Affects A Bad Reputation In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

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Do you have a reputation? Is it good? Bad? How has your reputation influenced your life? Most people, in one way or another, have developed a reputation for themselves. In my personal opinion, high school is probably one of the most popular and easiest places to acquire a reputation. Not only that, but it seems to be a big problem throughout high school, because once you have a bad reputation, it’s not easy to improve it. Yet, high schools aren’t the only place where you can attain a reputation; work places are also a great place to develop one. Nowadays, even social networking can generate a good or bad reputation and depending on what those sites create, it could affect your career or even prevent you from attaining a certain career. Although One way to prove this is by reading The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. This play displays the effects of acquiring a bad reputation. Many characters from this play deal with a conflict based off a reputation they have gained. The characters with the most significant conflicts resulting from reputations are John Proctor, Reverend Parris, and Abigail Williams. The character who has the most striking struggle with his reputation would be John Proctor. In numerous ways throughout the play, John does almost anything he can to protect his reputation from being tarnished. He makes it very clear that he prioritizes his reputation. The first way he displays this is through his secrecy of committing adultery with Abigail Williams. Even though his wife, Elizabeth, knew about the situation between Abigail and him, he didn’t want anyone else to find out. He knew such a thing would tarnish his reputation. The only reason he admits to this sin is because Elizabeth is accused and is in danger of losing her life. John realizes the only way to save his wife is to tell the court what Abigail’s true ambitions are. He does exactly that by stating this line, “Trembling, his life collapsing about him: I have known her, sir.” By the way this line is written, you can tell this is a From the start of the play, Abigail already has a bad reputation for committing adultery. Elizabeth Proctor had kicked her out of their home because Elizabeth knew of the affair that was going on between Abigail and John. This tarnished her reputation and for that, Abigail wanted to get revenge on Elizabeth Proctor. “She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her!” This is the remark Abigail makes to John Proctor about Elizabeth and what she is doing to her reputation. The main reason behind Abigail accusing so many people is so that eventually the blame is put on Elizabeth. Abigail’s hopes are to have Elizabeth killed so her and John can go on living their lives together. Not only does she want to live her life with John Proctor, but Abigail is also angered at Elizabeth because of the reputation she has given her throughout the village. Her actions go to show how willing she is to ruin numerous lives in order to get revenge on Elizabeth and also get rid of Elizabeth to carry on her dreams of marrying John Proctor. Obviously, Abigail Williams was very serious about getting vengeance on Elizabeth for destroying her reputation in the village of Salem,

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