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False Confession In The Crucible

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False Confession In The Crucible
Treadwell, Trinity
Crucible Essay
10 • 17 • 14
AP English III
What are you willing to die for? Would you die for a principle you do not believe? Or would you rather live with your name scared? I’d rather die upholding my beliefs rather than living in false testimony. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Reverend Hale tells Elizabeth that “ no principle, however glorious “ is worth dying for, and he argues that it is better to give a false confession than to dye for a principle of belief. I do not agree.
Would you die for a principle you do not believe? In The Crucible, Proctor died keeping his good name. He would not confess to something to which he did not believe/true to be a free man. He instead died not confessing to his
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“It is evil is it not, It is evil ” ~ Arthur Miller , The Crucible.
Would you rather live with your name scared? Proctor did not want to have to pass down his name to his sons scared from false accusations. Proctor went as far as confessing vocally to witch craft but would not turn in in writing the confession because he knew it would be stapled to the church for everyone to see and he did not want to live with lies. Proctor chose death, although before he chose death he was prepared to choose life, he wanted to live, yet more than this he wanted an unblemished name. More importantly than this he wanted his children, and their children’s children to have a name to be proud of. Proctor didn’t want them to be left with a bad name, a name of witch. “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” ~ Arthur Miller , The Crucible. I’d rather dye with honesty instead of living in false testimony. If I was in Proctors position I would have made the same decisions. I would have been tempted to confess, as

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