"He states that you coldly prompted your daughter to cry witchery upon George Jacobs that is now in jail" (96). In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, people would do anything to get what they want. In the town of Salem good vs. evil plays a big role. The people of Salem are constantly debating about who is telling the truth and who is lying. People are also judged based on their religious views. Even though they had a lack of evidence, the town of Salem mislabeled people as good or evil.
Rebecca Nurse was a good person at heart. Her image changed when she was accused of witchcraft and people started to consider her as an evil person. "As for Rebecca herself, the general opinion of her character was so high that to explain how anyone dared cry her out for a witch- and more, how adults could bring themselves to lay hands on her" (26). It proves that everyone thought Rebecca was a good and helpful person. Even though people knew she had a kind heart, they believed the accuser. This is obviously not right because you shouldn't believe everything that's said about a person, especially, if there's no evidence to prove it. Parris sent Mercy to get a doctor for Abigail because she was sick. The narrator said, "Thomas Putnam's little daughter was the one who fell into a fit at the hearing and pointed to Rebecca as her attacker. To top it all, Mrs. Putnam accused Rebecca's spirit of 'tempting her to iniquity,' a charge that had more truth in in that Mrs.Putnam could know" (26). This shows that Rebecca was an easy scapegoat. They can easily accuse her for something that she didn't do. Mrs. Putnam saw that her daughter accused her, so she decided to accuse her too. It shows that they were just naming people, so that their story ...
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...r. Abigail first accused Tituba of witchcraft. Abigail says, "She sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer!" (44). She also said, "She comes to me every night to go and drink blood" (44). Abigail had to make up a story in order for people to believe her. She saw Tituba as a scapegoat and she was a slave. Once people started to believe her, she started to accuse more and more people. On the other hand, we know that she's lying and the people that are accused are innocent. People also believed Abigail because she was Reverend Pariss's niece.
Good vs. evil is a very important theme in The Crucible. The innocent were being accused and the evil people were being the ones trusted. Many people were accused and killed. It got to a point where there were barely any people left in the town. The court should've never killed the people without evidence.
The Anti-hero in The Crucible A hero is defined as "someone admired for his bravery, great deeds or noble qualities". There are three categories to which all heroes can be classified into, one of which is the anti-hero genre. An anti-hero has the role of a hero thrust upon them.
Vengeance plays a key role in causing the mass hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail Williams, who?s probably most to blame for the trials, acts out of revenge. She and John Proctor have had an affair and when Elizabeth Proctor finds out, she throws Abigail out of their house. During the trials, Abigail is still in love with John Proctor and goes after Elizabeth out of vengeance. Elizabeth tries to explain this to John, who is in disbelief: she ?thinks to kill me, then to take my place? (61). Abigail?s main motive for destroying Elizabeth is revenge for being thrown out of the house and for having John Proctor, the man that she loves. Another character who seeks revenge is Mrs. Putnam, who has had seven children die shortly after childbirth and blames her midwife, who has many children. Rebecca Nurse is charged ?for the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam?s babies? (71). The trials are an opportunity for Ann Putnam to seek vengeance against Rebecca for having healthy children and grandchild...
Context: This part of the text is included at the beginning of the drama, telling the audience about Salem and its people. The author explains how a theocracy would lead to a tragedy like the Salem witch-hunts. This is the initial setting and is based on the principle that some people should be included and some excluded from society, according to their religious beliefs and their actions. This is basically the idea that religious passion, taken to extremes, results in tragedy. Miller is saying that even today extremes end up bad- communism, like strict puritans, was restrictive and extreme. It only made people suffer.
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.
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.
Explore Miller’s dramatic presentation and development of the theme of power and authority. 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
One of the subjects on which Miller commented was that of the notion that there is only pure, white goodness and cruel, unbending evil. In the play he shows us how people chase what they think is evil, (For example: not going to church, not knowing the Commandments, etc.) persecuting basically good people while the truly evil escape and are even seen as the innocent victims. The people of Salem condemned many based on the few things that were considered 'ungodly' and since they committed one sin, then it was assumed that they were committing many others.
The play, The Crucible, is a fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled into one magnification. It is a play with tremendous feelings, with many inside twists hidden in the archives of the true story. It is a play with emotional feelings; feelings of anger, hate, and evil, yet also feelings of goodness, and pureness. Undeniably, The Crucible is a play illustrating good versus evil. The principal characters, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Ann Putnam and Marry Warren all contain within them elements of good and evil.
In every conflict there always seems to be at least one person to blame. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, many problems arise that deal with live and death. Many innocent people in this play were hanged during the Salem Witch Trials. Of course, there are many people that may be blamed. In The Crucible, one may find Abigail Williams, The Putnams, and Mary Warren to blame. Abigail was manipulative, The Putnams were very jealous, and Mary Warren was weak-willed.
The Salem Witch Trials, Who is Really Guilty? After all of the witch trials in 1692 concluded, a total of 20 people were hanged, all because of people craving attention and personal gain. There are three people depicted in Arthur Miller's The Crucible that are most responsible for this and they are, Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth, and Thomas Putnam. Abigail Williams is mostly responsible for the Salem witch trials because she was the first person to start accusing innocent people of witchcraft.
A crucible refers to a harsh test, and in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, each person is challenged in a severe test of his or her character or morals. Many more people fail than pass, but three notable characters stand out. Reverend John Hale, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor all significantly change over the course of the play.
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 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.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller raises many thought provoking issues throughout the play, including the importance of personal integrity, injustice in society and the rights of the community versus the rights of the individual.
One night the girls were caught dancing in the woods naked by Reverend Parris. Abigail threatened the other girls she would kill them if they ever said what they were actually doing, which was conjuring spirits. Abigail was the one who had done most of the wrong dong including drinking blood. Because of this event the start of the whole witch hunt and hysteria can be accredited to Abigail. Whenever she would be accused she would make up a lie, and threaten the other girls to say it was the truth.