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Fear, an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous. Something or someone is dangerous, don’t we all have those people in our lives. The dangerous people in our lives may be the people who help us find our own self in life. Or maybe the fear in our lives bring out who we truly become. Maybe fear even pushes us to kill others to save ourselves.
In the play, The Crucible, fear is one of the big factors or problems that drive some characters to do things that they maybe wouldn’t in different time or place. But they aren’t anywhere but in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 when a lot of fear was around.
Abigail was, well, let’s just say full of fear. In the play Abigail did just about everything because she was afraid.
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She was afraid of death, of going to hell, not ending up with John Proctor. When Abigail was in the room listening to Tituba talk about how the devil came to her she was afraid of being accused of witchcraft activity. So the best thing she could come up with was to go with the flow so to speak. Calling out names of the innocent to make her look good. For example, when the all the girls, including Abigail, started to yell out names of people from the town everyone started praising to God. “Praise God!” ~Ann Putnam. The fear of the town’s people also helped Abigail to some “work”. The town was so afraid that they were going to get accused of witchcraft that they believed anything that Abigail and the girls said. The town was pretty much ran by the girls by accusing innocent people or people they did not care for. Another example, Abigail is in love with John Proctor, but John is a married man. What is the best way to get rid of the wife? Well by accusing her of witchcraft and have her hung of course! Abigail took all this “power” to her advantage. Samuel Parris also lives in fear. Afraid of getting his reputation ruined because his daughter is seeing the devil. A Reverend’s daughter that is participating with witchcraft can put a pretty good sized dent into a Reverend's reputation and that is something that Samuel Parris is trying to steer clear of. Fear motivated Samuel Parris to not take any defences against the court of any of their decisions because he feared that they would put a personal attack on him. He indeed used fear to his advantage by always being in Danforth’s ear about decisions about the girls innocents. John Proctor is a very brave man, how could he have any fear whatsoever?
Well his fear is for this friends and family. He wonders how much longer will this being accused thing go on for. His friends are dying for something they didn’t even do! Or that is even a real thing! John uses his fear of losing his friends to overrule the court about all this witchcraft activity. But when he does it turn around on him. When he went to Mary Warren for some evidence she told him that “he is the devil’s man”. That really didn’t help John the way he thought she would. Now when John was stuck in the predicament when he had to sign his name to have truly confessed of witchery he was feared. Feared that his name would be no longer good. That if he signed the confession book that he would live down to his name. So out of fear he didn’t end up signing the book because of the fear that his name wouldn’t be true anymore. When going against the court John was afraid when he confessed to adultery that his wife, Elizabeth Proctor, was going to tell the court that John was innocent of adultery. When Elizabeth did tell the courts he was innocent John’s whole plan by then looked as if he was hiding something also. Thereforth getting himself accused and
dying. The play, The Crucibles, has taught me a lot about fear and what fear may do to some people. When I was reading this I always put myself in the character’s shoes and asked myself what would I do if i were them and if the decision I made was from the real me and not the scared me.
The definition of fear is when someone feels scared or threatened or feels like they’re in danger. For example think you’re in a house by yourself and you hear something outside and you hear something outside in your backyard or in another room, and your heart start beating and our thinking in your mind what to do. That’s fear and it’s something that you feel time to time. It’s something from a little spider to a fear drowning. The main point or theme of The Crucible is when people accuse each other of witchery but, not knowing if so.
Authors often try to interweave themes or meanings into their works in order to create a deeper and more intriguing work of literature. For instance, The Crucible, a film written by Arthur Miller, and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, a parable by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are two pieces of literature that share the recurring theme of how fear affects a person’s decision making. By examining two of the characters from The Crucible, Abigail Williams and John Proctor, one is able to see how fear can lead people into hysteria, causing them to do things they normally would never do. Another example of fear changing peoples’ views and actions is displayed in “The Minister’s Black Veil”. This theme is well displayed in the town’s responses to Mr. Hooper’s
Throughout the many acts of the play, we sense the anger rolling off Abigail’s words. “I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” By these words, we know that Abigail Williams is angry. She’s angry at John Proctor for trying to hide the crime he committed with her, and for the lack of closure she
What do you fear in our twenty-first century society? Terrorism, inequality, losing your home, or injustice? Salem, Massachusetts during the seventeenth century feared injustices among the government. Individuals hid and lied to keep safe from being condemned as witches. This era of history is known as the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible explores the Salem Witch Trials while following the lives of several individuals. The fear and mistrust among the seventeenth century Salem society can be directly related to today’s twenty-first century society. Americans have lost hope and belief in their government creating individuals who are scared to stand up for what is right. Glancing into our twenty-first century world comparisons can be made among the Salem Witch Trial era. Today, compared to seventeenth century, realization of fear of governmental policies, erratic and chaotic life styles, and the condemnation of individuals standing up for what is right become evident and similar in both societies.
