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Arthur miller crucible analysis
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible: A Connection between Salem and McCarthyism
Arthur miller crucible analysis
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The development of McCarthyism in the 1950s due to the increased fears of communism led to the imprudent accusations of disloyalty and treason to the United States. The Salem witch trials during 1692 were hearings and false accusations based on the views of McCarthyism. Arthur Miller’s knowledge of these events in history greatly influenced his writing of the Crucible. He included the imprudent accusations that were being greatly used by Joseph McCarthy and gave these traits to a group of girls in Salem. These girls created something in their town that was extremely similar to the Second Red Scare, a result from increased communist accusations, that lead to several deaths of innocent men and women. Among those who knew the truth about the accusations in Salem was John Proctor, a farmer who lived just outside of Salem. The author incorporates the idea of McCarthyism in Salem to have relation to history as well as give reason for such corruption. The panic induced by the Salem witch trials, reminiscent of that caused by McCarthyism in the red scare, forces John Proctor to reevaluate his beliefs. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Proctor’s characteristics and morals create an internal conflict between his honesty and his religious affiliation that leads to a moral dilemma between the preservation of his name and his confession to witchcraft, which eventually leads to his physical and metaphorical death as a character.
John Proctor’s devotion to his religion gives him a choice between to do whats right or to save his life by succumbing to the pressure to confess falsely. Many problems arise, including his alleged affair with Abigail Williams. John is on his way back home when Abigail stops him in the woods and tries to seduce him....
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...o the church for everyone to see. When Danforth requires that Proctor give an explanation for not wanting to hand over the document he cries out, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies!...How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (1333). Proctor continues to ponder his decision of admitting himself to witchcraft which would free him from hanging. This reflects his aspiration not to dishonor his peers who have died for crimes they did not commit. Proctor would not be able to live with himself knowing that others died while he lied to save his own life. Proctor wants to keep his reputation as an honest man in the town of Salem, ultimately proving his obsession with his name being pure. His decision to honor the deceased and die an honest man overcame his ability to lie.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a protest paper to the brutality of the Red Scare .The Red Scare was the inoperable fear of Communism within the United States. This scare was caused as a result of the Cold War in the 1950’s. During the Cold War the US was scared of an attack of the Soviets, and the Soviets were equally as scared of an attack upon them by us. Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, saw this fear as an opportunity to rise to power. McCarthy had many supporters that were primarily Republicans, Catholics, Conservative Protestants, and Blue-collar workers. McCarthy ruthlessly utilized scare tactics to get people to believe and follow him blindly into his accusations as to innocent citizens supporting Communism and either having them jailed or killed by providing phony evidence. Arthur Miller was not intimidated by this he wrote the Crucible as “an act of desperation” (Miller). This desperation was to counteract the lack of speaking out about personal beliefs during the Red Scare for the fear of breaking the law. In The Crucible, Miller wrote about a character named John Proctor who is very similar to Miller himself. Both the author and the character had to overturn the same personal paralyzing guilt, not speaking out soon enough. Nonetheless, their eventual overcoming of this guilt leads them to becoming the most forthright voice against the madness around them.
