Examples Of Allegory In The Crucible '

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English Literature Essay 2018 The Crucible (Topic 3) Verushka Govender 11G The tragedy of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a masterfully woven web of underlying themes, a tale as well as an allegory of McCarthyism, where superstition and jealousy is favoured above reason, hunting down the devil where none exists. Innocence prosecuted due to false accusations, necks snapped in abundance, and all reason and sense abandoned marks this era of the Salem witch-hunts as the strangest and horrendous chapters in human history, where hope, reason, honour, ethics and goodness perish beneath, buried among the civil dead while evil and chaos are left to thrive. Our leading protagonist can be compared to an ant against boot in a fight against morality and …show more content…

A town preacher who is described as a parasite of Salam (though thinking himself to be a pious figure), a pathetic, corrupted shepherd who feels persecuted by his own sheep, only speaking of hellfire and damnation with only a thirst for power, camouflaging his actions with a façade of holiness and religion. At the beginning of the play, Parris is in search for witchery in Salem, and finds his unsuspected victims when lurking in the woods, coming across a group of girls (including his daughter and niece) dancing. Parris continually besets the fears that conspire against him, worrying about his reputation above all else because of his relation to them, revealing him to lack the trait of honour, a quality described ‘knowing what you are doing is morally right’ by not doing the morally right by not revealing them for the sinners they are. We see an example of his ideology of reputation above honour in Act 1, line 63: ‘Abigail, I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character.’ (Act …show more content…

He is a character who goes through the most drastic character development by almost becoming divine towards the end of the play, playing on one of the main themes of sacrifice, sacrificing his life not for reputation, unlike the other characters discussed having the ideology of ‘reputation above all else’, but honour. ‘How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (Act 4) When he tries to convince the court that the girls are lying was an instance of bravery, for children were thought of as the vice of god and they were pure of blemishes, especially by the judge himself, Danforth. A man that exemplifies the importance of a strong name through his actions and his choices throughout the play, most significantly in the 4th act where he chose death over disgracing his name, living by the idea to ‘live honourably or die dishonourably’. Proctor also fought the court trying to keep them from convicting his spouse even though nobody else would dare to do. His honesty is proven once he confessed to the court that he had an affair with Abigail just to save Elizabeth’s life, ‘I have known her, sir. I have known her’. (Act

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