Preview

Essay On Fear In The Crucible

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
460 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Fear In The Crucible
The Crucible Essay Draft
Fear. It’s a common thing in a person’s everyday. Maybe even little fears such as losing a pencil or getting late to a class. Fear is everywhere around us whether you believe it or not. The dictionary definition of the word Fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat”. In the play, “The Crucible”, fear is a big thing in the main plot of the story. The townspeople were in fear of witches and believed that they were a thing of the devil. Here are a few examples of fear in this play.
The first occurrence of fear that is shown in the play is of Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams was the maid to the Proctor household, where she had an affair
…show more content…
Reverend Parris is the father of a girl who was afflicted with “witchcraft” and the uncle of Abigail Williams. He is scared that Abigail could ruin his ranking in the church if she is found guilty in being in an affair. In the text, Reverend Parris smacks Abigail WIlliams during their conversation.He doesn't want her being in an affair with John Proctor due to if might being able to affect his ranking in the church.
The townspeople were in fear as well as everyone else. They did not want the town to appear as a witch town to the others around them. Due to young girls starting to slowing becoming bed ridden due to the newly found witchcraft in their town. In the text, when they saw Betty Parris try to run out of a window and fly, it showed them that there is in fact a sort of witchcraft in their town. In fear of their lives, they wanted a witch hunt to occur for that fact.

All in all, the fear in the play “The Crucible” could be related to fear in some people’s everyday life. Such as a rumor or even a lie being told about you that could risk your job. Fear has been a huge thing in our modern society for a long time and this play is just another view on fear for people of their

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Fear is the death of us humans. When we have fear it causes us uncertainty, and also clouds our judgment. It motivates us to do acts that we would not normally put ourselves through. The Crucible written in 1952 by Arthur Miller took place in a town called Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. In the play characters show fear, but one main character is Mary Warren. She is a seventeen year old girl that works for John and Elizabeth Proctor. During the play it is easy to see how fear not only changes her loyalties but also develops her into a submissive character.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Crucible and Hale

    • 1297 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Who is Elizabeth Proctor? What does Abigail think of her? How might this affect the outcome of the play?…

    • 1297 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is an allegory for the Red Scare and Salem Witch Trials. Its based in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. In Act 1 the play introduce many of the essential characters of the play. It introduces the fact that everyone in the town is carrying their own demons inside and their willing to bail them on anyone to escape judgment. In the play there are two types of demonic forces at work, literal demonic forces, like witchcraft, possession, death during child birth, people being turned into witches, and dancing in the forest late at night. As well as figurative demonic forces, examples of that would be reputation, intolerance, deceit, lies, and rumors.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear was one of the most important things which shaped society but as Miller wrote in his book lies were affected society almost in the same way. Abigail, the main character in The Crucible, uses intimidation to create an atmosphere of fear that pervades the entire play. In act one, she tried to scared girls for do not tell the truth: "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 terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you . . . I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!" This treat predicted Abigail's accusations of…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Human nature is the common feelings, characteristics, and behaviors of humans. One characteristic of human nature is fear. Humans fear the things they can not understand and when things happen that no one can explain, fear takes over and spreads like wildfire. “The Crucible,” a play written by Author Miller to express the panic and fear of witchcraft in the city of Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600s, follows the lives of multiple Salem residents and shows how the Salem Witch Trials affected their lives. One character in particular, John Proctor, is largely affected when the young girl he’d had an affair with starts the accusations against people in Salem for practicing witchcraft. John Proctor’s character is the epitome of human nature; his sins, guilt, loyalty, redemption, and his realization that he is in fact a good man make him an entirely human character…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, various people had been accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. This leads to a hysteria of fear of the devil and witches. Hysteria is often an outcome of jealousy, revenge, and greed. The characters in the play all contributes to the paranoia occurring in the town.…

    • 206 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Have you ever done something you should not have because you were afraid? Such as, lie to keep yourself from getting in trouble? Did your actions cause you to question yourself? Arthur Miller was a famous playwright during the twentieth-century whose work opened up the eyes of the blind by showing them what they could not see through the arts of American theatre. He has written numerous plays, but out of them all The Crucible, written in 1953, is one of the most popular. Acting on fear causes us to become someone that we are not. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he shows us that the fears of the past are always evolving into something that we fear…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    All of these components and the unfortunate things they bred added up to one of the most hysterical events to be told through a play. The Crucible was the perfect melting pot to create mass hysteria and the awful things that come along with it. The play also showed us the people behind the panic that either helped to stop it or urged it on. It is also a warning to never let people manipulate others to create panic, state and religion be one to move that panic on to mass hysteria, or to let good, decent people die so that the mass hysteria can be…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When present, fear can often be exploited for one’s personal gain. The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, exemplifies the power of fear due to the imaginary idea of witchcraft in the small village of Salem. During the time this play was written, the United States was overcome by the fear of communism, which had led to the government accusing many innocent people for ridiculous reasons. Miller uses The Crucible to show how many of the accusations in the Salem Witch Trials, a similar event, often had underlying, selfish, and personal reasons behind them. In the play Abigail Williams, and Thomas Putnam’s take advantage of the pervasive fear in the village, allowing them to fulfill their selfish and exploitative motives which are what truly fuel the Salem Witch Trials.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the play, The Crucible, one of the major themes shows that fear and suspicion are infectious and can produce a state of general hysteria that results in the destruction of public order and rationality. Miller conveys this theme through the characters' actions. He uses numerous situations as a metaphor of the pressure on society to conform. This play also showed that one's actions, no matter how innocent his intent, can have negative consequences on those around him.…

    • 606 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the mincraft

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Fear plays a great role in the story, The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. Fear is in everyone who lives in the town of Salem, including the accusers. The accusers are scared to be found fraud so they accuse those who know the truth of witchcraft, and the accused are scared for their lives if they do not confess. Fear rules over Salem in this dark time and it does not end until the trials are over every person that was accused got mete.…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Crucible Themes Essay

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Fear is behind many good and bad things. Unfortunately, fear in this case created many problems. Fear is worked with on a couple of different levels in this play. Abigail uses other…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Crucible by Arthur Miller the author uses conflict and characterization to show that fear cripples the mind. Fear crippling the mind can be shown through conflict. The conflict of the girls versus society is a clear representation of fear because the girls create fear throughout town and people just blindly followed their judgments without thinking rationally about what was going on. Another conflict is that reveals how fear effects the brain is Abigail versus John Proctor because Abigail is afraid of losing the love of John so she stops thinking rationally and claims that people in town are witches. The crippling of the mind because of fear can also be represented by characterization. The characters Abigail and Tituba shows how fear cripples the mind when they are first confronted about the dancing they did in the woods they were afraid of what was going to happen to them so they blamed other innocent people. The townspeople are crippled by fear because anyone who openly speaks out against the accusations is suspected of being a witch themselves.…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crucible

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. In other words, Roosevelt may be saying that the only thing to be worried of is the feelings or actions that follow that scared feeling. This allegory and play written by Arthur Miller fits this quotation perfectly. Throughout The Crucible, Abigail and Mary Warren, grow an internal conflict that later turns into the plays external conflict.…

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crucible Fear

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In The Crucible the accused women were persecuted, but in reality witchcraft was a lie and innocent women were killed. This relates to modern issues in society because what we view as a problem in modern day, might be amusing to the future generation, as the witchcraft was to people in today's world. The founders of our nation created this nation for equality among people and to protect the inalienable rights of the citizens, and the activities and problems in society makes people insecure and devours them with fear. Throughout this life man fears what he cannot foresee and fear is a common feeling among all people in the past and in modern…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays