end of the play we see that he dies with integrity for his family.…
As seen in Act II of The Crucible, the Proctor family was in a crisis with John and Elizabeth in constant tension after John had an affair with Abigail Williams. The Crucible by Arthur Miller, is a play about the events of the Salem Witch Trials. In the play, many characters make accusations that several people were with the Devil. This conflict has many similarities to McCarthyism, a practice popular in the 1950’s, in which someone accuses another person of something without any proper evidence to reinforce their accusation. However, the main focus is on John and Elizabeth Proctor, who have both seen their fair share of sin, and redemption at the end of play. The Proctor’s change throughout the course of the play, and through the way they…
1.The court is considering the evidence that they have on her being a witch, Hawthorne calls her out when he questions,” there is abundant evidence in our hands to show that you have given yourself to the reading of fortunes, Do you deny it?”. She responds saying,” I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is.”…
The allegory of Arthur Miller and McCarthyism began when Miller wrote The Crucible which shows the similarities between the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare. The fear of the the crucible still in some people as it did in the fifties “the play seems to be about the dilemma of relying on the testimony of small children accusing adults of sexual abuse, something I'd not have dreamed of forty years ago.” Arthur Miller once stated “The…
Throughout Joseph McCarthy’s accusations of communism there was talk of some of his victims possibly being innocent. One of these victims that was allegedly innocent was Arthur Miller. Miller, because he was wronged by the law, decided to write a similar story to the events of the McCarthy trials in order to make McCarthy’s ideals seem flawed. Miller believed that if he could write a story to prove the accusations incorrect he would be able to re-establish his respectable reputation. This story is known as “The Crucible”, a story about the Salem Witch Trials and how the townspeople were falsely accused of witchcraft, but couldn’t do anything to plead there innocence. Miller managed to show through “The Crucible”, how ridiculous McCarthy’s accusations were and how it was very…
You ask me what parallels there are between the play The Crucible and the event The McCarthy Era. There were many parallels throughout the whole play. In this play everyone was blamed for no reason at all and all everyone one did was make excuses to try and not get their own selves in trouble. They were always wondering why everyone was getting tricked into believing that witches existed and it was because they were all just trying to get themselves out of trouble. Arthur Miller shows the audience that people have not moved on that much from when people were believing in the Salem witch trials. All through this play, Miller used the trails in The Crucible and the McCarthy Era because he realized that the events were the same. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to help everyone today, who wasn’t alive back then, notice that they were not going crazy they were just trying to keep themselves alive and just they were believing everything they heard.…
The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as a narrative to McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. Even though The Crucible is based on the Salem witch trials, they have differences such as, the relationship between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, and the towns’ relationship with the Putnam’s.…
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, many people are accused and convicted of witchcraft. It starts the rumor of witchcraft in the village, but it evolves into a great witch hunt with many people getting arrested. In the play people often accuse their neighbors or enemies. The accused are often unable to defend themselves of the accusation, so they either get pregnant, confess, or accuse others in order to live. These are just some of the ways many people were accused of witchcraft, but others were motivated by other reasons. In the play people are motivated by greed, jealousy, and hysteria to accuse others of witchcraft.…
A quote by Edward R. Murrow states, “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” During the Red Scare, Senator McCarthy did terrorize a whole nation, and Arthur Miller became a victim of McCarthyism. Miller suffered through accusations of possibly believing in communism; as a result, he wrote a play called The Crucible, in which he used the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to explain the communist hysteria during the 1950s. Arthur Miller develops an allegory in The Crucible by comparing the Salem Witch Trials to McCarthyism by using ringleaders, persecuted couples, and hypocrisy in the government or legal system.…
Arthur Miller is a great author that uses many forms of syntax, figurative language, and diction to enhance his writing throughout The Crucible. Miller uses figurative language throughout The Crucible, to put emphasis on certain ideas and things. Miller also uses diction in The Crucible to show that the story is taking place in the past and to give the story a more biblical feel to it. One other thing that Arthur Miller does really well is his use of syntax. He uses syntax throughout The Crucible to show the intelligence levels of different characters. Miller uses these three different things in combination throughout The Crucible to enhance the story and to tell the story of the witch craft trials in an insightful way.…