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Arthur miller crucible analysis
How is fear and society shown in the crucible
The Effects of Fear and Suspicion of Society in the Play The Crucible
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The Crucible Analytical Essay: Reputation vs Survival
Arthur Miller analyzes many conflicts of the human condition throughout The Crucible.
Miller uses The Crucible as a way to express the shortcomings of humanity in times of fear specifically during the Red Scare of the 1950s when the play was written. Miller used his play to highlight the absurdity of peoples’ fears being used to persecute innocent people. One main conflict Miller discusses in The Crucible is the struggle between protecting one’s name and doing what they can to survive. Because a good name is often what stands between personal success and utter failure, many of the characters in The Crucible are forced to choose between protecting their reputations or betraying their core
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While being held, the court tortures Giles in an attempt to get a confession from him, Giles; however, “would not answer aye or nay to his indictment” (Miller 207).When he refuses to tell the court anything, they lay heavy stones on top of him to the point of his death. Giles chooses to die with integrity rather than lie to save his own life. Giles’ choice to die rather than betray his principles allowed him to keep his reputation and allowed his family to keep their property, which ensured their future success.
Giles Corey was a man of strong character and honor. He also refused to let his will be broken by the court. Some characters struggled more than others between whether or not to further betray their ideals in order to save their lives.
John Proctor was a successful farmer and a prominent name in the town of Salem until he becomes one of the accused witches. This was the result of him trying to help prove his wife’s innocence. John felt that after all of his sins, namely his affair with Abby, that “[his] honesty
[was] broke” and that he was “no good man”, so he for a long time he struggled with whether
Proctor has many character traits that contribute to him being so difficult to figure out. His crime of lechery against his wife, and his willingness to save her, are both intermixed in a tangle of ethics. After committing adultery with Abigail, John clearly has a guilty conscious. When
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible utilizes a fictional account of the Salem Witch Trials to expose the mob mentality associated with the Red Scare of the 1950’s and the sometimes overzealous fight against communism in America. By references to the events that took place in the Witch Trials, the playwright successfully portrays society’s behavior at its tyrannical worst, exposing fraud, faulty logic, vindictiveness, zealotry, and evil (Brater). Arthur Miller creates a parallel between the societal events of mass in the 1600’s and those in the 1950’s. In both instances, leaders use the fear of the masses for their personal gain. Abigail, the lead character in the play, and Senator Joseph McCarthy are both able to generate a groundswell that takes on a life of its own and ruins the lives of others. Arthur Miller created this analogy in order to expose Senator McCarthy and his anti-Communist propaganda by creating an analogy to the ferocity of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare fed on the anxiety of the general public. The Salem Witch Trials magnified society’s ability to influence the judicial system. As the hysteria regarding the existence of witches swelled, innocent individuals were executed. McCarthyism also demonstrated society’s ability to influence the judicial system. As the hysteria regarding the threat of communism in America swelled, innocent individuals were jailed, blacklisted, deported, and fired from their jobs. The Crucible first staged in 1953, was meant to raise awareness of the effect that fear can have on human behavior and judgment. The play illustrates how Abigail’s intent to avoid punishment by accusing others of culturally deviant activity led to mass hysteria. Senator McCar...
...nnot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" (p. 143) By the end of the play, John has grown enough to realize that though he was wrong to have an affair, he did not lose all honor. By learning this lesson and keeping his honor right up until his death, John passes his test.
Miller’s life paralleled The Crucible in many ways. The characters in the play had many traits that resembled his. He and the people of Salem were censored by the frenzy of the times they were living in. The hysteria and the mob mentality exacerbated the anticommunists’ and the witch-hunters’ philosophies. The Red Scare affected Miller in the same way the witch hunts affected the people of Salem. As long as there are people with authority in the world, there will be challengers of authority. Censorship will always be used to make others conform. A majority of the public is and always will be easily influenced by hysteria and the mob mentality. Miller used his own experiences to write The Crucible, a play that describes universal behavior and the human condition.
