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Arthur Miller’s allegorical purpose for writing the crucible
Arthur Miller’s allegorical purpose for writing the crucible
How does arthur miller uses characterization to create tension in act 1 of the crucible
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“Courage is measured by an individual’s willingness to continue fighting even when the likelihood of victory is small.” It is a person’s mental or moral strength to resist extreme difficulty. It is the strength of mind that makes one able to meet danger and difficulties with firmness. This withstanding opposition to defeat allows a person to persevere although the probability of triumph is unfavorable. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird justify this statement.
Arthur Miller exemplifies this definition of courage by the use of characterization. In Act III of the play, the odds against Proctor are overwhelming. If he loses the case, he and all the people who support him will be destroyed. For Proctor to save his wife and friends, he must convince the court that everything it has done so far is wrong. Proctor is willing to risk everything, including his good name and even his life, to bring out the truth. Throughout this act, Parris and Cheever act as impediments to John.
Cheever, to deface the reputation of John, mentions that Proctor ripped the warrant when
Elizabeth was arrested and that he plows on Sundays. Parris, in addition, says that
Proctor “comes to church but once a month!” However, this does not hamper Proctor as he persists to bring out the truth. Another obstacle that Proctor must surpass occurs when
Abigail and the girls feign that Mary Warren sends out her spirit reinforcing the notion that Mary is a witch. In response, Proctor confesses his lechery to weaken the perception of the saintly image of Abigail and to reveal her motive. By avowing his affair with
Abigail, Proctor illustrates his perseverance to save the lives of his wife and friends.
The setting of The Crucible is another element to justify the definition of courage.
The play takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, thirty years after the colony was established. It was a period of political and religious turmoil. The Puritans settled there to seek religious freedom and to “purify” the teachings and ceremonies of the Church of
England. The Puritans believed in strict reinforcement of the laws they found in the
Bible. They accepted little challenge to their religious beliefs, and were intolerant to other Christian denominations. Paradoxically, their fanatic zeal led them to exercise the exact kind of repression on others that they had fled England to escape. In addition, under the Puritan court, the pressure to confess and atone for one's sins was immense.
Innocent individuals with nothing to confess were subsequently often led to admit to
...people his confession. If the rest of the town knew he had confessed, his image and his name would be destroyed. He wants his private life to remain private at least within the court. He begs for his privacy because it is so important to him. However, he changes his mind because his name is too important, and he is hung because of it. Proctor believes so strongly about the separation of public and private life, that he is willing to die for it.
...The repetition of the speech that ‘he will confess’ shows how it is shocking that Proctor would do something like that. To show he is a good man he admits to something that he didn’t do to save the lives of others.
Proctor has many character traits that contribute to him being so difficult to figure out. His crime of lechery against his wife, and his willingness to save her, are both intermixed in a tangle of ethics. After committing adultery with Abigail, John clearly has a guilty conscious. When
For many reasons, John Proctor is an honest man. By no means is Proctor afraid to tell you what is on his mind.
Proctor did not commit any sins, when in fact she is just trying to protect
While Mr Proctor is in court he is speaking to someone who is hurt and has no remorse or sympathy for this woman and makes the whole situation focused on himself. This is because he is a man and believes that women don't need to be treated equally. He said ”I have given you a home child, I have put clothes on your back... Now give me an upright answer your name in this town is entirely white is it not?” This is not right because he is making her feel remorse for him because he has done so much for her. In the end this makes her vulnerable to accusations made about her that may or may not be true. He is using a manipulative strategy to try to gain an upper hand in his case by getting this woman to side with
Proctor: You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of salvation that you should use me!
See the ECB's ECB's ECB's ECB's ECB's ECB's ECB's ECB's ECB' This quote from Proctor is riddled with references to God and the judgment God passes on Proctor’s actions. Proctor also repeats the references to God earlier in the play, when he tries to convince Elizabeth he is not guilty of having an affair with Abigail. Proctor says, “I have roared you down when you first told me your suspicions. But I wilted, and like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed!
... integrity are among the most important things. He also uses Proctor to demonstrate what an unjust system can do to an individual with good intents. The play is a parallel to the anti-Communist McCarthy era. Through John Proctor we see the ludicrous nature of mass hysteria that exists when society has gone awry.
Another important work Miller wrote, The Crucible, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 17th century. It is a time when jealousy and suspicion poisoned the thinking of an entire town. Neighbor turned against neighbor when events happened that could not be explained. Accusations turned into a mad hunt for witches who did not exist. One of the main characters of the play is John Proctor, a well-respected man with a good name in the town. As the play develops, John Proctor’s moral dilemma becomes evident: he must decide whether to lie and confess to witchcraft in order to save his life, or to die an honest man, true to his beliefs.
This realization begins when Proctor convinces Mary Warren to confess that she in fact saw Abigail place the needle in the poppet that was used to prove Elizabeth was a witch. As Proctor witnesses the court sweep this truth away as lies, solely believing Abigail and the other young girls of Salem, he begins to realize the only way these trials will come to an end if he in fact faces justice. Thus, Proctor becomes accused of witchcraft. This emphasizes the character development Proctor undergoes as he learns to repent for the sins he committed rather than maintaining his status in
Mary Warren started out in a manner reminiscent to that of Peter Pettigrew from the famous “Harry Potter,” series; she was a timid follower of a popular group, and admired the bravery and kindness she lacked. After Mary and her so-called ‘friends’ are found dancing naked around a fire in their conservative town, they know they will likely be accused of a crime that could punish them with death; witchcraft. Mary’s friend Abigail, tells the girls to stick to their story that they were dancing in the woods and threatens to kill the girls if they reveal the truth; that Abigail was practicing witchcraft and drank blood in order to take the life of the wife of a man she had had an affair with; Elizabeth Proctor, the boss and friend of Mary Warren.
John Proctor would take death before he would associate himself with dishonesty.
To start things off in the court, John Proctor is the protagonist and Abigail is the antagonist. Abigail also leads the girls in court in their witchcraft accusations. To start the court situation off, Hale believed that all the information that she told him were indeed false and only lead Abigail to point at others such as Mary Warren. “But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary”. (Miller 120). The irony here is she calls out Mary Warren for committing a deadly sin such as envy, however both lies with the lord’s name in vain and committed adultery with John Proctor (as that is what she stats happened). Abigail also points again to Elizabeth Proctor and accuses her of creating a voodoo doll and stuck pins into it to harm her, when it was Mary Warren who put it into the Proctor’s home to have proof that the Elizabeth needed to be arrested. “Tis hard proof!(To Hale) I find here a poppet Goody Proctor keeps. I have found it sir. And in the belly of the poppet is a needle’s stuck” (Miller 79). Also it was Mary Warren who put it there, everyone assumed it was Goody Proctor who did because it was in the Proctor home. However, even after Goody Proctor was set to be arrested with enough proof, Mary Warren comes out to tell everyone that it is her poppet.
“there is no evidence anywhere in any primary source documents that Proctor ever cheated on his wife with anyone.” (136) “But nowhere does he discuss that the affair has been fabricated.”