Context: This part of the text is included at the beginning of the drama, telling the audience about Salem and its people. The author explains how a theocracy would lead to a tragedy like the Salem witch-hunts. This is the initial setting and is based on the principle that some people should be included and some excluded from society, according to their religious beliefs and their actions. This is basically the idea that religious passion, taken to extremes, results in tragedy. Miller is saying that even today extremes end up bad- communism, like strict puritans, was restrictive and extreme. It only made people suffer.
Afraid of communism, Americans looked for “hidden” communists, just like the secret “witches”. He was also speaking to his 1950s audience here by explaining the paradox today: “It is a paradox in whose grip we still live […].” “Keeping the community together” also refers to Americans in the 1950s when the government tried to purify America from communism in order to keep Americans “together”.
Response: I think that neither communism nor puritanism are good, because both of them are restrictive in many ways- anyone who comes out of the set frames becomes guilty. This can only lead to trouble. It is so banal to say that by purifying a nation, people would stay together. I think the point should be to make people have different opinions, but not allow extreme actions such as communism.
Context: This comment can be found in the l Act, where Miller explains the theocratic nature of Salem’s society. In Salem heresy was punishable by prison or death. Just like in Salem, lack of patriotism in the U.S. automatically made people think of communists. When people were being accused with no evidence to back the claim, even the...
... middle of paper ...
...n whether to confess to witchcraft or not. His unwillingness to sign his name to the confession is because of his desire not to dishonor his fellow prisoners’ decisions to stand firm.
Proctor concentrates on his name, because it would be destroyed of he signs. He finally comes to a true understanding of what a good reputation means, and his defense of his name enables him to muster the courage to die heroically.
This shows us how important reputation and good name were back then.
But even in the 1950s people wanted to keep their good name. That’s why people were afraid og being accused in communism.
Response: This sentence is my favorite and was the one which stayed in my mind long after I was done with the book. It is very emotional and shows us how important a persons name is and how we shouldn’t attach false statements to it, because we cannot really change it.
...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.
Sometimes people are so narrow-minded that they do not see the whole picture. People see what they want to see because they cannot handle the actuality or do not like the truth. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Danforth refuses to come to the truth that the witch trials in Salem were the result of a cover-up, and that the court hung a handful of innocent people because of a lie. Miller once said, “The tragedy of The Crucible is the everlasting conflict between people so fanatically wedded to this orthodoxy that they could not cope with the evidence of their senses.” In other words, the tragedy of The Crucible involved the theocracy’s failure to control Salem’s witchcraft mania. At the time, Salem was governed by a theocracy, in which the ministers also had judicial power over society. Because the judges were ministers, religion took precedence over realism and pragmatism; they were unable to come to their senses and realize that the accusations of witchcraft were out of human emotions.
What do you fear in our twenty-first century society? Terrorism, inequality, losing your home, or injustice? Salem, Massachusetts during the seventeenth century feared injustices among the government. Individuals hid and lied to keep safe from being condemned as witches. This era of history is known as the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible explores the Salem Witch Trials while following the lives of several individuals. The fear and mistrust among the seventeenth century Salem society can be directly related to today’s twenty-first century society. Americans have lost hope and belief in their government creating individuals who are scared to stand up for what is right. Glancing into our twenty-first century world comparisons can be made among the Salem Witch Trial era. Today, compared to seventeenth century, realization of fear of governmental policies, erratic and chaotic life styles, and the condemnation of individuals standing up for what is right become evident and similar in both societies.
John Proctor is, at first, willing to offer up a false confession that his life may be spared. Inevitably, John Proctor possesses that fateful attribute known to fall fatal to many human beings - pride. While he has, indeed, been ashamed of his many sins throughout his life, Proctor's soul still clings to his pride and his good name, however soiled it may have become. On the morning scheduled for his execution, Proctor wrestles with the realization that one more sin so heaped upon the rest in his life will make precious little difference in the end; "I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man.... My honesty is broke... I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie." (126) He attempts to calm his pride by telling himself that the other accused witches who will not give false testimony to save themselves from the gallows have every right to do so; they led lives free of blame. He, however, he tells himself, did no such thing; what right has he to hang among the righteous? "Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls. It is pretense for me, a vanity that will nor blind God nor keep my children out of the wind." (126) Thus the conviction first reached by John Proctor is to save his life rather than to throw it away in mock martyrdom.
