More handpicked essays just for you.
Research papers on the salem witch trials
Harper Lee Brief Biography American writer
Arthur Miller as a dramatist
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Nelle Harper Lee, also known as Harper Lee was an American Novelist Pulitzer prize winning author who wrote the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Lee, following in her father's footsteps by studying law but then decided she wanted to be an author. She used many experiences from her childhood, growing up in Monroe, Alabama, which included many Civil Rights influences. The Crucible is play written by Arthur Miller in 1953 about the events surrounding the Salem witch trials. Miller was an American screenwriter who liked to bring in the significances of politics into his writings and like Lee, was a Pulitzer prize winner. Miller started out as a journalist and later turned toward a career in playwriting. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird …show more content…
At first, Scout believes that Tom Robinson could have raped Mayella Ewells but as she gets to know more about Tom and learns the thoughts of the people around her, she begins to question the case. During the trial, when Tom Robinson is on the stand, Scout could tell that Tom would never have hurt Ewell. There were also many facts making him innocent, but with Mayella's word against his not much could be done. “Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet” (Lee 218). Tom Robinson always helped Mayella Ewell with her chores when he found out that no one else helped the lonely girl. When her father finds out about her trying to seduce the African American, he becomes violent “Despite her situation, she loses the reader’s sympathy when she repays Tom’s kindness with open contempt and a lie that costs him his life” (“To Kill a Mockingbird”). Tom Robinson looks guilty to the racist south just because of the color of his skin. The jury and the Ewells should feel the guilt of leading an innocent man to his …show more content…
Atticus wants justice in town but he cannot always get it. In Scout’s school, the views of her classmates’ parents rubs off on them “She naturally questions the injustices she sees instead of accepting them as ‘the way things are’” (“To Kill a Mockingbird”). Scout is told by her teacher, Miss Caroline, that she should not be letting Atticus teach her how to read “‘You tell him I’ll take over from here and try to undo the damage-’” (Lee 19). Even though Scout did not technically learn to read from her father, Miss Caroline does not believe it and does not agree with the teaching
I have read the The Crucible, The Scarlet letter, and Of Mice and Men. In two of these stories, The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, society was very much alike. They were based on a Puritan background. The Puritans had laws to live by. In the story Of Mice and Men, society showed racism and also that people took the law into their own hands.
Lee uses Scout and Jem’s tumultuous childhood experiences to... has had many trials through her life, and on was in fact a trail of Tom Robinson, a black man accused in raping Mayella Ewell, one of the daughters of Bob Ewell, the town’s idler. Atticus, the children’s father, was defending Tom Robinson, and the case seemed to be in favor of him, all the way to the point of Jem stating, “He’s not leaning, Reverend, but don’t fret, we’ve won it..Don’t see how any jury could convict on what we heard-”(Lee 176). Jem is very confident in his father’s argument, and believes that the case will lean to Tom,
Men and women walk around in the same neutral colored clothing, hand in hand with the lord and their Puritan values. However, these seemingly ordinary Puritans are all similar in one form— sin. In archaic theme-based literature, similarities can be distinguished between two stories and their attributes. Within the works of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, a plethora of correlative elements can be identified by the reader.
Readers can see the actions that are made by characters through times of hardship that reveal what they truly are in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Crucible by Arthur Millar.
One of the storylines in the novel is the Robinson-Ewell trial. Tom Robinson is an innocent African-American, accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a lower-class white girl. At the trial hearing, everyone is able to tell his or her side of the story before Tom is allowed to speak. All stories, however, offer two different versions of Tom and Mayella’s relationship. Moreover, Mayella and Bob Ewell tell the jury what they expect to hear, about Tom being a monster. They explain that there was no reason for his actions against Mayella. According to them, along with the rest of Maycomb, it's just expected that a black man would rape any white woman if he had the opportunity. The Tom spoken of by the Ewells shows the stereotypes that justify whites to be superior to blacks. However, Tom tells the jury about his innocence. He pr...
One of the major events in Harper Lee’s award-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird is Tom Robinson’s trial. It is based on the Scottsboro Case that took place in 1931 in Alabama, in which several black men were accused of raping two white women. Both the Scottsboro Boys and Tom Robinson are unfairly judged, however, because of prejudice against colored people. The racial discrimination makes whites’ testimony more believable even when it contradicts itself. The same happens in To Kill a Mockingbird. As we delve deeper into the case and get increasingly closer to the truth, it is quite suprising to see that Mayella Ewell is the true villain rather than a victim. She shall and must bear full responsibility for her actions because she makes the decision to tempt Tom Robinson, gives false testimony in court that directly leads to Tom’s death, and has been well aware of the consequences of her behaviors.
