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Literary Analysis Of The Crucible

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The Crucible Literary Analysis The theme in a story is the concealed message that the author is trying to portray. The theme can be compared to a baby crying. Sometimes it is obvious as to why the baby is crying, but often times it is a mere thinking situation. The baby cannot tell you why it is crying or what he/she wants. Instead, you must use common sense and figure it out. That is how theme works. The author conveys how he/she feels about life or human experiences in the story, but as a reader, it is your job to evaluate the text and discover the meaning of it. Arthur Miller in the book, The Crucible, conveys many themes about human experiences. Mass hysteria, intolerance, and good vs. evil are just some of the many themes that …show more content…

One of the many themes in The Crucible is mass hysteria. The witch trials are occurring because everyone in Salem is alarmed by the thought of Satan being among them. Miller uses mass hysteria in the book to show how simple it is to create disruption among a society. The theme is important because it “warns us of the dangers of reacting blindly because we are afraid of something” (enotes.com). When the judge asks Mary Warren to faint and she can’t, she says, “I heard the other girls screaming, and you, Your Honor, you seemed to believe them… but then the whole world cried spirits… I only thought I saw them but I did not.” Mary was alone the second time she went to court and that was why she could not faint. The other girls weren’t there to influence her actions. She simply copied them to save herself. The people of Salem were caught up in the midst of everything going on around them and they followed the person next to …show more content…

Intolerance is important in The Crucible because it demonstrates how fast people’s attitudes and beliefs can change due to an event taking place in their town. Judges Hathorne and Danforth exhibit intolerance towards the people being trialed. If somebody spoke of another person performing witchcraft, the judges would not tolerate it and had that person thrown in jail even if there was no evidence to back up the statement. They were definitely substituting a role of unjustifiable reasoning. Miller uses intolerance to show that the people of Salem, especially the judges, were narrow minded and wanted everything to go their way. Their principle of belief was that “a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road

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