Within the two plays Macbeth and The Crucible Shakespeare and Arthur Miller evidently display the roles of power and manipulation through many characters that are used within these plays these also the affects that it has on the other characters and readers. The characters within these plays all have unique personalities that end up leading them straight into conflict. In the play The Crucible the characters are trying to achieve something, but they don’t get it that easily. This leads to the deaths of many innocent lives that were falsely accused. While in Macbeth, the characters are trying to achieve a higher social status. But, by doing this they end up hurting the ones that were once close to them. Both of Shakespeare and Miller’s …show more content…
The roles of power and manipulation are portrayed through Abagail and Lady Macbeth when they use their relationships help them to take control over others. Even though Abagail is still a teenager she is one of the biggest manipulators within both of the plays. She uses manipulation to her advantage against others. For example when Abagail says “Now look you. All of you we danced… and mark this. Let either of you a breathe of a word, or the edge of a word about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring you a pointy reckoning” (Miller 45) after saying this to the other girls it makes it clear that she is abusing the girls by manipulating them to not tell anyone about what had happened in the jungle. This shows that she will go to any limit to make sure that she doesn’t get caught by even threatening to kill her friends. Moreover, Abagail tried to manipulate John Proctor into falling in love with her and living with her instead by saying “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in to my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was… and how you bid me tear the light out of my eyes…You loved me John Proctor… You love me yet pity me John.”(Miller 54) This shows that Abagail abuse the power of manipulation for he own personal interests. As the play went on Abagail became more and more manipulative eventually leading to her taking control of the court by using the girls to tell lies and making the court hang whoever was in her way. Just as Abagail abuse the girls and the court Lady Macbeth abuses the power of manipulation to make Macbeth want to murder the current King of Scotland at that time so that Macbeth would be the king and Lady Macbeth would end up as the queen. In the play when Lady Macbeth is talking to Macbeth she said “My hands are of
Politicians have capitalized on their power of persuasion on sway voters in one direction or the other. However, only the truly educated individual may navigate through a sea of logical fallacies in search of the truth. In literature as in life, figureheads make decisions that not only affect themselves but those around them. These decisions may conjure up characteristics of self sacrifice or selfish, self-serving power moves. Arthur Miller's play The Crucible tells the story of a group of teenage girls who do witchcraft in a religious town and blame innocent people for their actions. The town then begins to fall under mad hysteria and the lies told kill the innocent. Select Characters, inspired by real people,
The focus of Miller’s The Crucible is an appalling witch trial that morfs the once-peaceful town of Salem into a cutthroat slaughterhouse. As a lucrative playwright and a not-so-subtle allegory author, Miller is a seasoned wordsmith who addresses people akin to himself, and is not secretive about that information. The Crucible best serves its purpose as a learning device and a social statement, especially at the time of its publishing. Miller‘s piece showcases the appeals in an easy-to-identify manner that is perfect for middle or high school students who are new to the appeals, or for English majors who have no problem pinpointing them, making this play ideal for a classroom setting.
The Crucible the film is an adapted version of Arthur Miller’s play of the same name, which was inspired by the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The two main characters are Abigail Williams played by Winona Ryder and John Procter played by Daniel Day-Lewis. The Crucible’s opening scene is Reverend Parris catching Abigail and her friends dancing in the woods and conjuring spirits. Abigail did not want to get in trouble so she blamed Tituba, a Barbados slave, for making her drink chicken blood, and tempting her to sin.
Was The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, just an “irrational fear?” (Arthur Miller’s The Crucible: Fact & Fiction Par.1). The panic of Communism during the Cold War and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist hearings on February 3, 1953 led to this “irrational fear.” There are several major differences from the true version of the story and Miller’s version. These differences could have made the whole event much more interesting and eerie. Many specific details were overlooked that could have changed the play around. For example, Parris’ wife was not dead. In Miller’s play he refers to the group of girls as Abigail’s girls, but there were many other girls that were included in the group of the “afflicted”. Another difference that could have reconstructed how the play was is Abigail’s age. Because Miller used different context from the event, the true facts of history could have made the play much more interesting.
