ipl-logo

Universal Themes In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

735 Words3 Pages

“The Crucible by Author Miller is a fictional play that retells the historical event of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in a minute puritan village in Massachusetts in 1992. Miller fixates on the revelation of several girls and a slave, Tituba, dancing around in the woods endeavoring to conjure spirits from the dead. To avoid punishment for their demeanor, the girls started to accuse others of the same thing they were guilty of. This finger pointing game was very juvenile and they engendered a community in which everyone feared that everyone was a potential witch. The number of arrests increased and so did the distrust within the community. By the end of 1962 Salem court executed nineteen men and women. The themes Author Miller addressed in “The Crucible” are well thought out universal themes. A universal theme is a widely apperceived and recurring lesson or moral of a story. In a story, the events within the plot reinforce the overarching principle. This overarching principle is the theme. Two of the themes I mentally conceived stood out in “The Crucible” were hysteria and reputation.
Author Miller uses authentic life events from the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 to show that fear and suspicion are infectious and engender a mass hysteria that ravages public order and rationality. One example of this is the afflicted girls utilize the peoples fear of witches to get rid of people that they don’t like. The court also goes with the theme by utilizing the fear of being hung

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Hysteria In The Crucible And Terrorism

    1743 Words  | 7 Pages

    The play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is about the Salem witch trials of 1692 witch resulted in the death of nineteen innocent people. The plot begins in a small Puritan community in Salem, Massachusetts when Abigail Williams and several other young girls were caught in the woods dancing around a fire by her uncle Reverend Parris. His appearance shocked some of the girls into silence. The strange behavior of the girls resulted in many of the townspeople to turn to witchcraft as the cause of their behavior.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Book Report Essay

    686 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The Crucible” is a fiction story that took place in a small town called Salem in the state of Massachusetts in 1692 during the spring time. The plot of this story is about a group of girls who went into the forest led by a black slave named Tituba. They were all dancing in the forest until Reverend Parris caught them dancing in the forest and even saw one of the girl naked. Parris’s daughter Betty who was there in the forest falls into a coma-like state when Reverend Parris caught them. Reverend Parris only noticed his daughter was sick the next day and accused Abigail William, who is Reverend Parris’s niece, of witchery and caused his daughter to go into a coma-like state.

    Read More

  • Propaganda In The Crucible Analysis

    753 Words  | 4 Pages

    ¶“A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is . . . She thinks to dance with me on my wife 's grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat.

    Read More

  • The Crucible: Theme Of Hysteria In Everyday Life And Society

    481 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Crucible Essay The theme of hysteria is evident throughout Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and in everyday life and society. Driven by self-preservation, hysteria influences many characters’ actions and leads to the devastating witch trials in Salem. For instance, many characters in The Crucible are driven to execute drastic actions to sustain their reputation and protect themselves.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Honesty In The Crucible

    680 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Crucible was written in 1952 by Arthur Miller, the play delivers many messages and carries many themes throughout. Nearly every character in the play is put to the test to display an act of courage, weakness, or truth. Some characters lack these traits and never learn to have courage or display honesty. However, most characters are very courageous and demonstrate these acts throughout the whole play. Overall the theme of the The Crucible boils down to being about honesty, weakness, and courage.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Integrity In The Crucible

    1112 Words  | 5 Pages

    Based on the tragic events of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, The Crucible is a hard-hitting tale that reflects upon the subjectivity of goodness and virtue, sparking the reflection of the importance of moral behavior during times of hardship and crisis. In an unyielding and restricted Puritan community like Salem village, a bad reputation could result in social exclusion and scorning from the community. As a result, many members of the community would go to extremes to avoid tarnishing their reputations. The Crucible asserts that those who are concerned only with protecting their standings are dangerous to a society, as they are willing to blame and hurt other people in order to protect themselves.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Crucible Allegory

    492 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Crucible, published in 1953 by Arthur Miller is a very popular book written about the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. While most people use the book to study the Witch Trials, with closer examination it is easy to conclude that it is a direct allegory to the Red Scare and the McCarthy era of 1950s America. An allegory is an extended metaphor in which the characters or objects in the story represent an outside meaning. The Crucible is an allegory to the Red Scare and the McCarthy era drastically by its plot, characters, and the flow and outcome of the court trials. To begin with, The Crucible is an allegory because the plot of the book closely resembles the events that occurred during the Red Scare.

    Read More

  • What Is The Theme Of Mass Hysteria In The Crucible

    966 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Fear Of Corruption In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

    807 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout history the fear of corruption and change has compelled people to go to drastic measures to prevent it. The Crucible, a play by arthur Miller, is set in an environment of religious citizens who fear that the devil and witchcraft will corrupt their society. Much like The Crucible, McCarthyism caused the citizens in America to fear corruption of the government by communism. Arthur Miller used his play the crucible as a direct response to McCarthyism and through this play Miller writes about the Salem witch trials during the McCarthy period to comment on how history repeats itself. The social and political factors in The Crucible resemble those in America during the red scare and McCarthyism.

    Read More

  • Who Is To Blame In The Crucible

    811 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Mcmartin Day Care Abuse In The Crucible

    773 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Crucible is a 1953 play written by Arthur Miller. It is amplified and somewhat novelized story of the Salem witch trials. Miller wrote the play as a parable to the McCarthyism persecution of communist sympathisers. In this play, a group of Puritan girls are found dancing and conjuring with the devil in the forest. Soon the whole village of Salem knows about the dancing and starts accusing people of witchcraft.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Setting Analysis

    762 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Crucible Mob Mentality Analysis

    665 Words  | 3 Pages

    The crucibles a play written by Arthur miller. The Salem witch trials, event written by humans. The play only could portray half of the horrors that actual people went through. The crucibles demonstrated the themes of mob mentality and justice.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Betrayal In The Crucible

    185 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the Crucible by Aurther Miller there were many themes shown in the text. One of the most common themes presented in the book is Betrayal. Betrayal happens a lot through out life. Betrayal is when you go against someone who you were for at first. People often deal with Betrayal through out everyday life.

    Read More

  • The Themes Of Intolerance In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

    803 Words  | 4 Pages

    As said in the documents I read, the theme is "the fundamental and often universal idea of a literary artwork". One major theme that I have learned throughout this play is Intolerance. The society set in The Crucible is theocratic. That means that the church and the state are one.

    Read More

More about Universal Themes In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Open Document