Ayma Dommy
Ciccone
English 11
16 October 2015
The Power of Selfishness
Humans are selfish, all of the actions we perform are done to benefit ourselves in one way or another.Thomas Hobbes and Arthur Miller, the author of ¨The Crucible¨, display the selfishness of humans in their writings. Hobbes says that many acts our society considers selfless are actually done for internal peace, making the selfless act selfish. The excerpt from Hobbes 's writing claims, ¨Even at our best, we are only out for ourselves. ¨The more selfish we are, the more like beasts we become. Humans are animals, and all animals have the base instinct of fight or flight, as humans in modern society we will go down to these selfish base instincts for self preservation and
This is displayed by the girls of Salem. A woman’s life in Salem was very bland so the women take the opportunity to gain and assert authority, like Abigail blatantly threatening Hathorne,¨Let you beware, Mr. Danforth. Think you to be so mighty that the power of hell may not turn your wits? Beware of it...¨(108) Abigail becomes blind with the amount of power she has within the court, accusing them before they become a threat. Abigail expresses her power through words in the courtroom as well as acting out in the courtroom to gain more power. Immediately after blatantly threatening Hathorne; Abigail and the girls start seeing spirits in the courtroom. I notice Abigail’s motive fades towards the end of the book as the people of Salem start to figure out what is going on. In the end Abigail is selfish and runs away from the mess she created; leaving it for the people of
The people of Salem were a bunch of animals, and in the wild it’s kill or be killed. Arthur Miller demonstrates this throughout ¨The Crucible¨. John Proctor is a good example of somebody who does what is best for himself. John tries to save himself but like Giles Corey he wants a clean name and, ¨His breast heaving, his eyes staring, Proctor tears the paper and crumples it, and he is weeping in fury, but erect¨(144). Proctor decides his fate with that action; he gives up his life and soul to keep his name; his fate decided by his unwillingness to swallow his pride. Dying a town hero John takes with him a clean name. Proctor is a perfect example of Hobbes’ idea that everything we do is for ourselves, and the benefits are external and sometimes even
Although heteronomous obedience may be a benefit for everyone, this form of obedience could lead to the destruction of a town, or better yet, a civilization. The most important form of obedience are principles and intuitions fixed within the daily instincts of everyday life; the type of obedience that reveals what is right from what is wrong. As it is revealed in The Crucible, autonomous obedience must be followed. Although it did lead to John Proctor’s demise, it revealed to the town that he was willing to surrender his life so he wouldn’t be required to lie. This allowed them to understand that if he truly was the “witch” they accused him of, he would have never been willing to end his life over the issue. Instead, like an honest, Puritan Christian, Proctor upheld his loyalty to God and chose to make a statement to all of those in Massachusetts. It was because of him, that the town finally realized that they had been accusing the wrong individuals, and shouldn’t have been convicting innocents of crimes without factual evidence. It was because of one person’s decision to follow autonomous obedience that the town of Salem was not completely
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.
People make life or death choices every day. In The Crucible, John Proctor and others decided dying honestly was better than living a lie. At this time, countless were accused of witchcraft and working with the devil in the town of Salem, MA. In this play, Reverend Hale told Elizabeth proctor “no principle, however glorious, is worth dying for.” He argued that living a life of dishonesty is better than dying for the truth, trying to persuade John to live, but as a devil's advocate. But John believed no life was worth living if it was full of falsifies information.
Thomas Hobbes in Chapter 13 of Leviathan, and David Hume in Section 3 of An Enquiry Concerning the Princples of Morals, give views of human nature. Hobbes’ view captures survivalism as significant in our nature but cannot account for altruism. We cover Hobbes’ theory with a theory of Varied Levels of Survivalism, explaining a larger body of behavior with the foundation Hobbes gives. Hume gives a scenario which does not directly prove fruitful, but he does capture selfless behavior.
