Arthur Miller’s dramatic play The Crucible, takes place during 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. The setting is important because it takes place during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. The play begins with the town’s girls, led by Abigail Williams, gathering in the forest and starting to dance around a fire, chanting. Reverend Parris catches them dancing, sending the girls into a panic and causing two of the girls to go into a coma-like state. The townspeople spread rumors that there are witches lurking throughout the the town that have put the girls under their spells. This causes Reverend Parris to send for Reverend Hale, an expert in witchcraft and the devil's work, who hopes to rid the town of all witchcraft. John Proctor, a local farmer, asks Abigail to stop accusing innocent people and start telling the truth about what happened in the forest. Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor's wife, excused Abigail from their house because she found out about an affair between Abigail and John. She lies to the court when she is asked about John’s affair to save him from any punishment. In doing so, they were both sent to jail for witchcraft because they knew she had lied. Abigail and the girls continued to lie about people in the town being witches, causing many innocent people to be killed, including John Proctor. Miller shows the dangers of scapegoating when lies that are regarded as the truth, and can kill innocent characters. The first person to be scapegoated is Tituba, a slave from Barbados working for the Parris household. Reverend Hale questions Abigail about what happened in the woods but she only says that the girls danced and did not summon the devil but that Tituba did. Tituba insists that someone else is bewitching the child... ... middle of paper ... ...e amount of authority and how it is uprooting the towns beliefs. Proctor begins to sign the document stating that he gives his word that he compacted with the devil. Before he gives the document to the officials he takes it away and rips it because he sees the wrong in his actions. I confess to God and God has seen my name on this!…It is my name! I cannot have another in my life! 142-143 Proctor can see the wrongdoing the judges have made and he wants to show them that you have to put an end to problems in the beginning rather than at the last moment right before everything crumbles down. He shows that social unjust and allowing scapegoating without proof can ruin a community’s trust quickly as people become angry at one another. When lies are taken as the truth by scapegoating it can kill innocent people and have adverse effects on the other community members.
Parris nullifies Proctors testament by calling Proctor a bad Christian and tells the court how he never attends church anymore. Giles deposition turned against him because he was did not want to go against anyone else.
Theme - Justice: As Proctor is being led out of the court, he shouts that he can “hear the boot of Lucifer” and see his “filthy face.” He says that it is his “face, and yours, Danforth.” He tells the court that “we will burn, we will burn together.” His religious references are used to prove his point that the court is corrupt. He accuses the court that they are not enforcing justice but instead are doing the work of the devil. Proctor accuses the him and the whole court of being guilty of doing the wrong thing.
He regards himself as a fraud. These insecurities are the foundation of Proctors character development into an anti-hero.
In the Town of Salem Massachusetts, 1692, a group of adolescents are caught dancing in the forest. Among the adolescents in The Crucible, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren. The girls are horrified that they have been caught dancing, a sinful act, therefore they devise a story to evade punishment: they claim to have been bewitched. The first person who they accuse of witchcraft is a the black maid, Tituba. This results in her jail sentence as well as fearful suspicion throughout the town. Arthur Miller demonstrates the impact of lying as the girls recognise and manipulate their power in the town. Lead by Abigail, they go further, claiming countless others guilty and dooming them to exile. Miller demonstrates that there power is so great that even when Mary attempts to stand against her friends, she is quickly overwhelmed and once again plays along with their trickery. As the girls’ conspiracy continues, controversy arise over their truthfulness; people choose sides often lying themselves to support their side, further altering the lives of all involved.
Fear, resulting in chaos, and overturned lives affected the personal decisions of John Proctor, thus creating inner conflicts, as well as desperation in the story. In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, John Proctor's stand in a society where opinion drove fate created ignominy towards him and his beliefs. At first he hid his horrible sin inside, fearing the consequences. When he finally did, he was placed in a tangled labyrinth of feelings as to what his next action should be. Lastly, it's Proctor's defiance and integrity in his own self that proved him stronger than the entire community of Salem. Proctor's tremulous feelings and general unease of the situation built up to his defining point of confession. Theocracy came together to take coerce control Salem and it's actions. Proctor saw this and feared, for diabolism was a practice unheard of. Danforth states, "You must understand, sir, a person is either with the church or against it, there be no road between. We live no longer in the dusky afternoon and evil mixed itself with good and befuddled world. Now by God's grace the good folk and evil entirely separate"(63).