Proctor’s prideful personality does not let him baptize his third son because he dislikes Reverend Parris (168, l. 516-520). Proctor withholds his affair with Abigail because of his pride, he was unable to confess it until his wife was accused. Before he confessed he stated that “a man will not cast away his good name,” this statement suggest that a man has a lot of pride in his name and therefore his confession must be true (189, l. 845-847). In addition, after confessing to witchcraft Proctor takes pride in his name and refuses to have his name nailed in the door of the church showing everyone that he confessed to witchcraft (207, l. 894-897). “You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me!,” Proctor beliefs he is better than Sarah good and Tituba hence he would not sign his name (207, l. 899-701). Towards the end, Proctor thinks better of his action and rips the signed paper after declaring, “Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (207, l. 725-730). Proctor compares himself with the brave people that are about to hang and takes pride in his name by refusing to keep on lying and ripping the paper with his signature; he bravely accepted death with the thought that his name is not tainted by
During the 1690’s in Salem, Massachusetts, one of the most disgraceful events in American history took place. 20 innocent people were sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft (Kortuem). At the time there was a witch scare sweeping across the North East of America in a time we know today as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was one of the most shameful events in American history. In fact, it was compared to another event by a man named Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was a playwright from New York who wrote many famous plays like Death of a Salesman, All my Sons, and of course The Crucible (Kortuem). In The Crucible, Miller was comparing the McCarthy Hearings at the time to the events hundreds of years earlier in the
A very famous man once said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933). This is certainly true when it comes to Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible. Arthur Miller lived through the Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism. After living through this era and being one of the accused communists Miller wrote the book titled The Crucible in 1952. This book told the story of the Salem witch trials with some modifications to make it more relevant to the current situation. The book ultimately became an allegory devoted solely to McCarthyism. In The Crucible it uses situations such as the actual trials; direct comparisons of the characters in the book to those that participated in the McCarthy trials and, the atmosphere of the two events were almost identical.
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.
When Proctor sleeps with Abigail, it “put knowledge in [her] heart,” (22) and makes her envious of Proctor 's wife, Elizabeth. Trying to find a way to get rid of Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail went into the forest with Tituba and a lot of other girls and “drank a charm to kill John Proctor 's wife!” (18). As the play progresses, Abigail gets power from the role she plays in court. Once Abigail gets this power she accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch and Elizabeth gets thrown in jail. He realized that what happened between him and Abigail had a direct connection with Elizabeth getting arrested. Proctor finally understands that it was his fault and that “vengeance is walkin Salem”.(73) He realizes that because of him “crazy little children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law.”(73) This shows how John Proctor
John Proctor is guilty of both spoken lies and lies conveyed from his actions. John Proctor has to deal with the decision to stay true to himself and not let his frustration condemn him to falsify the truth. Accused of conjuring with the devil among many other innocent Puritans in the town, John has to face making the right decision to either be hanged and keep his soul pure or lie to save his life and oblige to the magistrates that he did indeed conjure with devil. The tendency to want to keep your life is within any human being on this Earth, however John is faced with the decision of saving his life or faulting his already remorseful heart by lying. As John Proctor makes the decision to lie and keep his life, he begins to doubt how others will now think of him knowing he conjured with the devil. When asked to sign his name on paper for the entire town to see he refuses and exclaims, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies…” (143) While John passionately speaks this, his immense frustration is finally released and shows his desire to stay true to himself and others in the town. Refusing to sign the paper conveys the lie he initially told and the truth he sought for once realizing the guilt and remorse he would have for the rest of his life. John Proctor’s feeling of frustration
The Crucible is a play which revolves around the Salem Witch Trails of 1692. The play starts with the Reverend Parris's daughter being stricken with a strange illness that leaves her bedridden. Her father suspects it is witchcraft, an idea that the main antagonist Abigail uses to her and her conspirator's advantage. Abigail and her friends (with the help of Reverend Parris, Reverend Hale, Thomas Putnam) start to accuse people in the town of witchcraft in order to gain land, power or money. If this play is looked at through a Marxist lens, it is evident that this play is an ode to McCarthyism and how McCarthyism ruined the life of some prominent American's in the 1950's. McCarthyism relates to the actions of a Wisconsin senator named Joseph
“Danforth:... You will sign your name or it is no confession, Mister! His breast heaving with agonized breathing, Proctor now lays down the paper and signs his name… Proctor has just finished signing when Danforth reaches for the paper. But Proctor snatches it up...His breast heaving, his eyes staring, Proctor tears the paper and crumbles it, and he is weeping in fury, but erect.” Not once in his time from that moment in the court, or jail, or at Gallows Hill did he confess to witchcraft, despite Reverend Hale’s attempts to persuade him otherwise. Proctor stood against the court, the girls, and some of the townsfolk, and although he was in the right, and his claims were accurate,...
