Fear of consequence often prompts individuals to push blame onto others. When Abigail realizes the others will always suspect that she bewitched Betty, she passes the blame onto Tituba, claiming, “She made me do it!... She makes me drink blood!” (43). Abigail is the first of individuals who pass the buck in Miller’s work. Miller shows how when people fear judgment, in order to avoid persecution, they transfer blame onto others.…
‘The Crucible’ is a novel which was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It takes place during the times of the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts. This was a time of much hypocrisy in the people of the town of Salem. Many people believed anything they heard or saw. Although The Crucible is fictitious, the story depicts the historical information of the Salem witch trials, and blends them with fictitious characters to create a very realistic plot and conflict in the story. Miller wrote this play as a response to the political environment in which he lived. The story relates to the McCarthy trials. During the 1950's Senator Joseph McCarthy accused many American leaders of being communists. This lead to many accusations that people were communists. Some people believed him because they had fear of communism. McCarthy was, in effect, conducting "witch hunts". The Red Scare was a witch hunt where the US government was searching for "dangerous communists." Accusations came from left and right, much the same as the characters did for "real witches" in The Crucible. This meant that people were forced to either confess to the crime of witchery or shove the blame towards a different person. As an effect of this bias, the accused were never discharged, but were given the opportunity to confess to the crime of witchcraft to lessen their sentence. With the red scare, the accused were given a chance to give up names of other suspected communists to lessen their sentence as well. In both situations, there were people who confessed even though they had no relation to the crime at all. The majority, however, valued their morals and refused to give into political pressure by lying. This is shown as abuse of power. The puritans were a group of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th century. The entire plot of the novel is moulded by the repressive Puritan society. Like many puritan women, Elizabeth Proctor is dutiful and loves her husband dearly. Yet, Elizabeth is hurt by the fact…
One can choose to rob a bank, or to kill their one-year-old child, but it is not legal.…
Deceit is arguably the fundamental provocation of the The Crucible. Abigail was able to manipulate to the entire town into believing that John Proctor was involved in witchcraft. Now this raises the question of why. It was likely a combination of factors that were prerequisites that enabled them to be deceived. The most likely motive would have to be the severity of the accusation, in addition to the social stature of the accuser. With such a grievous accusation, few would question the motive for dishonesty of something so horrendous.…
In "The Crucible", written by Arthur Miller, religious freedom and justice of the law are the main controversial aspects that are not enforced in this play. The Crucible is a play in which Arthur Miller writes about the tendentious, hysterical event of the Salem witch trials that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during 1692. Miller writes "The Crucible" to show how inequitable and unjust the law can be in a time of fear and tension of the masses. In the play, inferior and subordinate people were accusing innocent citizens of witchcraft for revenge or land. The hysteria and fear in this time of the Salem witch trials influenced the law to become less dependable and accurate when Salem did not adhere to the basic American fundamentals of religious freedom and "innocent until proven guilty." Arthur Miller creates this play to show that we still as modern America are hurt by…
The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller, shows how intolerance can corrupt a theocratic society. In The Crucible, this is achieved by a combination of three chief contributors. The paradox mentioned in his introduction to Act I, was and is entirely true in regard to the conflicting nature of the theocratic system and the human condition. First and foremost, conformity and forced control destroy the sense of trust between villagers. Secondly, intolerant attitudes ruin all creative thought and new ideas, which could have possibly freed Salem from its twisted thinking. Finally the Puritans created the same form of oppressive government they ran away from England during the 1620s.…
Author Miller in his play The Crucible explores the lives of people who strictly live under the church’s authority in a theocratic society during the 1690s in Salem, Massachusetts. A community of Puritans with their strong beliefs will cause a paranoia in their entire village. The ministers of the church afraid of losing their power will do anything to keep it. Other individuals seek power for their own personal vendetta. With the use of direct characterization, allusion, and irony Miller shows his readers who has the power, who fears it, and who wants in The Crucible.…
In The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, they are both known to be a part of the Puritan religion. The puritans are known to be very strict. Often people are put to cruel punishments for mistakes or sins they had committed. The actions they take to “punish” a person are extreme. The Puritans act and seem so committed to their religion. The people seem “Holy” but you never really know what happens behind closed doors. The Puritan religion is so strict is causes members to become corrupt.…
In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, the main protagonists are John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, and Reverend Hale. They had tolerated and however more struggled with the misunderstood references such as witchcraft that had effected their personal lives with dilemmas. Each character had exhibit a certain sin from the beginning and with their decisions made towards the end of the play it had expressed their true virtues.…