Ethical egoism is diametrically opposite to ethical altruism, which obliges a moral agent to assist the other first, even if he sacrifices his own interest. Further, researchers justify and rationalize the mental position of egoism versus altruism through an explanation that altruism is destructive for a society, suppressing and denying an individual value. Although the ‘modern’ age unsubtly supports swaggering egoistic behavior in the competitive arena such as international politics, commerce, and sport, in other ‘traditional’ areas of the prideful selfishness showing off, to considerable extent discourages visible disobedience from the prevalent moral codes. In some cases, the open pro-egoist position, as was, per example, the ‘contextual’ interpretation of selfishness by famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, can be described as a ‘grotesque anomaly’.
At the end of the play, John proctor is faced with the biggest calamity of his life. He was given the the choose to lie and say he is a witch or stand by his honesty and die as a marauder. john proctor name was everything to him. It made him who he is so he based his actions on it.. John wanted to live and keep his good name
During a time when Salem was overrun with witchcraft hysteria, very few people were resilient enough to stay devoted to their religion/morals. Miller frames history by demonstrating how a few individuals were devoted enough to combat the communist trials regardless of the consequences. Since the confession required John to blame another person in Salem of committing witchcraft, he chose to hang instead of betraying his comrades, for he did not want to fuel the witchcraft hysteria/blacken his name. Ethos were of high importance to Proctor and he valued his character above all else. He used an ethos tool called screw up recovery to enhance his character through his own errors. By describing how he failed to meet his own high moral standards throughout the play, Proctor corrected the mistakes he made and he appeared to be a highly virtuous character to the audience. Miller depicts John Proctor as a hero because he was able to rise above the trials/actively defy them. Although John intended to make a false confession to spare his life, he refrained from blaming his innocent friends such as Rebecca Nurse; therefore, his confession did not count and he was sentenced to hang. Proctor uses a logos tool called reduction ad absurdum to prove to Hale and Danforth that making a false confession is absurd/illogical; therefore, he justifies his decision to hang. He
“A man will not cast away his good name” This quotation is where the whole story basically began in the play “The Crucible” it is filled with dishonesty and hypocrisy and John Proctor and his wife happen to be partial victims in the play. On the other hand we have Abigail who behaves in this ruthless and machiavellian manner .Her being vindictive as she is leads to tragic events in the play now she's pinning them on everyone else.Will the citizens in the small town of Salem.
Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible and Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 dystopian science-fiction film Children of Men both represent people and politics through an exploration of the concept of justice and conformity and non-conformity. Both texts represent people and politics in a unique and evocative way through their differing textual forms, contexts and techniques.
Danforth, Abigail, and Hale all spread fear throughout Salem, Massachusetts through various means. Not all of their reasons were bad or for their own well being. The responsible parties were, in a way, forced to do the actions they did by the stakes that were laid out unknowingly. Each of their stakes were different and their methods of spreading fear were different. They all, however, spread fear throughout Salem, and cause of massive uproar of panic and death.
Is there any idea worth more than a human life? In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor decides that he has nothing left to live for, and therefore becomes a martyr. The question for him or one in his position would be whether or not there exist causes worth dying for and if his position is one such case. There is no principle worth more than a person’s life and therefore principles worth dying for, only principles worth living for.
...nce using fear, Abigail successfully protects herself from any type of damage on her reputation by manipulating the court to believing that there is actually a spirit in the court room.
Making decisions can be hard but making decisions that can effect a whole village are even harder. Sometimes you have to choose the decision that causes hardship to do what is right. In Salem, in the 1600's, life or death situations had to be made that would effect not one but many. Decisions made by John Proctor in Miller's play, the Crucible, illustrate that life is full of hard decisions that can bring hardship but sometimes turn out to be for the best.
The main critics of Thomas Hobbes’ work are most often those with a more optimistic view of human nature. However, if one is to really look at a man’s actions in depth, a self-serving motivation can always be found. The main problem with Hobbes’ claims is that he does not account for the more Darwinian perspective that helping one’s own species survive is at the same time a selfish and unwar-like act. Thus his conclusion that without a governing body, we are essentially at war with one another is not completely true as years of evolution can help disprove.
We live in a world which does not even recognize the option of rational selfishness. We are taught, from childhood, that we must be either self-sacrificing or thoughtlessly "selfish."