The Danger of Suspicion
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller tells the story of a town that is completely out of control. People accuse each other of witchcraft, even though no are witches in Salem. Several things led to the mass panic. A major factor is, that the people in the town of Salem had a deep distrust for each other. They were jealous and always suspected that the other people were trying to take things that were not theirs. The witch hunt could only escalate as it did because the people of Salem did not trust each other in the beginning and it just kept on getting worse because they made false accusations.
If we talk about an unstable community, we of course have to talk about its people. No one is innocent, many of them are not trustworthy. Two characters in the play take it to an extreme. One of them is Reverend Parris, the minister. The people in Salem do not like him a whole
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One of them is allusions. Allusions are an essential part of the play. It is actually based on the true story of the witch-hunt of Salem, but also refers to the McCarthyism that was an issue around the time when Miller wrote The Crucible. In both cases mistrust did a lot of damage and hurt many people because they had suspicions that often could not be confirmed. “This predilection for minding other people’s business was time-honored among the people in Salem, and it undoubtedly created many of the suspicions which were to feed the upcoming madness.” (Miller, p. 1217), Miller describes the situation in Salem. Another literary device used in the play is imagery. Most of the settings are very dark to make the reader feel how unwelcoming and gloomy it was. Miller describes the courtroom like this: “The room is solemn, even forbidding” (Miller, p. 1249). Imagery is important because Arthur Miller wants the reader to feel the dark atmosphere in Salem at the
The Crucible Essay The overall theme of the play, The Crucible, is about lying and deceiving people of the court and the people of Salem, while the main message of the Crucible is about how making accusations and rumors up can sometimes go way farther than they are meant to go. The Crucible play centers around accusations that are made about people throughout the town of Salem, without any real evidence these accusations are believed by the courts and people. Some of the quotes from this piece would go perfectly for this. For example Arthur Miller’s quote “Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven” works out well because the people are great people until they get wrongfully accused so much they just fall apart.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller, is a play based on the events that occurred during The Salem Witch trials. It follows the townspeople as they accuse more and more women and men as witches. Throughout the Crucible many themes exploit themselves, and many of these themes influence the story itself. Integrity influences the reader's thoughts on different characters, corruption of justice helps the climax grow, and the mass hysteria helps to create the initial problem of the play.
Ever since the beginning of time people have been afraid of the unknown. This is because every time something new appears people immediately try to disregard it, making themselves open to ignorance. This is exactly what happens in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”, when people started accusing each other of witchcraft. Because of the factors of the unknown the people of Salem are strucken of fear because they are afraid to go against what the majority says thus, making people unreasonable and brings misjustice to the accused. To begin, John Proctor tries to go against the flow of the river, by attempting to reason with the people of Salem.
The hysteria would spread all throughout the Salem village leading to the deaths of many innocent women who were all victims of false accusations made over vengeance leading to their deaths. Many people took advantage of the hysteria the people of Salem where in and used it for their own gain they saw it as their one chance to get revenge in a “christian” manner. The puritans were only trying to avoid their own sinful thoughts by taking out their revenge in the only way that would please the church. In The Crucible Miller shows this about the Salem Witch Trials, he shows the people making accusation out of pure envy and hate sometimes even just fear, but also for vengeance. The hysteria all started over a single person’s vengeance and then everything led up to irrational accusations that all derived from that one original person’s desire for vengeance.
Hysteria in Salem The Crucible is a play written by American author, Arthur Miller, in 1953. It is a somewhat fictional play about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote it as an allegory to the Red Scare, the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism. Miller himself was blacklisted for refusing to testify in front of the HUAC, a committee that was created to investigate any person who might be a communist.
Shawn Jande Ms. Clancy American Literature B3 15 November 2015 The Crucible Analytical Essay Imagine, being accused of a crime you didn’t commit by your neighbors and friends out of jealousy, and desire. This is what many people in the town of Salem had to go through during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. People's motives such as: gaining and maintaining power, and aspirations for what other people had caused them to make irrational, and atrocious decisions. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, desire and power drive characters to create chaos in the community.
The Salem Witch trials took place in Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693 where people were killed if they were thought to be witches. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller writes about the witch trials and what happened during that time. The Crucible has many themes throughout the play. One prominent theme is the theme of mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is shown in many cases throughout the play such as the scenes when the people of the village of Salem are accused, in the court room while the people state their case, and when the townsfolk are about to be hung after failing to call out other witches.
“The Crucible” is a play about the unfortunate Salem Witch Trials but if one dug deeper, the events of “The Crucible” closely relate to the events of McCarthyism in the 1950’s. The people during the 1950’s were very distraught and constantly looking over their shoulders in fear in search of Communists because they were a national and social threat to the Democratic Republic. People were turning their backs on their moral and personal values to point out yet another victim to the Communist chase. The US authoritative figures conjured a hysterical fear of their government collapsing and the people losing their rights which turned them into hypocritical pursuants. Arthur Miller targets these points in “The Crucible” with his knowledge of the Salem
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatic play that expresses a very important message and that is how far people would go to save themselves from the hands of death. There are many characters in the Crucible who are guilty of taking innocent lives, but there are three major characters who, without a doubt, are the most at blame. The play takes place in the city of Salem, a city filled with people that would do anything to keep their reputation clean. Throughout the play, Miller is introducing multiple characters that experience changes in their decisions and negatively influence more people eventually leading up to the witch trials. The main point that the story revolves around is that people would rather lie and blame someone else instead of confessing and accepting the punishment.
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller the power of the towns government and religion are the backbone of the story, the case of the witch trials. In the book, the main character, Abigail, blames numerous girls for witchcraft. "I'll lead them in a psalm,but let you say nothing of witchcraft yet" (Miller 17). She does this out of spite due to jealousy over goody Proctor. In their town, based on their religion, witchcraft is serious, devilish ritual and forbidden.
Salem was a small settlement, every settler knew one another (Miller, Arthur). And when there were whispers of witchcraft, the whispers became loud and public
The Crucible is a story by Arthur Miller this story was released during the Mccarthyism era and is written to relate what is going on during Mccarthyism time and compared to what had happened during the time of the Salem witch trials. The setting or the crucible will impact the characters, the plot and the tone of the story. The setting of The Crucible affected the characters because during this period of time Salem Massachusetts was a Puritan colony. The Puritans were very strict people, for example on page 1154 of Arthur Miller's The Crucible Paris the town's Minister threatens to beat his slave Tituba “ You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to death Tituba” that statement says that the fact that Parris is going to whip Tituba to death if she doesn't do what he says and confess that he is willing to kill anyone who does not follow the rules. Another
One of the main elements that eventually build up to the main plot in the play is power. Many of the characters in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible have a strong desire for power. The Salem witch trials empowered several characters in the play who were previously marginalized in Salem society. It gave them the chance to misuse it leading to horrible suffering and even deaths of some innocent people in the town. Some of these characters are Abigail Williams, Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris.
In Arthur Miller 's play The Crucible, false accusations and fear are used to imprison and kill many people accused of being witches. In this way, The Crucible stands as an allegory for McCarthy 's communist hunt, during which many people were also killed and imprisoned due to accusations of communism. By comparing McCarthyism to the Salem Witch Trials, Miller is able to communicate that people should not conform to societal trends because these trends may be misleading and cause innocent people to get hurt. Many characters in The Crucible serve as allegories to McCarthy 's communist hunt, specifically Abigail Williams, Giles Corey, and Betty Parris.
He compares the hysteria and tension of the Salem people with the situation of Hell, where exists intense heat and pressure. Using this play’s title Arthur Miller tries to signify similar