In the private of his home, Proctor is forced to acknowledge his poor judgement, as well as the consequences that follow. Elizabeth is representative of a constant reminder for his failing moral duty as the man of the house, and the father of their children. This stew, which he is unpleased with, is an embodiment of his discontent with his own home
... integrity are among the most important things. He also uses Proctor to demonstrate what an unjust system can do to an individual with good intents. The play is a parallel to the anti-Communist McCarthy era. Through John Proctor we see the ludicrous nature of mass hysteria that exists when society has gone awry.
Another important work Miller wrote, The Crucible, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 17th century. It is a time when jealousy and suspicion poisoned the thinking of an entire town. Neighbor turned against neighbor when events happened that could not be explained. Accusations turned into a mad hunt for witches who did not exist. One of the main characters of the play is John Proctor, a well-respected man with a good name in the town. As the play develops, John Proctor’s moral dilemma becomes evident: he must decide whether to lie and confess to witchcraft in order to save his life, or to die an honest man, true to his beliefs.
At the end of the play, John proctor is faced with the biggest calamity of his life. He was given the the choose to lie and say he is a witch or stand by his honesty and die as a marauder. john proctor name was everything to him. It made him who he is so he based his actions on it.. John wanted to live and keep his good name
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
And so there goes a silly little man, bent by pride, forth to the gallows and whatever fate may await him beyond. Indeed, what legacy did John Proctor leave to his wife, left homeless, without a husband? What legacy did John Proctor leave his children, abandoned by their father in a fit of selfish vanity? What message was left for his children who would forever live in the knowledge that their father cared more for his good name than for his own sons and their welfare? What memory would he leave to the world which could not save him, what legacy to the world? There goes the silly little man, bent by pride, striding away from the family that needs him, towards his fate.
From the moment John Proctor is introduced, Arthur Miller makes it clear that Proctor’s image of himself is distorted in regard to how he is viewed by others. Proctor considers himself a bad person. However, outwardly, he has a very confident and assertive manner. Due to his crime of infidelity, he struggles with a vast amount of inner turmoil. Miller describes this struggle in his introduction of Proctor by saying, “He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct” (19). The author sets the stage perfectly by giving readers a hint of the intricate plot of The Crucible and how Proctor’s flawed character is intertwined in the story. While he is not a content man on the inside, he presents himself in an utterly different way. Everyone respects Proctor and recognizes him as someone not to be messed with. He is “respected and even feared in Salem” (19). However, some resent him for his bluntly honest personality. Miller again illustrates the comple...
The first, the importance of personal integrity, is brought to light through John Proctor, who finds himself facing personal conflict when making the decision of whether to lie and 'confess' to the court, saving his own life, or to tell the truth and be condemned by it. Upon first deciding to confess and live, Proctor acknowledges he has given his soul to the devil, but refuses to also tarnish his name by allowing his confession to be stuck to the door of the church.
It is first seen when he speaks to Reverend Hale at his home, “I have no witness and cannot prove it, except my word be taken. But I know the children’s sickness had naught to do with witchcraft” (35). With this knowledge, Proctor must confront and reveal the truth to the court by relying on himself which improves his own self image. Later, he faces inner demons with a confession to the court of the affair: “his voice about to break, and his shame great: In the proper place - where my beasts are bedded. On the last night of my joy, some eight months past . . . He has to clamp his jaw to keep from weeping. A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything” (57). Here we see a more vulnerable side of Proctor than from the beginning, he's losing some of last shreds of pride by telling the truth of the matter. However, despite efforts to save the people he loves and respects, the court chooses to be ignorant in the face of truth. He then cries out, “I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud” (62). This establishes not only the corruption of the court, but the connection Proctor recognizes between himself and them. On the whole, he struggles with the truth, but overcomes
At this point, proctor faces a new dilemma and wrestles with his conscince over whether to save himself from the gallows with a confession to a sin that he did not commit. The judegs and hale almost convince him to do so, but in the end, he cannot bring himself to sign his