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Miller's intention in the crucible
Miller's intention in the crucible
Analysis of the crucible by Arthur Miller
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Recommended: Miller's intention in the crucible
Aaliyah Muniz
Mrs. Silva
AP Language and Composition
04 October 2017
Mary Warren
Moral ambiguity is lack of sense in ethical decision-making. This means morally ambiguous characters are difficult to classify as either good or evil, as they contain strong aspects of both. These types of characters generally have real problems, causing their inner conflicts, which also makes them sympathetic. Stories that have morally ambiguous characters usually create built-in tension, because there is always the question of whether their conniving nature will be able to take hold, causing them to fail in their pursuit. In the play The Crucible, an example of a morally ambiguous character is Mary Warren.
Mary Warren is one of the characters in Arthur Miller’s
‘The Crucible’ is a great example of morally ambiguous characters. A plethora of characters with blurry ethics exist within the world of ‘The Crucible’, this makes it difficult to distinguish who is truly good and who is evil. Arthur Miller has a fantastic approach to how he displays his characters and their moral standpoints. Adultery, lying, and even the suspicion of witchcraft, within the community brings out the worst in the townspeople. John Proctor is an example of how thin the lines are drawn between a complete saint and a damned sinner.
A story is only as good as its characters, because the characters are what capture our attention, they are what keeps our attention. A good writer pressures us to feel empathy for those beyond redemption; as a story advances, the characters evolve with it, and sometimes we do as well. These characters may not change in a favorable manner, they may go back to their old ways, but they change at some point, and even the tiny changes matter. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Mary Warren changes for the better, until she goes back to her old ways. Yet that's what made her so realistic, she wasn't invariably good or honorable, she wasn't heroic. Mary Warren was unequivocally, without a doubt, a coward, and a selfish one at that. Nevertheless, she
In every family, there is one child that is always very misleading and evil, and besides that, they get away with everything that they do that is unsound. The certain person in the family may break on of you mom’s favorite plate, and then end up placing the blame on you, and then persuades your parents that he or she is telling the true. Abigail Williams is the poor duplicate of that sibling or relative. She influences everyone that she is an innocent teenage girl, but that is not the case throughout the play. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail is the bona fide misleading and evil teenage girl.
The Salem Witch Trials, Who is Really Guilty? After all of the witch trials in 1692 concluded, a total of 20 people were hanged, all because of people craving attention and personal gain. There are three people depicted in Arthur Miller's The Crucible that are most responsible for this and they are, Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth, and Thomas Putnam. Abigail Williams is mostly responsible for the Salem witch trials because she was the first person to start accusing innocent people of witchcraft.
A crucible refers to a harsh test, and in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, each person is challenged in a severe test of his or her character or morals. Many more people fail than pass, but three notable characters stand out. Reverend John Hale, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor all significantly change over the course of the play.
When people are put in tense and difficult situations, they lose control. John and Elizabeth Proctor, and Mary warren, all exhibit this throughput the play. John exhibits courage, in the sense that he found the strength to keep his name and lose his life rather than keep sinning and lie. Mary Warren displays weakness when she falls to Abby once again, in the end, instead of sticking to her story and assisting John, in freeing Elizabeth. Elizabeth illustrated how difficult it was to tell the truth in life or death situations. All three of these characters, and their traits, represent what “The Crucible,” is about, courage, weakness, and
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays the two main characters, John Proctor and Reverend John Hale as "good men". The term "good men" in this play is ambiguous. Reverend John Hale was a good man in the sense of being the perfect and good citizen of Massachusetts in the 1600's. He was pious, adherent to the laws and beliefs, and a good Puritan Christian. John Proctor, on the contrary would not be considered the greatest citizen. He was not so religious, nor the perfect Christian, and was not so adherent to the Puritan's laws and beliefs. However, he was still considered a "good man", as a person rather than being an ideal Puritan citizen. He was very honest, moral, loyal to his friends and family, and was generous. The two men can be contrasted as good Puritan vs. good person.