Power and fear can affect people´s sense of what's wrong and what's right. In “the Crucible” by Miller, we can see how the trials affected every individual in a negative aspect. people suffered because of such power and unfairness the authority had. The witch trials affected a lot of individuals from an emotional aspect to a psychological trauma.
After the reign of such corruption, life will always be viewed differently. Weighing ideals of perfection and power over the importance of humanity is something readers will see even out of books and plays. However, in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and Macbeth, by Shakespeare, the books portray a very similar yet real version of society crumbling at the cost of a set of ideals. Doing so causes an individual or a group of people to become obsessed with eliminating those that would “corrupt” their idea of a perfect life or society, it causes them to lose their grip on reality and although it also causes turmoil within society, it brings an end to the suffering of others.
The Crucible is a play with many underlying messages and themes. One of which is the idea of power. Power is a very important term in this play in that whoever holds the power, holds the fates of others. The hysteria within Salem has directly effected society. Everything has turned upside down and has gotten distorted. Arthur Miller is telling us that all the power in Salem is given to those who are corrupt and their abuse of it is directly shown through: the actions of Abigail throughout the play, the corruption and desires of Parris, as well as the witch trials held by Judge Danforth.
The Crucible was written in the early 1950s as an exploration of events which took place in Massachusetts in 1692. What does the play have to offer an audience in 2014?
Many characters in The Crucible fall under the trap of lying, if not to other people, then to themselves. The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in history, surrounding the Salem witch trials. It takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during 1692 and 1693. Additionally, Miller wrote the play as an allegory to mccarthyism, which is the practice of making accusations without evidence. In the play, Arthur Miller develops the theme of lies and deceit by showing Abigail lying for her own benefit, John Proctor committing adultery, and Elizabeth lying to protect her husband.
The witchcraft trials became a significant event in Salem. There were 20 innocent people that died and many more accused. There is a debate on whether who was the main reason for the witchcraft trials and all the deaths of the accused. There are good arguments on about every side. Judge Danforth, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Reverend Hale, Reverend Parris, Elizabeth Proctor and Mary Warren are all the main arguments for the blame. Personally, I believe that Abigail Williams is the main reason why the witchcraft trials came about and that so many people have died and were accused.
The desire for power and authority has always been a part of the human nature. Today’s society most often use power to dominate one another and fulfill one’s personal intentions, which can affect other people in many ways. Having power and authority is truly gratifying but it is terrifying if abused and used for selfish acts. The play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is an example to illustrate the consequences of abuse of power. The characters Abigail Williams, Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris use their power over society by manipulating people and using their authority to fulfill their personal intentions, like material gain, vengeance, maintaining social status and reputation, and attention, which eventually lead into a mass hysteria.
In the Crucible, Arthur Miller shows us how fear and suspicion can destroy a community. As the play develops, Miller shows us how fear and suspicion increase and destroy the community. Throughout the play it becomes apparent that the community gets more and more divided as time goes on. In the beginning there were arguments about ownership of land between some of the villagers. As the story progresses people fear for their own safety and begin accusing their neighbours of witchcraft in order to escape being hanged.
The issues of power, that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, portrays are concerned with, who has the power, the shifts of power that take place and how power can consume people and try to abuse it, for either vengeance, jealously, material gain or sexual desire.
Great events, whether they are beneficial or tragic ones, bring change in a person. These scenarios can give one an entirely new perspective on life, and turn around his way of thinking. Events such as the Salem Witch Trials show the people involved what they could not see before. In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Hale, and John Proctor gain valuable insight into themselves, as well as others.
In Salem, during the times of the Salem witch trials, the church and the people were very close. This is what led to the hysteria and chaos which was the Salem witch trials. It also led to many conflicts between the characters in this book, because anyone who was against the church was considered a criminal. Some of these conflicts were between; Abigail and the other children, Danforth and the town folk, and John Proctor with himself and his wife.