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Criticism of arthur miller
Arthur Miller themes of his work
Criticism of arthur miller
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The issues of power, that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, portrays are concerned with, who has the power, the shifts of power that take place and how power can consume people and try to abuse it, for either vengeance, jealously, material gain or sexual desire. Who has the Power Salem is an isolated village in Massachusetts where power is one of the main driving forces that contribute to the dynamics of the community and how people interact with each other. Authority and power is dominant in two main areas- The Church and the Males. The society of Salem is a very Patriarchal Society where the men have power over the women. Husbands control their wives and children, males work and earn money, males control the high court and because of the Patriarchy they also run the church itself, another source of power. The inhabitants of Salem live in a Theocratic Society and are all considered to be Puritans. This causes the church to have immense power because they all live by the way God and believe that they must do his work. The church has so much power and authority because they are God’s ‘messengers’. This gives them the power to say what is God’s will and how people should live. The Church is able to stay in power through out the play, because who can question Gods ways, without been condemned? In the society God is seen as the most powerful being since God is so powerful the people of Salem follow the Christian religion very closely and do not questions Gods ways. The shift in Power However even though the church cannot be openly defied it can be manipulated, Reverend Samuel Parris uses the authority of the church to place himself higher then others in the community. He makes his own requests through the church, demanding that he should be given golden candlesticks. This shows manipulation on a small scale; on a much larger scale, Abigail and the other girls (who have no power whatsoever in the beginning of the play- eg them dancing is prohibited, young girls are used a maids until they are old enough be married) are able to manipulate people’s beliefs and the law of the Bible. They claim to have seen witchcraft and accuse many people of using it. And because the village is filled with devoted Christians, whose whole world revolves around God, what would expect their reactions to be, to these accusations?
Salem Village, Massachusetts was the home of a Puritan community with a strict moral code through 1691. No one could have ever anticipated the unexplainable events that were to ambush the community’s stability. The crisis that took place in Salem in 1962 still remains a mystery, but the accusations made by the young girls could be a result of ergot poisoning or the need for social power; this leads the people of Salem to succumb to the genuine fear of witchcraft.
We have all heard the tales and seen the movies of evil witches cooking little kids up for supper. For the people of salem in 1692-1693 this was a reality. In the matter of less than a year more than two hundred people were accused of witchcraft and more than twenty were executed. In these historic events author Arthur Miller wrote a play about the people and events in this play there is a man, Reverend Hale is well versed in the study of witchcraft and has come to try and save the girls that have been gripped by the Devil. Miller has Hale change very much throughout the event of this play. In the beginning he believes that the Devil is at work in Salem, how ever near the climactic ending of this play he realises that this witch talk has gotten completely out of hand
Salem in the 1600s was a textbook example of an extremist society with sexist norms and no separation of church and state. Because it had no laws, only people considered authorities on law, it was always a society based on norms laid down by the first settlers and severity on the verge of madness. The power was imbalanced, focused subjectively in the people who had means to control others. Some people attempted to right the wrongs of the powerful, as people are wont to do eventually. Because of them, change indeed came to Salem, slowly and after excessive ruin and death. Before the rebels’ impact took hold, Salem’s Puritan society was a religious dystopian disaster, a fact illustrated excellently by Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. This religious dystopian disaster carried many flaws and conflicts that can be seen in other societies, both historical and modern.
The Crucible is a play with many underlying messages and themes. One of which is the idea of power. Power is a very important term in this play in that whoever holds the power, holds the fates of others. The hysteria within Salem has directly effected society. Everything has turned upside down and has gotten distorted. Arthur Miller is telling us that all the power in Salem is given to those who are corrupt and their abuse of it is directly shown through: the actions of Abigail throughout the play, the corruption and desires of Parris, as well as the witch trials held by Judge Danforth.
In the play, there were many situations that in return caused new developments and even more problems in the town of Salem. The problems and situations that happened can all be tied back to perception, or the way someone regards or interprets a situation or event. Perception can be terrifying and have devastating effects on people and places. “Parris: Now then, in the midst of such disruption, my own household is discovered to be the very center of some obscene practice. Abominations are done in the forest” (1030). Parris had caught the girls dancing in the forest and viewed it as witchcraft. He could have believed Abigail that it was just sport and the whole situation in Salem could have been prevented. This one perception is what caused everyone to believe that the devil was loose in Salem. Many other perceptions took part in leading to the devastating situations that happened in
The chaos was not only in Salem. Communities throughout New England were concerned about witchcraft. All throughout there were accusations about witches in the community. In Salem most of the accused were very prominent people in the community while most of the accusers were from the rural part of Salem. Some of the girls who were part of Tituba’s circle had lost a parent in an Indian raid and accused the prosperous women in the community. (“The Salem Witch Trails (1600…”)
The Crucible is a play which brings to our attention many timeless issues. The nature of good and evil, power and its corruption, honour and integrity and our tendency to create scapegoats for all manner of problems are all brought up through the course of the play - sometimes in very dramatic fashion.