The tragic death of a flawed hero can redeem and save both the hero and those who look up to him/her. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a man named Randall Patrick McMurphy saves a ward and its patients from self destruction. The power hungry Nurse Ratched rules as Chief Bromden narrates. In a similar fashion, Abigail Williams reigns over Salem. Her and her group of girls will eventually be taken down by John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Both novels end with the downfall and deaths of McMurphy and Proctor, helping to save the ward and Salem. Randall Patrick McMurphy and John Proctor begin their journey as selfish but grow to become heroes along the way.
For this semester we covered many concepts about American culture through literature and film. One of the most outstanding theme/themes for me this semester was the inequality amongst humans, and the justice we use to fix it. In every story in literature and film, there is always some kind of goal, and these texts that we were given shows us that. The books that I read for this unit were, One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Crucible.
Love can be pure, powerful, dreadful and even destructive. It is proven that even viewing a picture of a loved one can relieve any pain you are feeling. In the novel Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character Hester Prynne commits a sinful gesture due to the lack of love with her husband. This later led into a catastrophe, which was a perfect representation of a love downfall. As for The Crucible by Arthur Miller, there was also a love downfall that happened between characters Abigail and Proctor after they had an affair and he found out about her double life. Both of the Puritan Literatures, The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, both proved that love can be a pure and destructive force at the same time.
In an interview with Bill Moyers, Margaret Atwood spoke about cultures and societies in history coming under stress. “When society comes under stress, they begin to look for somebody to put the blame on, they will always scapegoat a person or a group of people.” Texts that represent Atwood’s statement are shown in a drama called The Crucible by Arthur Miller and a drawing called "It's okay -- we're hunting communists" by Herb Block. Also, they’re shown in Atwood’s poem, “Half-Hanged Mary” These sources, and many others, demonstrate the wicked people in society when their reputation is tested or at stake.
During the late 1600’s, Salem, Massachusetts, there was a period of time where a society, known as the Puritans, created a hysteria of witchcraft and other satanic like fears. During this “witch trials” panic, just fewer than twenty people were killed due to the accusations of them being associated with witchcraft. These trials were unjust and there was no real way to determine whether the person was innocent or not, due to the defendant having to either confess publicly that they were associated with the devil or be hung on the towns scaffold. Two novels are associated with these events that took place during this time period, Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter. Both
This two topics The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible are two literary words. The Scarlet Letter is nonfiction, however, The Crucible is drama along with a partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials. Both stories focused in the puritanism and arousing. “In the early severity of the puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn” (Hawthorne). That text foreshadows how strict people are from The Scarlet Letter. “The rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself” (Miller). That statement is the evidence of how the people gossip and how strict they are about all this and also about unnatural activities and breaking law in that age of time.
In the world, there are good people and bad people. There are people who help others, and there are people who try to tear down others. There are people who accept others, and people who unfairly discriminate against others. As a result of people’s actions and opinions, good things can happen, and bad things can happen. Sometimes, unfortunately, bad things happen to good people. Tom Robinson is a victim of this system in which the world works. Tom Robinson is a character in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Tom Robinson is a black man who is being accused of raping a 19 year old woman named Mayella Ewell, which is a crime he did not commit. The story follows two
The Feminist theory is an important part of many pieces of literature. With it, people are able to analyze the way the women are treated and how they were expected to act over hundreds of years. The stories that are going to be analyzed using this theory are, The Scarlet Letter and “The Crucible.” The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 that discusses the effects of a woman having a child out of wedlock with an unknown man. “The Crucible,” written in 1952 by Arthur Miller on the other hand, is about a group of young girls who are accused of witchcraft and decide to take it to the extreme and get the whole town involved to cover their own butts. Applying the Feminist
In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, racism is a major theme. Atticus Finch, the narrator’s father, defends a negro, Tom Robinson, in the court of law against a white man, Bob Ewell. Robinson had reportedly raped a young white girl, Mayella Ewell. But according to Robinson he had gone to help Mayella, as he often did, with work around the house. As he starts helping Mayella, she tries to get Tom to kiss her and will not let him out of the house. Bob Ewell sees this and chases Tom out of the house and accuses him of raping his daughter. Atticus goes against almost everyone in Maycomb County’s opinion in defending Tom Robinson. Throughout the course of the novel, racism effects many characters such as Tom and Helen Robinson, Scout and Jem Finch, and Mayella and Bob Ewell. All these characters had there lives