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The theme of morality and immorality in "the crucible
The theme of morality and immorality in "the crucible
Fear demonstrated in the crucible
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What is fear? How does it motivate or persuade you to do something? Fear can motivate people in a positive way and a negative way, it can make you choose between right and wrong. In The Crucible And The Pact, it is shown that fear can influence people into action. Fear can cause people to make up accusation on to others. For instance, the fear of getting caught dancing in the woods, is why the girls start to accuse people of witchcraft. They know that if they were caught lying about dancing in the woods, they would be hanged. So instead they point the finger away from them. Fear causes people to lie. An example, is when Abigail says “I want to open myself! I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I
saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” Abigail lies to cover up the affair she had with John Proctor. Also she blames other people in hopes to change the focus off of herself. Fear can also motivate people in a positive way. For example, In The Pact, Dr. Rameck and his friends beat up an old man, they end up doing time in juvenile detention. During his time there he encountered many events that made him want to change his way. The fear he gathered from being there made him not want to return. He said “ ‘Never again,” I told myself. I didn't want to spend my life this way.” The Crucible and The Pact, shows many different examples of fear and how fear motivates people to do things. Fear taught Rameck about juvenile detention, and he learned that he never wanted to return. In The Crucible many people were accused of witchcraft because of the influence of fear. Fear can be positive or negative.
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 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.
When panic and fear ensue within a community the line between fact and lie often muddle together, only adding to the hysteria. This can be displayed by the society of lies and fear within America during the Red Scare and Salem Witch Trials, as displayed in The Crucible. In particular the Red Scare was fronted with massive propaganda campaigns that pushed false information, “I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the communist party and who. … shaping the policy of the state department”( I have here in my hand). The president here adds volatility to the claims of soviet spies being within the government.The reinforced scare and fear tactics pushed by every aspect of the government, including the president, enforces the idea that everyone should everyone else to be a threat. This is false evidence and only continues a trend of ignorance only creating more distrust and fear waslt it legitimized the claims. This is also evident in The Crucible when so many of the girls have solidified the claims of witchcraft and startled the town into thinking the devil was within salem. They are able to lie successfully many times over and hide the truth to wreak havoc on the town. Because of the false claims of witchery and devil worship proven in the courts of
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.
Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the
In “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, the author uses her knowledge to talk about the different ways of lies and how those lies affect the liar, as well as the people who had been told lies. According to the author’s essay, there are 10 types of lies that people encounter every single day: the White Lie, Facades, Ignoring the Plain Facts, Deflecting, Omission, Stereotypes and Cliches, Groupthink, Out-and-Out Lies, Dismissal, and Delusion. Throughout the essay, it is connoted that people are lying in various ways even though they are not intended to. I had been taught that lying is a bad habit. According to Ericsson, there are many types of lie and I did three of them in my life: the White Lie, Omission, and Out-and-Out Lies; however, I can defend my lies for good purposes.
From internet, television, and media tabloids the brains lacks the ability to differentiate between what is true and what is a lie. Each person has the
How can one’s desire for safety lead them down a path of evil? Several characters find themselves in this exact position in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. This novel explores the intense witch trials and how big of a role fear plays in Salem. Since almost everyone is religious, people who commit sins are scared to death about people finding out and try to keep it a secret for as long as possible. No one is spared from the judgements of the one-sided court, causing innocent townspeople to be convicted and those who cunningly blame others to manipulate the proceedings to align with their personal selfish wishes. The evil actions by the seemingly good, moral, religious people of Salem, are all brought on by a sense of fear. Both Proctor and Mary
“It takes strength and courage to admit the truth.” In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller many characters are forced to make life threatening decisions to either lie or tell the truth. These choices signify the characters that a character has integrity by telling the truth or the lack of it by telling a lie. Some might say the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller deals primarily with human weakness; however, the truly dominant subject is clearly courage because of the characters John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, and Giles Corey.
The Crucible, an interesting manifest about the Salem witch trials, really puts how far lies can be taken into perspective. A group of girls get caught dancing, and doing rituals that were forbidden, and to get out of it they lie. That gathering of young girls, ultimately got half the town killed. Even today, people are not safe from the dangerous peril of a teen’s accusational lie.
In stereotypical teenage drama movies, like Mean Girls, the high school girls make up lies about themselves to make them look better and make others look worse. It is all to keep a reputation. Abigail’s uncle, Reverend Parris, is not the one being dishonest, but is trying to usher the truth out of his niece, “...I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you, for now my ministry’s at stake...you compromise my very character” (Miller 11). He is worried that his reputation as a minister is ruined because of Abigail’s lie that would give him a negative name around the town. Sometimes another person's actions cause others to suffer the consequences. Then, there are some people that decide to stretch the truth by making up excuses to keep from sabotaging their reputation. Julie Indvik and Pamela Johnson think “giving excuses too often undermines a person’s reputation by making him/her seem self-absorbed, unreliable or unknowledgeable” (Indvik 5). Like untruths, the smallest excuse can make someone form a different opinion of an individual. If it is done frequently it can ruin a reputation and the relationship they may have together. To some, having a certain status means everything and they will lie to protect it at all
People who fear alienation conform to avoid anxiety and solitude. In Salem witch trials allowed young girls to gain absolute power in society due to panic. Those who abdicate power in times of hysteria fail to regain power due to new ideals controlling society’s fears.
Lying is all around us; it never stops, every few minutes another lie is being said. It can either benefit everyone, or it can turn out for the worse. Lying is easily influenced among adolescents, as children, parents have always taught their kids that lying is a horrible habit and should not be encouraged, As the children grow up, they learn from everyone around them, and can’t help but start to lie, making lying no longer a bad habit because they witness the lies that are coming out of everyone’s mouth. There are two main types of lies, there’s the occasional white lie that doesn’t seem as bad. Also, there’s the severe lie that hurts the person that was lied to.
Stories of witches and the misfortunate they can bring is deeply ingrained in their minds as children. The fear of being targeted and possibly killed by a witch keeps people from misbehaving and acting out. Witchcraft is used as a means of social control, for example, it provides a definite explanation for sudden and or irrational
...ove the weight off their families, and relatives. This means that by lying, it avoids hurting other people’s feelings, and prevents them from feeling depressed, and hurtful.