In novels it is not uncommon for characters to be identified as morally ambiguous. It can be extremely difficult to identify a character as purely evil or purely good. In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker presents a morally ambiguous title character, Dracula. Dracula can be seen as evil by the obvious: he is a vampire that bites people to get their blood. But on the other hand, Dracula can also be seen as good. Dracula is not purposely trying to kill people, he is just trying to protect himself. Lots of people believe that they can understand and analyse other people and try to come up with conclusions on how that person is but Stoker shows how in some cases, analyzing a person cannot easily be done. Most people are not black and white. Their
Finding the Characters in The Crucible Sympathetic Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible', portrays the hysteria created in a paranoid society that is pent-up with vengeance and retribution, when 'the balance within a community begins to turn towards greater individual freedom'. When discussing this play we must look at the audience's awareness of the parallels between the period when the play is set and the time when it is written. The initial audience of the 1950's would be aware of the paranoia in Salem and the persecution of people who value their morals. However audiences today are aware of the double paranoia created by the clear parallels between the witch trials and Arthur Miller's personal experiences of being accused of having communist sympathies. This awareness enhances all the themes throughout the play, including the sympathy felt by the audience.
Many characters in The Crucible fall under the trap of lying, if not to other people, then to themselves. The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in history, surrounding the Salem witch trials. It takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during 1692 and 1693. Additionally, Miller wrote the play as an allegory to mccarthyism, which is the practice of making accusations without evidence. In the play, Arthur Miller develops the theme of lies and deceit by showing Abigail lying for her own benefit, John Proctor committing adultery, and Elizabeth lying to protect her husband.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller raises many thought provoking issues throughout the play, including the importance of personal integrity, injustice in society and the rights of the community versus the rights of the individual.
The Crucible is set in a Puritan theocratic society, where every citizen is concerned with religious piety and purity. Thus, there is imagery tied in with biblical images when a character decides to lie or when a character decides to be honest. For example, when Proctor decides to confess his affair to the court he says, “A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you-see her what she is…” (II. 131-133). This quote from Proctor is riddled with references to God and the judgment God passes on Proctor’s actions. Proctor also repeats the references to God earlier in the play, when he tries to convince Elizabeth he is not guilty of having an affair with Abigail. Proctor says, “I have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted, and like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day” (II. 67-69). The repetition of the words “God” and “confession” reveals the connection Proctor places between being honest and having religious piety. On the other hand, when Abigail is deceitful, her quotes are surrounded by evil or devilish imagery. The devilish imagery can be seen when Abigail tries to persuade Betty and Mary Warren to lie about her actions in the forest. Abigail says, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (I. 131-133). The imagery of the “black of some terrible night” (I.10) and darkness relates back to devilish acts Abigail committed. Abigail can be seen as the evil in the play, as her decision to accuse others for committing witchcraft is the cause of the witch trials. Also, the forest, where Abigail drinks blood to condemn Elizabeth Proctor to death, is seen as a devilish area to many of the Salem
\In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible judge Danforth is made out to be one of the bad guys in the play, however, this is not true. Danforth really didn’t do anything wrong. He really believed, to the day he died, that his actions were just, he was just doing his job and he was responding to a crisis and had to act quickly under great pressure.
The play, The Crucible, is a fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled into one magnification. It is a play with tremendous feelings, with many inside twists hidden in the archives of the true story. It is a play with emotional feelings; feelings of anger, hate, and evil, yet also feelings of goodness, and pureness. Undeniably, The Crucible is a play illustrating good versus evil. The principal characters, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Ann Putnam and Marry Warren all contain within them elements of good and evil.
Abigail Williams and her friends were caught dancing in the woods, around a fire, naked. This is forbidden in the town for it is a sign of conjuring with the devil. When the girls were found and getting into trouble they started lying and saying they were under a spell, the rest of the people in the town started thinking that the devil was involved. With the thought that the devil was involved it drove the people to selfishness and stinginess. If one person had the ability to get rid of someone, they would take the chance because that would mean more land that they could buy.