During Author Miller’s era of the 1950’s, the ‘cold war’ was happening. Senetor Joeseph McCarthy was completely against communism and began to arrest the communists and people assosiating with them. Those arrested were forced to either name names to identify those who were communists or thought to be, or else they would remain in jail. This was callef McCarthyism For many, being prisioned was a terrible frightening thought so they would name names including any that they could think of that could be innocent. Author Miller was arrested for associating with communists and refused to identify others, and wrote The Crucible, using it as an allegory to identify the problems of society and it’s flaws of the corrupt government.
Life as a human is dictated by an inborn hunger or purpose, and people, in general, will act on this hunger for their own personal gain in their individual ways. This hunger, be it for wealth, land, love, power, revenge, or pride, can, and will be the undoing or failing of all mankind as Miller so clearly points out in his play 'The Crucible';. This essay will explore the motives of characters within the play and even the motives of Arthur Miller himself and therefore show how conflict stems from certain recognisable human failings including those mentioned above, fear, and hysteria.
Scheidt, Jennifer L., and Denis M. Calandra. “CliffsNotes on The Crucible.” CliffsNotes.com. CliffsNotes. 2010. Web. 18 Sep 2011.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that discusses many issues and spurs contemplation within the reader. While reading this play, because of the controversy of many issues detailed within, it is difficult for one not to take a look at one’s own morals and determine what one would do if placed in a similar situation. The key issues discussed within this play, the effects of hysteria, marital betrayal, and the murderous powers of lies, are portrayed intriguingly and effectively. The lessons that can be learned from The Crucible are still quite applicable today.
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.
Dimmesdale’s confession of his secret sin and embracing it led to his salvation. Reverend Dimmesdale knew that he was at the end of his life and wanted to do God’s will to save himself. What he had to do would be the hardest thing that he had ever done, but he knew that telling the town about his adultery was what he had to do. He came to the pillory, so as to let the town know of his secret sin, and to “make haste to take [his] shame upon [himself],” so as to be redeemed by God (218). Dimmesdale knew that the path he had been taking to redemption was leading him astray. The only he could do to escape the devil, as Chillingworth pointed out when he said, “there was no place…where thou couldst escaped me-save on this very scaffold,” was to own up to his s...
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that was first performed in 1953 in the United States of America in the midst of the persecution of alleged communists during the era of McCarthyism. Although the play explicitly addresses the Salem which hunt, many find that the play is an analogy to McCarthyism due to the striking similarities in which the people behaved. Miller highlight the different groups of characters in order to reveal overlying ideas of the play such as: Self preservation, power, and hypocrisy.
Proctor has to make a choice. He can either confess to a crime he is innocent
When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in the early 1950s, the United States was in the midst of what is known as the Red Scare. During this period, the entire nation was panicking over Communism and the threats it posed to American security. One of the most passionate crusaders against Communism was Senator Joseph McCarthy, who unjustly accused dozens of State Department employees of being Communists (“Joseph McCarthy”). McCarthy’s actions during this panic are reflected in The Crucible
Arthur Miller, a playwright living in the 1950s, wrote the infamous play regarding the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible. There has been much dispute as to why he wrote it, but much of it was covered in his essay, “Why I Wrote “The Crucible’”. Although he described the reason behind writing The Crucible, he stated that the message of his play is up to the individual to infer. However, the main reason that Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible was to show to those governed by terror due to a similar event in the Red Scare of the 1950s the past effects of fear, hysteria, and mob mentality to. From here, the question arises: What message and meaning does The Crucible have for society today? Does it still hold the same relevance? Miller’s play holds
Roger Chillingsworth suspects guilt in Dimmesdale and he takes a grave with weeds growing out of it to compare it to everyday life with sins. Prior to this quote, Dimmesdale said it is a person’s very nature to be silent about sin even if they worship God. Dimmesdale notes how no one wants to confess to sin so if their semblance proves innocent, maybe their sinful inside would continue to do good to outweigh the guilt. Chillingsworth thus replies that any man not being honest is cheating himself and is unable to own up to the shame he possesses. He says even though man’s heart is pious to God, if a he does not confess, evil things will insert themselves into his heart. He says how no man should lift his unsanitary hands to Heaven which signifies how everyone should live a life with a clean slate of guilt (especially for Judgement Day). This statement deeply affects Dimmesdale as he struggles to divulge his sins for seven years. At the end of the novel, Dimmesdale confesses and the narrator inputs that it is always better to be honest rather than living a life of lie. This quote connects to the moral of the story.