Another important work Miller wrote, The Crucible, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 17th century. It is a time when jealousy and suspicion poisoned the thinking of an entire town. Neighbor turned against neighbor when events happened that could not be explained. Accusations turned into a mad hunt for witches who did not exist. One of the main characters of the play is John Proctor, a well-respected man with a good name in the town. As the play develops, John Proctor’s moral dilemma becomes evident: he must decide whether to lie and confess to witchcraft in order to save his life, or to die an honest man, true to his beliefs.
In 1692, nineteen men and women of Salem, Massachusetts were suspected under the crime of witchcraft and were sentenced to hang. These hangings came from the result of villagers blaming each other trying in order to save their own lives. Similarly, in the 1950s, McCarthyism and the Red Scare took on a similar outcome as the Salem Witch Trials; many people were wrongly convicted as Communists. However as time progressed, people became less concerned about saving themselves but began to protect one another from harm. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in the 1950s in order to relay the message that although humanity appears to selfishly protect their own interests, they eventually become selfless and serve justice. Through the use of description, Miller illustrates how John Proctor, Reverend Hale and Giles Corey transform from selfish to selfless.
By making a false affirmation, John Proctor would be “signing the book of the devil” (Popkin 318). For John Proctor to sign the sheet, he would be assigning himself to the dark acts of witches, which would have been false. By confessing to witchcraft John Proctor would be destroying his family name by associating it with the Devil. John Proctor would rather die a truthful, honest man that his children could look up to than one who lied to save his own skin. This contrasts a man such as Reverend Parris, a church establishment figure, whose only desire is to stay as the head of the local church. John Proctor would take death before he would associate himself with
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, was written during the early 1950s.It was the time of The rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s.All throughout history, accusations of witchcraft have been used as an excuse for the discrimination of people who cultures, traditions, race, and ideas were not easily accepted nor understood by the society even if it was untrue.In today’s society students are taught this because it show’s how important “The Crucible, and McCarthyism were and what changes they went through because of the human condition.It is extremely important and appropriate because it allows students the opportunity to respond in terms of their own experiences .The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism had many similarities. In The Crucible Abigail
Few people are willing to stand up to the overwhelming power of authority, especially during a time like the Red scare. Hardly any authors are able to recognize meaningful similarities between the present times and an event that happened many years ago—and write about it effectively. Only one has had the courage and intelligence to do both. Arthur Miller was an American author who wrote plays, essays, and stories and has published works dating from to 1936 through 2004. The Crucible, one of his most famous plays, premiered in New York on January 22, 1953 (InfoTrac). It is a historical-fiction story set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The witch hunt described in this play is similar to the Red Scare, an anti-communist movement led by Senator Joseph McCarthy that lasted from the late 1940s to the late 1950s (Broudin). During both time periods, most people respected high authority while a few dissenters challenged conformist views. The public was censored in what they could say because of the fear of being accused of witchcraft or communism. The hysteria of the times triggered a mob-mentality to emerge among the citizens, which influenced nearly everyone to join the terrible movements. Miller presents all of these ideas in The Crucible using his own experiences as influences. He incorporated many of his own traits into the characters’ dispositions. He also described many situations in the play that were similar to the ones he was in, including how he was censored by the Red Scare. Many people will often conform while only a few will challenge authority, will use censorship to prevent others from expressing their views, and are easily affected by hysteria; these characteristics influenced Miller’s life and are reflected by him in Th...
...h, his wife, does not want to admit her husband’s deceit, proctor is accused of lying to the court. When Proctor confesses his sin of lechery he feels better and his internal guilt is freed. This is different to the end of the play where he signed the confession to witchcraft. He later rips it up as could not live with himself if he were to allow Abigail to get away with her lies, through confessing to something he did not do. In ripping up the confession he is also able to keep his good name which he says at the end is all he has left, his name, and he does not want to give it away.