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The Crucible: The Concept of Conscience
Conscience is the awareness of right and wrong. In The Crucible, the idea of conscience in strongly emphasized. Miller himself said,
"No critic seemed to sense what I was after [which was] the conflict between a man’s raw deeds and his conception of himself; the question of whether conscience is in fact an organic part of the human being, and what happens when it is handed over not merely to the state or the mores of the time but to one’s friend or wife."
The idea of conscience in the play The Crucible is based very much on Christian concepts, firstly the idea of morality, or conscience of right and wrong, secondly the idea of the confession of sin, and finally the idea of guilt and penance for sins. Conscience, then, as an issue of morality, is defined very clearly at the start of the play. "…a minister is the Lord’s man in the parish; a minister is not to be so lightly crossed and contradicted" says Parris in Act One. Here it is established that theologically the minister, in this case, Parris, is supposed to be the ultimate decider of morality in Salem. The Church, in theocratic Massachusetts, defines conscience. Right and wrong is decided by authority, and the authority here is the Church. Law is based on the doctrines of the Church, and Salem is a theocracy.
"For good purposes, even high purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity…but all organization is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition, just as two objects cannot occupy the same space. Evidently the time came in New England when the repressions of order were heavier than seemed warranted by the dangers against which the order was organized."
So firstly Salem was a place where the conscience of the people was strictly governed by the theocracy, and socially Salem was repressive. However, at the start of the book, we see that the people of Salem have already begun to strain under this strict idea of conscience, this repression. Abigail says to John, "I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretence Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes?
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.
I feel that the most important part of the dialogue is the last quotation by Hale showing this idea of theology not being allowed to have cracks in it. This is not only is general theology, but also is a metaphor for their Quaker society. John Proctor is seen as a crack in their society because he can only say nine of the Ten Commandments. Judging by his tone, however, he knows the tenth commandment, but since he broke it he is unwilling to say it. However, Hale doesn’t know this and just believes that he doesn’t follow the Theocratic rule. Proctors’ actions in this dialogue are pivotal to the understanding of the reasoning behind the Salem Witch Trials because it shows how much of an emphasis was on religion. They were unwilling to accept those who did not fit with the societal norm and instead of accepting those people; the people instantly assumed that they were witches just because of the societal norm. This led to a large amount of people being accused because they were outcasts. This is very hypocritical because the Bible speaks of tolerance and Salem is executing people who are
Never Always Sometimes came off as a little bit strange to me, at first, it didn’t quite fit onto what I would like to call my enjoyment scale. Now, it had an amazing premise and I was anxious to dive into it, but I had a hard time getting into it when it first started. The layout was a little strange and slightly difficult to get used to – but towards the ending
Honor, dignity, and integrity are traits that are becoming more and more rare in our society. The Crucible, a play written in 1952 by Arthur Miller, is based on the Salem witch hunts of 1692 and parallels the Red Scare and McCarthyism in the 1950s. In the play, Miller attempts to focus his themes around traits such as honor, dignity, and integrity, and as a result, the theme "is it better to die honorably or live dishonorably" becomes vital to the story and well conveyed throughout it. The characters that exemplify this idea are John Proctor and Giles Corey, both of whom die by the end of the play, and Reverend John Hale and Abigail Williams, who live through the trials.
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: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
The Salem witch trials were a time period when any individual could be accused of witchcraft for numerous reasons. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller focuses on the deviation of the trials and how the town’s most religious and honest members of the community are tried with witchcraft. John Proctor, the town’s most honest man, is accused of being a witch and must decide if he should confess or not. Proctor’s confession will stop the town from rebelling and uphold the reputations of Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris. Hale also wishes for Proctor’s confession so he does not have to feel responsible if Proctor were to be hanged for his witchcraft accusations. The confession of Proctor would convince others in the town to confess to their
The thoroughness is one of its key strengths, allowing for people of varying knowledge about Salem to gain an understanding of the events and background of the witch trials. The author includes multiple sources to show the exceptionally varying ideals and their effects on Salem. “the peace that came under Joseph Green's conciliatory leaders... the important role religious strife played in the events of 1692”(Latner, 2006, 118). Joseph Green completely paralleled his predecessors, he was responsible for restoring order to Salem. This is significant because it shows the impact that ministers had, they had the power to change the town completely, Green was one of the first to not cause strife. Compared to Christine Leigh Heyrman’s “Witchcraft in Salem Village: Intersections of Religion and Society” Latner’s article correlates with the central idea that religious leaders and religion itself started the witch
Explore Miller’s dramatic presentation and development of the theme of power and authority. 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
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
Salem's hysteria made the community lose faith in the spiritual beliefs that they were trying to strictly enforce. The church lost many of its parishioners because the interest of the town was now on Abigail because people wanted to know who was going to be named next. When the church was trying to excommunicate John Proctor, there were not enough people at church to do it. The people were getting misled so far as to leave a dagger stuck in the door of their minister's house: “tonight, when I open my door to leave my house a dagger clattered to the ground...There is danger for me” (128), were Parris' exact words. With the conveyer of God fearing for his life there was no longer anyone but Abigail to lead the community.
As Arthur Miller tells us in the introduction to Act 1 'no one can really know what their lives were like.' We would never be able to imagine a life with 'no novelists' and 'their creed forbade anything resembling a theatre or vain entertainment.' ' They didn't celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer.' They led a very austere and bleak life. The people of Salem - from which the audience derive their "good" and "evil" characters - were superstitious and highly religious, and their Theocratic form of government offered them security and unity.
The Crucible – Human Nature Human nature was fully to blame for the disaster which took place in Salem in 1692. Human nature is what your character is made of in trying situations, and in 1692 scientific knowledge was extremely poor by today's standards and so all reoccurring problems were blamed on an evil force, whether it be the devil or witches or anything the imagination could conjure, hence human nature was being tested regularly. The decisions people made were critical to the disaster's progression, in today's scene in would have been dismissed within minutes, but the paranoia floating around in the town kept the ball rolling. People were so terrified of the thought of evil that any suggestion of it would create a preordained judgement in the mind of anyone, especially those who made judgement of the accused. To get to the supposed
The Crucible by Arthur Miller raises many thought provoking issues throughout the play, including the importance of personal integrity, injustice in society and the rights of the community versus the rights of the individual.
In the 1951 Disney movie, Alice in Wonderland, Alice falls down a rabbit-hole while chasing a White Rabbit with a waistcoat and ends up in Wonderland. It is a place where animals talk and logic no longer exits. In the original work by Lewis Carroll, Alice grows internally and has control over her surroundings in Wonderland. She learns how to wear the crown of adulthood by finally knowing her identity in the end. Although Disney’s version imitates the same adventure as the original, Alice’s character’s identity does not develop.