Throughout The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, fear is used as a control tactic. Fear escalates quickly through the responsible parties – Abigail Williams, Reverend John Hale, and Deputy Governor Danforth – and soon the town succumbs to it. Fear is not used by all of the responsible parties for control, as in controlling the people in order to be the “top dog” so to speak, but as a way to prevent their own accusation or conviction of witchcraft. They each used their own methods of creating fear in order to beat the stakes.
Inside us all there is a deep dark fear this is what grabs us by the thresh hold of life. It controls the most important aspects of our lives. This is found within the deepest and darkest chasms of our souls. The very creature that wreaks havoc in our minds we cage and never confront we lock this beast away to afraid to overcome it. If the beast is not confronted it begins to contort and change who we are as a person and how we interact with others. Even the very decisions we make as a person to affect those around us and are loved ones to also suffer the consequences of our actions. Such as the crucible and how each person was warped into their own monster by greed.
The Anti-hero in The Crucible A hero is defined as "someone admired for his bravery, great deeds or noble qualities". There are three categories to which all heroes can be classified into, one of which is the anti-hero genre. An anti-hero has the role of a hero thrust upon them.
In The Crucible, the mass hysteria surrounding the witch trials caused paranoia amongst the people of Salem. Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as a symbol and allegory of the fear surrounding the spread of communism during the 1950s in America. The community’s sense of justice was blinded by the mass hysteria and for some, a desire for vengeance and personal gain. The Putnams
...nce using fear, Abigail successfully protects herself from any type of damage on her reputation by manipulating the court to believing that there is actually a spirit in the court room.
When faced with a problem, humans usually try to find the easiest, fastest, and most convenient way out of the issue. In order to overcome problems, motivation is needed. However, motivation comes from different places within a person based on the individual’s desires. When looking back to 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts the problem during this time period was witchcraft, and "to be accused was to be assumed guilty, to accuse was to avoid punishment" (Jimerson 37). Fear of punishment causes people to accuse the innocent, and the innocent has no redemption for they were automatically guilty. No one was safe at this time as the cycle continued on and on. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Mary Warren is motivated by fear that transitions from Abigail
In Arthur Miller 's famous play The Crucible, innocent people are falsely accused of witchcraft and are killed as a result. Even the thought of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600s would put the whole village into mass hysteria. Mass hysteria refers to collective delusions of threats to society that spread rapidly through rumors and fear. This is the main cause of why so many people were arrested and killed for witchcraft. One way people could save themselves was by falsely confessing to have performed witchcraft. Many people did not do this though. This is because the townspeople were held to very strict moral values and must uphold their good name in society. They did not want a bad reputation. In The Crucible, by Arthur
It comes to a point in life when fear controls you and causes harm to you and everyone else in your environment. History repeats itself when fear is involved. In the Salem Witch trials, fear caused people to accuse the innocent of being witches. After World War Two, Americans feared sabotage from Japanese and locked up all the Japanese even if they were innocent. After 9/11, fear caused people to believe all Muslims were evil and could harm you. Being afraid of something can eventually become dangerous to you. In some cases, fear becomes dangerous to other people around you like in Salem.
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.
Fear also played an important role in The Crucible. The girls were afraid of being accused as witches themselves, so they started accusing other people in the town of being witches. Moreover, many people who were accused of being witches confessed to being witches because they were scared of death. People who confessed to witchcraft and dealing with the devil only stayed in the jail for a short time while others who refused to give in were hanged. Towards the end of the play, Abigail and Mercy ran away with huge amounts of money because they were afraid that if the authorities found out that they were lying they would be punished severely.
The Crucible is an incredibly influential play no only in the fact that it displays many important themes, but it also portrays how a theocracy impacts societal actions. The Salem witch trials were the culmination of the problems with theocracy. The actions of society, not only are impacted by their personal thoughts, but also in religious undertones affect them. Act two in the play portrays not only all of these themes, but also some important events leading towards the witchcraft hysteria. Act two in the play portrays how theocracy ultimately leads to chaos.