The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller uses many dramatic devices in "The Crucible" in order to
grasp the attention of the audience. His characters appear to be
multifaceted and he reveals numerous sides of their personalities
during the play. Miller creates complex relationships within the play
and this secures the attention of the audience.
We are not introduced to John Proctor until half way through act one;
he is presented to the audience as a "farmer in his middle thirties".
We are given the impression that he is a very dominant man "he was a
man-powerful of body", in addition to his power he had earned
considerable respect in Salem "Proctor, respected and even feared". At
this stage in the play it becomes apparent that John Proctor is an
honourable, righteous man with great respect for his power within the
community. But is he?
In Proctor's introduction Miller describes him ambiguously leaving a
lot to be uncovered. Proctor does not see himself as a respectable
man, he sees himself as a "kind of fraud", at this point the tension
begins to mount and we are left wondering why. The character that was
introduced as a good, moral man has a hidden flaw. But what could it
be? The once pure face of John Proctor now appears to have been
blackened; he is a sinner "against his own version of misconduct".
This is ironic as Proctor is said to have "a sharp and biting way with
hypocrites".
When Abigail Williams enters the tension rises and the audience
witness her flirting with Proctor, "Give me a word, John. A soft
word". Abigail is desperately craving his attention. He is very abrupt
in his reply "no, no Abby. That's don...
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...death in order to keep his good
name.
In her last line; Elizabeth has now developed as a character and can
proudly give John the forgiveness he dreamed of, "He have his goodness
now".
As the play draws to an end the audience feel a sense of sadness
towards John for the false accusation made against him but at the same
time he died with everything out in the open he no longer had to live
a lie. The audience would have felt pity towards Elizabeth and slight
resentment as she was the only person with the power to save him but
at the same time she set his spirit free and let him keep his name,
which was what he wanted. The small town of Salem will always remember
John for who he was and not what he did because he confessed to save
his wife and ended up losing his life but he died knowing he did the
right thing.
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, both pride and excessive pride influence the characters throughout the play. Pride is a sense of one's dignity and worth. Excessive pride is being overly confident of one's own self worth. Throughout, pride influences the actions, reactions, and emotions of the characters in such ways to establish the outcome of the story. Three characters are impelled by their pride. Hale, who takes pride in his ability to detect witchcraft; Elizabeth Proctor, whose pride makes forgiving her husband difficult; Proctor, whose excessive pride causes him to overlook reality and the truth.
[ Signing the papers, Elizabeth said her confession. They could finally live knowing what was truth, when everyone was living in
Proctors Grave Mistake Corruption has always existed in our society since the beginning to present time due to conspiracies such as the witch trials and the communism era. The Crucible by Arthur Miller was written during the era of communism to mere the hysteria. The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. It’s a corrupt witch trial in Salem that’s due to false accusations of witchcraft for personal gains. John Proctor is the protagonist in the story The Crucible who goes through the ultimate test by choosing his reputation over integrity.
I think Proctor is to be admired for the way in which he handles this
life. To live to see his children grow up, to see his unborn child be
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.
John and Elizabeth continue to argue. John Hale appears at their doorway. He is traveling to each house, talking to those who were mentioned in court, trying to find out more information about them. John says that he knows that Abigail and the other girls are not telling the truth. Two Salem citizens that have had wives arrested show up and a short time passes before a party comes to arrest Elizabeth.
The Crucible, takes place in the small Puritan village called Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The witchcraft trials grew out of the moral system of the Puritans. This split the town into two, those who were considered witches and those who wanted good.
However on the other side John Proctor the stories protagonist portrays “the kind of man, even tempered, ...
This statement is true for John Proctor, he judges himself harshly for his sins and is disgusted with himself. John Proctor is a foil to most characters in the play. They are conformists and submissive as a result of the restrictive lifestyle they had to lead.
him when he could have just died from a heart attack, which he had requested.
Thomas Putnam plays a major role in the Salem witch hunt in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Inheriting a handsome amount of property makes Putnam a wealthy person; however, it doesn't seem to satisfy his ambition. After the town terribly rejected Putnam's brother-in-law, Bayley, Putnam's bitterness has increased. Finally his prodigious involvement in the relentless accusations places him in the center of the spot light, making him a salient character in both the play and the indignant period of the American history.
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.
Through the right and wrong choices John Proctor made when it came to some very difficult decisions in his life, we learn that best decisions in life are sometimes the ones that bring us hardship. Human nature causes one to lie to save them from going through the difficult part of a situation but in the process usually adds to the circumstance that made them lie in the first place. The decisions a person makes in life reveals what type of person they truly are when all is said and done.
The issues of power, that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, portrays are concerned with, who has the power, the shifts of power that take place and how power can consume people and try to abuse it, for either vengeance, jealously, material gain or sexual desire.