The Crucible, a production written by Arthur Miller, stays extremely true to its name. The definition of a “crucible” according to Prentice Hall is a severe test or trial, this theme is consistently shown in the play (1257 n1). The drama shows a village in 1692 Massachusetts controlled by puritans, where a large number of people are wrongfully accused of witchcraft (Miller). The village itself could be mistaken as a crucible since the people's values are tested, the trials themselves are the crucible of the story. For many of the characters the test sees if they will lie and accuse someone else of witchcraft, or if they will face death for their honesty.
Playwright Arthur Miller uses deliberate characterization and controlled conflict to highlight societal problems in his play The Crucible. His use of relationships between characters, as well as the interactions that these relationships instigate, in his telling of the Salem Witch Trials is helpful in his ability to convey his overarching idea. The ideas of human failings like hate or greed, blind religious faith or the corruption that occurs in giving power to the formerly powerless, are revealed in Miller’s use of characterization and conflict in The Crucible. Abigail William is a clear antagonist of this play. She stirs up the entire town to chaos.
John Hawthorne was a well-known judge, Governor Williams Phips chose Hawthorne to be one of the judges in the witch trials because he always sided with the accusers no matter what the accused said to him or showed him in the court room he would always ask them to plead guilty and tell him other people who were supposedly witches even though they were innocent. John Hale was a minister who was brought in to save the town from witch craft. Cotton Mather was also a judge who was appointed to the Salem witch trials by Governor William Phips. According to jess Bloomberg after Governor Phips wife was accused of witchcraft he prohibited the arrest of anyone who is accused of witchcraft and he pardoned half of the accused and disbanded the court of oyer and terminer. He replaced it with the superior court of judicature and they only condemned 3 out of 56 but by the time he pardoned all of the accused 19 people where hung and one was pressed to death by
journal #1- narrative Today I went into town in order to see what all this witchcraft commotion was all about. According to Reverend Parris his daughter, Betty, has been bewitched. All this sounds a bit crazy to me because the details do not add up. I see Abigail and hope not to make conversation with her, but eventually I am alone with her and she explains everything to me.
One prior instance occurred no too far from Salem. The Massachusetts Bay colonists accused and convicted Margaret Jones of witchcraft is 1648 (Brooks). One reason this didn’t cause a mass hysteria, she didn’t plead guilty. Nobody in the colonies had ever heard someone claim guilty to witchcraft and state other community members were witches working for the same goal as themselves. In Europe during the sixteenth through the eighteenth century there was another witch hunt that is almost synonymous to the one in Salem.
During this apparent incident a man named Cotton Mather wrote and published a book about an incident of witchcraft. This made the people think that Betty Parris was a witch. After other local girls developed similar symptoms, they called a doctor. After the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with them and said that their problems may have a ‘supernatural origin’ more people started believing that they were
In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, passions turned into problems. Witchcraft in Salem Massachusetts became a remembered event since 1692. Three girls were said to have interactions with the devil. When they were confronted about it they denied every interaction the people who were convicted they would say they weren’t a witch and would bring someone else’s name into the equation. Those who would admit to being a witch would go to jail, but for those who denied having interaction with the devil would have been trialed and hung, so really, anyway you put it
The devil figure is represented by Abigail Williams because she always made sure she was accusing somebody of witchcraft,
Due to their knowledge of the true causes of the witchcraft trials, they had the opportunity to act differently from the rest of the characters. Reverend Hale changes from a revered witch hunter, determined to solve the supernatural occurrences in Salem into a remorseful man who does everything in his power to help the accused. Although condemned by the end of the play, John Proctor dies honorably after sacrificing his dignity in an attempt to save his wife. Mary Warren ultimately becomes a liar by disregarding the truth to save herself and be accepted in Abigail’s pack. Although not all the characters in The Crucible transformed for the best, change and the motivation to change was essential in order to determine the characters’ process of
For example, when Hale defends Elizabeth and John Proctor, he tells Danforth that he has always thought Abigail “false”. As soon as he says this, Abigail immediately reacts, and says. Abigail then begins to accuse Mary Warren of sending her spirit upon her, which in turn makes Mary’s testimony against Abigail meaningless. Also, Abigail successfully draws the attention of the court from Hale, and now the people are too distracted by Abigail to truly comprehend what Hale was trying to say. In another example, Abigail also draws the attention off of herself and onto another.
After Tituba confesses he believes that all the people Abigail, Betty, and Tituba name are witches as well. Reverend Hale comes to Salem with good intentions but by the end of the Act he believes the wrong people and thinks that there are witches in
The Truth: During the late seventeenth century in Salem, Massachusetts Bay, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams were found dancing in the forest by Samuel Parris (minister of Salem). Later on, both of them started to do violent movements and to scream randomly. A doctor theorized that the young girls were acting strange because they were bewitched. Afterwards, different young girls in the area started to have resembling behaviors.
In the New England town of Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls goes dancing in the forest with a black slave named Tituba. They are caught by Reverend Parris right in the middle of dancing. One of the girls, The Parris’s daughter Betty, falls into a deep a coma after being caught dancing with the other girls. A crowd gathers at Reverend Parris’s home while rumors of witchcraft circle the town. After having sent for Reverend Hale, the expert on witchcraft in Salem, Parris questions Abigail Williams, Parris’s niece and one of the girls caught on seen about what had taken place in the forest.
Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, is a play written in 1953 that exposes the mass hysteria occurring in salem, Massachusetts in 1692 During the play, people in the village were accused of doing witchcraft by people who either didn 't like them or wanted their land. Everyone in Salem walked in fear that someone would accuse them of being a witch. When one person accused you of being a witch, everyone agreed because no one wanted to also be accused of being a witch. In October 2014 the popstar Kesha said her producer Dr. Luke alleged drugged and rapped her shorty after she turned eighteen.
“Mary Walcott,Anns step cousin ,named an astonishing 69 witches”(page 56) how in the world would 69 witches/apparitions haunt you without killing you in a matter of hours. the main points of the essay are that if you lie about something very big you might have it turn out bad,such as the hangings or torturing and the people in trial who pricked thereselves for evidence that the witch was a witch. Another main point is that you need to think before you act because it might get someone or yourself in trouble or harmed. The significance of the trials were very low. There was not but a little