In novella of The Crucible by Arthur Miller the implications can be inferred regarding the scapegoat phenomenon in America today in how we perceive people getting accused of things they are not doing. For instance Muslims are considered bad people only because they had a few terrorist people in their population. The key lessons from the period of time during The Crucible reflects how we could have learned differently. Several people were accused of witchcraft most times they had never practiced witchcraft before. “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller 50). This quote is proving the reasoning against how the girls would accuse people of doing witchcraft.…
Nearly everyone can agree that the Puritans had some issues. They killed countless innocent people for ridiculous reasons, accused anybody different from them of being a witch, and were extremely strict about religion. Some Puritans even accused people they didn’t like of witchcraft just to get them executed. The Puritans that saw problems with this system were accused of being witches and hanged as well. These actions are shown very clearly in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. In this play, several teenage girls begin to accuse people they don’t like of witchcraft and pretend that they are being afflicted by them. The people of Salem all believe them and almost every person the “afflicted” girls accuse…
n 1953 Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play full of really important common themes, such as superstition, fear, hysteria, paranoia, lies, corruption, loyalty and religion; the characters are the American puritans, people who are extremely religious and superstitious, they are in the service of God and what is in the bible is sacred for them and must be obeyed by everyone. For puritans, witchcraft is an abomination and should be punished with dead if it’s not confessed as every sin that a person could commit; sins like lying without confessed could lead a person to jail and loose everything they had. Through thousands of years, superstition has always been in humans and sometimes these irrational beliefs lead us to do terrible things because…
In the text, The Crucible, a Puritan writing by Arthur Miller, said that, “in the record that Mr. Parris keeps, [he] notes that [John Proctor] is rarely in the church on Sabbath Day” (1129). This shows that going to church is a very important thing to do in the Puritan world, because in this quotation Parris is trying to prove that Proctor is a witch. If one is not to go to church everyday, then it is punishable by hanging, whipping, imprisonment and even the accusation of witchcraft, as seen here. The belief in God was very crucial to the Puritans, so crucial that one might have been killed if they did not believe. Another example of strong godly Puritan worship is in Anne Bradstreet’s writing, Upon the Burning of our House. When her house burns down she says goodbye to her “pelf and store”, then believes that her only “treasure lies above” (97). Her treasure, being God, is the only thing that is important to her now. This is an example of how strongly God was forced onto Puritans. Her house burns down and at first she is slightly upset, but then she forgets about all her items that have vanished into ash and dust. She remembers how God must’ve done this for a reason, so she says that he is all she needs in the end. Although The Crucible is a modern text, Arthur Miller went through great pain to try and make an accurate depiction of Puritan lifestyle. He shows exactly how God-involved they were and just how important he was to…
One definition of the word “crucible” is a severe test. In the crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor faces different test. Throughout The Crucible, John's moral values are tried. Before the book starts, John committed adultery by sleeping with Abigail. But as the Salem Witchcraft Trials progresses, he is forced to choose between just watching the trials happen, or doing something to stop it. Towards the end of the play, he had to choose between whether or not to lie and save his life, or die with a shred of goodness still intact in him, along with all the other respected people of Salem such as Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey. One definition of the word “crucible” is a severe test. In the crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor faces different test. Throughout The Crucible, John's moral values are tried. Before the book starts, John committed adultery by sleeping with Abigail. But as the Salem Witchcraft Trials progresses, he is forced to choose between just watching the trials happen, or doing something to stop it. Towards the end of the play, he had to choose between whether or not to lie and save his life, or die with a shred of goodness still intact in him, along with all the other respected people of Salem such as Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey. One definition of the word “crucible” is a severe test. In the crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor faces different test. Throughout The Crucible, John's moral values are tried. Before the book starts, John committed adultery by sleeping with Abigail. But as the Salem Witchcraft Trials progresses, he is forced to choose between just watching the trials happen, or doing something to stop it. Towards the end of the play, he had to choose between whether or not to lie and save his life, or die with a shred of goodness still intact in him, along with all the other respected people of Salem such as Rebecca Nurse and Martha…
In his article, “Blacks Should Stop Agitating for Political Equality,” Atlanta Exposition, 1895, Booker T. Washington said that blacks should take advantage of the new opportunities given to them rather than fight for more rights. Though he understood this tendency, saying, “… it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.” He also said, “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly.” This means that he did not want his fellow blacks to fight for more rights when they already had many new ones to benefit from.…