Nathalie Raffoul Tuesday, October 27, 2015
5th E2
Mr. Jared Rock Response Journal Act 1 “The Crucible”
In the following play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, for every major catastrophic event, there is an accumulative background which led to it, and this is basically the horrid nature of the system of living within Salem, corrupted by greed, competition, jealousy, fear and power. At the very beginning of the act, we feel pity for Reverend Parris knowing of the illness and inactiveness of his daughter. Also, when he mentions that he is somewhat shunned by society, I thought at first that he was having a hard time adjusting to the town and the people did not take kindly to newcomers. However, throughout the story, through his speech and his aggressive tone and actions towards Tituba, Abigail and John
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In this case, Miller uses his style of playwright to portray such a character. Miller's plays revolve around debated events of right or wrong. "The Crucible" covers the good of the people to the evils of the Salem Witch Trials. In this case, Miller's style reflects a strong sense of morality, and the difficulty to maintain those certain ethics. Miller also believed in the power of the theater, transforming society as a whole. Therefore, including the use of allegory in his plays, hidden in realism. Miller enjoyed the language of the common man, with style. His realism reflects a very modernist sensibility, since most of his protagonists are from working class, he focused on the struggles of everyday figures and the tragedies of life. This following understanding of his style of realism relates to the characters in the novel, “The Crucible” but in this case mainly focusing on the unstable character, Reverend
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, is about mass hysteria of witches being in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. An educated man named Revered Hale arrived in the town with his exclusive knowledge of witches to help the town eliminate the presence of the Devil. He became a member of the court and aided in putting innocent people in jail or hung. As Hale started to see the consequences of his actions, he struggled with fixing his mistakes. The change in his perspective of the witch trials caused his overall personality and attitude to change as well. Hale’s dialogue, stage directions, and other people’s perceptions of him reveal a man motivated by good intentions; furthermore, his mission to help Salem destroyed evil in the beginning and his attempts
The focus of Miller’s The Crucible is an appalling witch trial that morfs the once-peaceful town of Salem into a cutthroat slaughterhouse. As a lucrative playwright and a not-so-subtle allegory author, Miller is a seasoned wordsmith who addresses people akin to himself, and is not secretive about that information. The Crucible best serves its purpose as a learning device and a social statement, especially at the time of its publishing. Miller‘s piece showcases the appeals in an easy-to-identify manner that is perfect for middle or high school students who are new to the appeals, or for English majors who have no problem pinpointing them, making this play ideal for a classroom setting.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in American history surrounding the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century, yet is as much a product of the time in which Arthur Miller wrote it, the early 1950s, as it is description of Puritan society. At that particular time in the 1950s, when Arthur Miller wrote the play the American Senator McCarthy who chaired the ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’ was very conscious of communism and feared its influence in America. It stopped authors’ writings being published in fear of them being socialist sympathisers. Miller was fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials and that human beings were capable of such madness. In the 1950s the audience would have seen the play as a parallel between the McCarthy trials and the Salem Trials.
Miller’s play, The Crucible, is a fictional representation of the Salem Witch Trials, which occurred from 1692-1693 in colonial Massachusetts. He wrote the play to humanize the people involved, and to try and interpret their possible motivations to do all that they did. One particular character Miller focuses on is Reverend John Hale. Hale first appears in Act One, when the citizens of Salem summon him for his expertise on witchcraft. His presence sparks the witch hunts within Salem. Hale goes from being the main accuser and the investigator to later condemning the witch trials and the court’s rulings. Miller displays this change of view through the use of commentary, dialogue, and stage directions.
Life as a human is dictated by an inborn hunger or purpose, and people, in general, will act on this hunger for their own personal gain in their individual ways. This hunger, be it for wealth, land, love, power, revenge, or pride, can, and will be the undoing or failing of all mankind as Miller so clearly points out in his play The Crucible. This essay will explore the motives of characters within the play and even the motives of Arthur Miller himself and therefore show how conflict stems from certain recognisable human failings, including those mentioned above, fear, and hysteria. Reverend Parris is the character that initiates the hysteria of the Salem witch trials, in a community where authorities wasted no time minding the business of its citizens, what should have been seen as teen frivolity was blown into one of the ugliest moments in American history. Parris sparks this by firstly acting on his own paranoia, which the reader would find in the introduction 'he believed he was being persecuted wherever he went';, and calling Reverend Hale in an attempt for self-preservation '….
In Miller's, The Crucible, he describes a New England town in the midst of Salem witch-hunt hysteria during the late 1600's. His play not only recounts the historic events but also specifically sheds light on the rationalization for this hysteria. In Miller's running commentary he describes the intent of the Puritans particularly accurately. In one specific statement, he says 'they [the Puritans] believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief and it has helped and hurt us.'; This statement proves itself to be particularly profound, for it manages to both accurately describe the actions of the Puritans, and relate it to our world today.
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 Crucible was written in the early 1950s as an exploration of events which took place in Massachusetts in 1692. What does the play have to offer an audience in 2014?
Throughout the entirety of the play, Reverend Parris was a perplexed man. As the play moved along, he grew more introverted and we see his paranoia grow larger. He was also blaming every other person for every little mishap in Salem for his own benefit. Reverend Parris was a man of many different traits and as the play moves along these ever changing qualities are easily seen. From Act 1 to Act 4 in The Crucible, Reverend Parris, a timid pastor, transforms from a confused man trying to conceal his identity to the towns “gossiper)” to have his name remain unimpeachable.
Parris is only the part of a whole when it comes to what he embodies-- Parris ultimately embodies the nature of Salem, Although Salem is ruled by God, the events of The Crucible prove otherwise. Throughout the play, characters are either egotistical in their own regard or are shown committing impious acts to safeguard their reputation among Salem residents. This is not a town ruled by God; it is a town ruled by deceptive people who have no remorse for the effects caused by their ruthless
In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the town of Salem faces a mask of hysteria from the accusations of witchcraft. Reverend Parris, one of the many characters mentioned throughout the play, was a man who did not want his good name to be tarnished. Reverend Parris is known throughout the town as the churchly figure. Most citizens do not like his personality, but they ultimately respect him for his belief in religion. Although many people were hung for the accusations of dealing with witchcraft, Reverend Parris is the most guilty to blame for the events of the Salem Witch Trials, because he was a fearful and terrified religious leader who really didn’t know what he was doing, as well as a selfish and greedy idiot who made quick and irrational decisions for the benefit of himself that non-surprisingly ended up killing tons of innocent people
In the play: The Crucible Miller reveals the effect of the Salem Witch Trials on the people due to their growing fear. Miller shows that fear exasperates man’s innate vices of self-preservation, greed, and hypocrisy. In The Crucible Miller demonstrates these vices through Danforth, a prestigious judge that should represent the peak of human morality and reason.
Great events, whether they are beneficial or tragic ones, bring change in a person. These scenarios can give one an entirely new perspective on life, and turn around his way of thinking. Events such as the Salem Witch Trials show the people involved what they could not see before. In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Hale, and John Proctor gain valuable insight into themselves, as well as others.
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller in the Early 1950’s. It was written during the “Red scare, when McCarthyism was established. Many anti-communists wanted to prevent communism from spreading just like in The Crucible many wanted to get rid of witchcraft. Many would accuse others of witchcraft in order to not be accused just like many would accuse people of communism. In The Crucible witchcraft would be punishable by death. Many were scared to be accused; therefore many would admit practicing witchcraft in order to save their lives. The Crucible is considered a good play because it is based on real life events during the Salem witch Trials and shows how fear played a role in the individual’s life just like during the “Red” scare.