ENG4U-Unit 5-The Crucible-Reader Response Summative
By: Tharumiga
The play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, takes a closer look at the Salem Witch trials. The novel sets off in Salem, MA during the 1950s when the witch trials first started. In this town the people held a strong belief on religious faith. When a young girl seeks to destroy the relationship between a husband and a wife she sets loose the belief that some people had been taken over by the devil. This belief quickly spreads throughout the village as many innocent people are falsely accused. This flawed logic ends up costing the lives of many innocent civilians as they are hung shortly after they are accused of performing witchcraft.
The Crucible contains a deep allegorical nature which explores the Salem witch trials and the witch hunts of the 1950s. The allegory behind this play is the harsh effects of illogical thinking. Though the more obvious story is a girl wanting a man and so she ends up taking desperate measures which lead to the hanging of innocent people. The text can also be interpreted to have a hidden meaning as the play progresses and the judge’s false logic to convict 19 people of having performed witchcraft. The harsh effect of this illogical thinking is the hangings of 19 innocent people who don’t have the power to fight the court so they agree to their fate. The allegory behind this play can be interpreted as you progress along in the play and pick up many aspects of the play.
The setting in which this play takes place has a larger effect on the plot of the play. At the introduction to this play we are informed that it is set in Salem, MA in the 1950s.During this era, the biggest actions that was looked down upon was not attending church or...
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...ke goodness and kindness but his actions of lechery proved him unworthy to hold these traits. He strives throughout the play to prove his true character after performing this horrific crime. As the play progresses Elizabeth is accused of performing witchcraft to get her out of jail. John Procter admits to the court that he performed lechery in order to prove to the court his wife’s innocence. His true intentions are to free his wife from this false accusation. He destroys his good name to show the court that his wife never lied and so John Proctor was a strong moral character. As I read through the play I noticed that John Proctor in the end of the play encompasses those traits at first witch he was shown to hold but later lost. Therefore the characters of Abigail and John are two characters that I was able to follow and understand in terms of what values they hold.
The Crucible is a dramatic play by Arthur Miller that has a direct tie to McCarthyism and how the witch trials and false accusation was related to the fear of someone being a communist. Generally, the story is about an affair between two primary characters that live in a Theology-ruled village. The secret of the affair was supposed to be assured until things got out when the truth was close to being in the limelight and a huge lie came out instead. This lie led to false accusations of believing that some people were part of witchcraft. Therefore, the situations became much more risky as people got hanged on whether or not they confessed they were a part of the witchery. Through the play, the character Mary Warren is depicted as a shy and powerless girl until she finally gains some control over the lives of people through her lies. This results in being labeled as an antagonist of the story, but she has traits similar to a protagonist which contradicts her character. In the end, Mary Warren is still a villain through her selfish and inconsiderate actions in the play.
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller. This play centers around the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts. In Act II, Abigail and her friends accuse several innocent people of witchcraft. Once they leave the court, Reverend Hale goes to John Proctor’s house to inform Elizabeth Proctor that people in the court have mentioned her name. Then officials of the court, Herrick and Cheever, arrive at the Proctor’s house. They claim to have a warrant for Elizabeth’s arrest because the court declares she practices witchcraft. After, Herrick and Cheever take Elizabeth to jail. Injustice in Act II prevails because of the inability to see the truth. Reverend Hale and John Proctor illuminate the theme that closed-mindedness
During the early years of the colonies, there was a mad witch hunt striking the heart of Salem. Anger, reputation, and even religion play an important part during the play of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. The author allows us to witness the vivid idea of the hysteria taking place in Salem, Massachusetts, and why it was so vulnerable during the time.
... integrity are among the most important things. He also uses Proctor to demonstrate what an unjust system can do to an individual with good intents. The play is a parallel to the anti-Communist McCarthy era. Through John Proctor we see the ludicrous nature of mass hysteria that exists when society has gone awry.
Arthur Miller's classic play, The Crucible, is about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth century Salem, Massachusetts. What starts with several girls practicing European white magic in the woods escalates to a massive hysteria, with the "afflicted" girls falsely accusing even the respected women in the community of being witches. Eager to "utterly crush the servants of the devil", church leaders and townspeople insist on trying the accused. The punishment for failing to confess to witchcraft is death by hanging. In the end, many are hanged for imaginary crimes, for which no actual proof is ever presented, the only evidence being the word of a handful of girls.
Arthur Miller’s dramatic play The Crucible, takes place during 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. The setting is important because it takes place during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. The play begins with the town’s girls, led by Abigail Williams, gathering in the forest and starting to dance around a fire, chanting. Reverend Parris catches them dancing, sending the girls into a panic and causing two of the girls to go into a coma-like state. The townspeople spread rumors that there are witches lurking throughout the the town that have put the girls under their spells. This causes Reverend Parris to send for Reverend Hale, an expert in witchcraft and the devil's work, who hopes to rid the town of all witchcraft. John Proctor, a local farmer, asks Abigail to stop accusing innocent people and start telling the truth about what happened in the forest. Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor's wife, excused Abigail from their house because she found out about an affair between Abigail and John. She lies to the court when she is asked about John’s affair to save him from any punishment. In doing so, they were both sent to jail for witchcraft because they knew she had lied. Abigail and the girls continued to lie about people in the town being witches, causing many innocent people to be killed, including John Proctor. Miller shows the dangers of scapegoating when lies that are regarded as the truth, and can kill innocent characters.
In the play The Crucible, characters are presented in many ways. The ways Miller presents the character of Parris is through what the characters say, stage directions, what the character of Parris says and does and the relationships that Parris has with other characters in the play.
"'A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between.'" Act 3, Scene 1 pg. 87 . The characters in the play are either portrayed as good or evil with no in between , which makes life even harder for them . Salem mislabeled people in town as good or evil , but they had very little or no evidence at all to support it . Salem labels Rebecca nurse as a witch and evil , when really she was innocent and took care of everyone's babies. Abigail was an evil character who was a liar, vindictive and careless , the people of Salem viewed her as good character .
The Crucible – It can withstand extreme conditions. While heating metals in it, the impurities come up to the surface and the pure substance can be obtained. It basically helps in separating pure and impure substances.
It’s the 1690’s in Salem Massachusetts and allegations are in the air; the town is tense and no one can be trusted. This is the setting of the play The Crucible which tells the story of the Salem witch trials. The play was written during the Red Scare, or the fear of communism, of the Cold War. This gave the play a double meaning. Instead of just being a historical play, to show how history always repeats itself. The Crucible, written in 1953 by Arthur Miller, reflects 20th century American plays and the time period by using the Salem witch trials to open the eyes of Americans to the Red Scare and McCarthyism.
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.
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.
“Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.” by Arthur Miller. All great works provide a way to reach in and grab the audience through the reoccurring themes like, greed, jealousy, reputation and hypocrisy. Arthur Miller had one of those great works and it was called “The Crucible”. The play was based off of the witch trials that happened in Salem in the year of 1962. Some of the characters were actual characters involved in the witch trials. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the time of the “Red Scare”. Miller wrote The Crucible because he wanted to turn the The Salem Witch Trials into
Through time it can be seen that the world’s history has a nature of repeating its self. Author Miller, was aware of this as he experienced a repitition of history of society’s flawed government. In the text The Crucible, the writer, Author Miller has identified and illustrated the problems society faced during the 1950’s setting by drawing parallels with the setting of the 1962 Salem witch hunt. This setting helps readers to understand the characters of John Proctor and Giles Corey.
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.