The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria was a product of women’s search for power. This claim is supported by Lyle Koehler, from A Search for Power: The “weaker sex” in seventeenth-century New England (University of Illinois, 1980), explained and argues why this is true. Koehler mentions that the women were in search for more power and respect and power equality. She mentioned that the men were afraid of witches because they felt they were superior to them which brought in the question of who really was the superior gender. But really, the women accused others as being witches so as to gain more power from men. Basically, this showed that the women were not afraid of controlling or taking the power from men. In the seventeenth century, the men had power; so therefore, women did anything and would do anything to gain more power than the men. In puritan society, the only women with any significant power were mothers. They had powers not only in their homes but also in the public as long as they accused people of being witches. They also implicated others to achieve this power. An example that Koehler gave would be sociologist Dodd Bogart’s conclusion that “demon or witch charges are attempt to restore “self-worth, social recognition, social acceptance, social status and other related social rewards” is pertinent to the Salem village situation.
Grant, Jaime M., Ph.D., Lisa A. Mottet, J.D., Justin Tanis, D.Min., Jack Harrison, Jody L. Herman, Ph.D., and Mara Keisling. Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Rep. National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2011. Web. 22 May 2014.
Persecution has been a round for sometime and can be traced historically from the time of Jesus to the present time. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith in the hands of the Jews. Many Christians have been persecuted in history for their allegiance to Christ and forced to denounce Christ and others have been persecuted for failing to follow the laws of the land. The act of persecution is on the basis of religion, gender, race, differing beliefs and sex orientation. Persecution is a cruel and inhumane act that should not be supported since people are tortured to death. In the crucible, people were persecuted because of alleged witchcraft.
The desire for power and authority has always been a part of the human nature. Today’s society most often use power to dominate one another and fulfill one’s personal intentions, which can affect other people in many ways. Having power and authority is truly gratifying but it is terrifying if abused and used for selfish acts. The play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is an example to illustrate the consequences of abuse of power. The characters Abigail Williams, Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris use their power over society by manipulating people and using their authority to fulfill their personal intentions, like material gain, vengeance, maintaining social status and reputation, and attention, which eventually lead into a mass hysteria.
Although a strict society composed of high morality and disciplinary laws may be necessary for safety, it causes internal conflicts within the individuals. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller a theocracy in Salem rules and guides the citizens into doing what is “right”, but eventually backfires due to issues of reputation and jealousy. Society has a lot of influence on the citizens, and with a bad reputation, it is nearly impossible to live in a Puritan society. Salem’s strict Puritanical social structure causes personal struggles for the individuals involved in the events of The Crucible, and then eventually these personal struggles affect the society overall.
In Salem, the governmental system is theocracy. In a theocracy, the church makes and enforces the laws, which were created through divine guidance. In such a case, the church officials take a high ranking in society. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, it is this government that helps propel the action in the play forward.
Transgender individuals shouldn’t be subjected to abuse, slander and danger when using a public restroom in any of the Unites States. Yet the U.S. recently made the bold move to make it culturally acceptable to discriminate against transgender individuals and the LGBT community when passing the HB2 Bill in North Carolina by the General Assembly. With the world adjusting to the multiple terms now associated with the gender identity that spans in variations of asexual to queer, the U.S. has regressed by taking action to remove the Civil Rights of its citizens that identify within these terms. This bill does much more than just reverse civil rights and weaken discrimination regulation. The argument that a non-transgender person feels uncomfortable with a transgender person using the same bathroom is the same argument that once made people of color using public bathrooms and water fountains to be segregated. It’s a lack of understanding at best, and results
George Orwell's, Animal Farm, depicts how power can corrupt society. If one person receives too much power, one will most likely lead up to dictatorship. To exemplify this idea, Orwell uses a farm to represent a society and the animals inside to portray the people. Orwell's use of the pigs and animals are also an analogy that people sometimes act as 'mindless pigs';. Orwell makes the reader realize just how bad a society of dictatorship can really be.