John Proctor is guilty of both spoken lies and lies conveyed from his actions. John Proctor has to deal with the decision to stay true to himself and not let his frustration condemn him to falsify the truth. Accused of conjuring with the devil among many other innocent Puritans in the town, John has to face making the right decision to either be hanged and keep his soul pure or lie to save his life and oblige to the magistrates that he did indeed conjure with devil. The tendency to want to keep your life is within any human being on this Earth, however John is faced with the decision of saving his life or faulting his already remorseful heart by lying. As John Proctor makes the decision to lie and keep his life, he begins to doubt how others will now think of him knowing he conjured with the devil. When asked to sign his name on paper for the entire town to see he refuses and exclaims, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies…” (143) While John passionately speaks this, his immense frustration is finally released and shows his desire to stay true to himself and others in the town. Refusing to sign the paper conveys the lie he initially told and the truth he sought for once realizing the guilt and remorse he would have for the rest of his life. John Proctor’s feeling of frustration
He learned over some time, that it is possible for one to retain separateness but keep individuality, and one can be a public person as well as a private person. He says that at first he wanted to be like everyone else (fit in), and only when he could think of himself as American it was than okay to be an individual in public society. He speaks of a man from Mexico who held on to Spanish: "For as long as he holds on to words, he can ignore how much else has changed his life" (35). The message is to not take words for granted and not to misuse words because they certainly do have meaning. For example, `brother' and `sister' is becoming a public repetition of words. The meaning will become lifeless. Words mean something when the voice takes control "the heart cannot contain!" (39). It forms an intimate sound.
Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1994. Print.
They were condemned because they did not follow the exact 'rules' in their society which 'defined' who was good and who was evil. The people who followed the 'rules' were in turn deemed 'good', the nature of their true character being basically irrelevant. This is relevant to our time because history has shown us that it has happened before, for example, McCarthyist America where all communists were bad, all capitalists good, or in Nazi Germany - Jews were evil and were to be persecuted while all Aryans were good. In fact, McCarthyism was an underlying factor behind Miller writing the play. In those cases, evil was not the people who committed the real atrocities, but those who did not conform to the rules of their society, as was the case in Salem. Even now, many communists are condemned straight away because of their ideologies, even though their intentions are in many ways good.
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.
John Proctor refused verbally saying that he is a witch, or even signing an document because of his christian identity. He faced this hard trial hoping he would find himself again after the tragic affair. He knew if he would have lied he would have to stand before God on the day of his trial and answer for the sins he has committed.
...ely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next” (Miller 1). In the 1950’s the Witch hunt seemed unnatural and silly, but now-a-days, the Red Scare and hunting down communists seems silly and unnecessary. A parallel to the play is when Miller states in his article, “The more I read into the Salem panic, the more it touched off corresponding images of common experiences in the fifties” (Miller 4). It is also stated in the article that “naturally to turn away in fear of being identified with the condemned. As I learned from non-Jewish refugees, however, there was often a despairing pity mixed with ‘Well, they must have done something’” (Miller 4). This frightening time in American history when neighbors turned on neighbors was documented in the book. When Rebecca Nurse is charged and Elizabeth claims that is outrageous, Hale replies, “Women, it is possible” (Miller 64).
The first, the importance of personal integrity, is brought to light through John Proctor, who finds himself facing personal conflict when making the decision of whether to lie and 'confess' to the court, saving his own life, or to tell the truth and be condemned by it. Upon first deciding to confess and live, Proctor acknowledges he has given his soul to the devil, but refuses to also tarnish his name by allowing his confession to be stuck to the door of the church.
Just as it was a sin drift on to the side of the devil in the time of the crucible, it was the same to drift on to the side of communism in the 1950's, when Arthur Miller wrote this play. In the 1950's Senator Joe Macarthy set up a campaign to rid the United States of all communist supporters. These communist trials would be broadcast on national television. It would involve the accused to admit their guilt even though they were completely innocent, and give the names of 10 other would-be communists or face exile, torture, invasion of family privacy etc. Arthur Miller uses the events of the Salem witch-hunts to represent and show what the communist trials of the 1950's were. They were both based on false premises and paranoia, and as more people got involved, more people suffered, this can be summarised by calling it the 'Snowball effect.
Even though The Crucible is not historically correct, nor is it a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, it still stands out as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance, hysteria, power and authority is able to tear a community apart. The most important of these is the nature of power, authority and its costly, and overwhelming results. “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or against it,” says Danforth conceitedly. With this antithesis, Miller sums up the attitude of the authorities towards the witch trials that if one goes against the judgement of the court they are essentially breaking their relationship with God. Like everyone else in Salem, Danforth draws a clear line to separate the world into black and white. The concurrent running of the “Crucible” image also captures the quintessence of the courtroom as Abigial stirs up trouble among the people that have good reputation and loving natures in society. In a theocratic government, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the Devil.
In conclusion, Miller uses the theme of reputation like a puppet master controlling every person in Salem and affecting their choices and decisions. Moreover, the necessity to have a perfect image of oneself in the village is such that it is fear of judgement that drives their good behaviour rather than true belief in their religion.