Examples Of Irony In The Crucible

Perfection is nonexistent As Leonard Cohen once said, “There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in”. Nothing in life is perfect, and people are not an exception. One of the most efficient ways to demonstrate a flaw is irony. Through the use of irony in The Crucible, Arthur Miller highlights man’s inevitable fallibility. Failure to recognize one’s own flaws is an exceptional example of situational irony. Similarly, in the play, John Proctor forgot to recite the commandment prohibiting adultery, the one he actually committed. Seeing it as “a small fault” (Act 2), John Proctor confesses to not knowing all the commandments saying that among him and Elizabeth, they knew them all. In a similar way that John Proctor treated his flaw, the government of Massachusetts Bay Colony treated the offense of adultery: without

That exact scenario occurred in Act 3 of The Crucible when Elizabeth Proctor chose to tell a lie in order to protect her husband. An attempt to defend his wife’s honor, “She only thought to save my name” (Act 3), did not work resulting in the shift of opinion towards his wife by other characters since Elizabeth was always accepted as an honest, law-abiding, and fundamental member of the community. By turning her back on others and choosing to protect her loved one, Elizabeth violated the teachings of her religion. In reality, there are multiple excerpts in the Bible in which telling lies is justified. For example, the midwives who cared for an infant Moses lied to the servants of the Pharaoh in order to conceal his Hebrew origins thus saving his life (Exodus 2:1-10). Just like for the them, not everything in the eyes of Elizabeth Proctor was black and white leading her to commit and evil in order to prevent an even greater evil from happening: though, she did not