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Analysis of the film The Crucible by Arthur Miller
The crucible, dramatic elements
Analysis of the film The Crucible by Arthur Miller
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Blind by Pride In Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”, Reverend Parris has a reputation of being greedy. He also is scared of conspire against him. He is paranoid and suspicious of everyone around him. He is motivated by self-interest, so he lets the witch trails go on to save face even with him knowing it is lies. When he learns that Abigail was dancing, he quickly become upset because he is scared of what will be said of him. One of the 1st things, he yells “You compromise my very character” (act 1 pg. 12). His daughter is sick in bed and he is worried about his character. So when she yells witch and she saw so and so with the devil. This could also increase his power which is needed because “many [people]... stays away from church… because
[he] hardly ever mention God” (pg. 29). The people sees his greed. Many of them remember about how he complain about not having golden candles and the deed the home, something no minster people him ever needed. The people see a greed full man who wants power. As the trials go on, he sees that while some people have come to his side but other are being push to the other side by the trials. He realizes that “a faction…is sworn to drive” him out of the town because they know these trials are false but cannot speak out with the fear of death (pg. 11). He even gets a knife thrown at his door. He know he has made more enemies now but cannot let it out what the girls were doing while living under his roof. He has to protect his place. The trials have increases he gains power and respect from the town because his niece is one of the girls calling out the witch. When John come before the court with evidence, which shows Abigail is lying and he withheld information in the case, so he declares “He come to overthrow this court, your honor!”(88). He know good and well that these trials are fake. He will do anything to protect his name. The life of John to protect his power and his life is nothing after kill and shaming other before him.
Act 3 of the Crucible can only be described as crazy. Each character was fighting their own battle; Every one of them lost except for Reverend Parris. Revered Parris was struggling to keep his reputation and career alive. If the trials were to end fraudulently, Parris would be left with a lying daughter and niece. He is only trying to cover himself and make sure his social position is not lowered because of witchcraft in his house. I am not a fan of Reverend Parris.
Pride in itself, can be seen as a positive attribute, however, when it is expressed as arrogance it becomes a fatal flaw that leads to one’s downfall. In the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, John Proctor allows his excessive pride to get in the way of his decisions. John Proctor would rather die honest than live a lie. In order not to tarnish his good name, John makes the corrupt decision of being hanged. Although this act can be seen as noble, it is ultimately foolish because he allows his excessive pride to put him to death. John's corrupt decision to be hanged to save his family’s name and protect his wife was the result of excessive pride.
Is there any idea worth more than a human life? In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor decides that he has nothing left to live for, and therefore becomes a martyr. The question for him or one in his position would be whether or not there exist causes worth dying for and if his position is one such case. There is no principle worth more than a person’s life and therefore principles worth dying for, only principles worth living for.
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, both pride and excessive pride influence the characters throughout the play. Pride is a sense of one's dignity and worth. Excessive pride is being overly confident of one's own self worth. Throughout, pride influences the actions, reactions, and emotions of the characters in such ways to establish the outcome of the story. Three characters are impelled by their pride. Hale, who takes pride in his ability to detect witchcraft; Elizabeth Proctor, whose pride makes forgiving her husband difficult; Proctor, whose excessive pride causes him to overlook reality and the truth.
Honor, dignity, and integrity are traits that are becoming more and more rare in our society. The Crucible, a play written in 1952 by Arthur Miller, is based on the Salem witch hunts of 1692 and parallels the Red Scare and McCarthyism in the 1950s. In the play, Miller attempts to focus his themes around traits such as honor, dignity, and integrity, and as a result, the theme "is it better to die honorably or live dishonorably" becomes vital to the story and well conveyed throughout it. The characters that exemplify this idea are John Proctor and Giles Corey, both of whom die by the end of the play, and Reverend John Hale and Abigail Williams, who live through the trials.
Through time it can be seen that the world’s history has a nature of repeating its self. Author Miller, was aware of this as he experienced a repitition of history of society’s flawed government. In the text The Crucible, the writer, Author Miller has identified and illustrated the problems society faced during the 1950’s setting by drawing parallels with the setting of the 1962 Salem witch hunt. This setting helps readers to understand the characters of John Proctor and Giles Corey.
Reverend Parris is the character that initiates the hysteria of the Salem witch trials, in a community where authorities wasted no time minding the business of it's citizens, what should have been seen as teen frivolity was blown into one of the ugliest moments in American History. Parris sparks this by firstly acting on his own paranoia, which the reader would find in the introduction 'he believed he was being persecuted where ever he went';, and calling Reverend Hale in an attempt for self-preservation '….if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it.'; This statement says a lot about the character of Reverend Parris: a greedy, power hungry man who is more concerned with his own reputation than the souls of his niece and daughter. He always acts on fear, a fear that he will lose his position of power in the community. Parris does not want the trials to end as a fraud because the scandal of having a lying daughter and niece would end his career in Salem.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.
In Miller’s The Crucible, a prominent character introduced is Reverend Parris. As Salem’s minister, he has significant influence in the town’s court system. As a minister, it is one’s duty to live a life devoted to being a spiritual leader. However, Reverend Parris is far from being a minister and is not a true spiritual leader because of his greed, dishonesty, and reputation.
In the Crucible, we are introduced to the main protagonist John Proctor; the way that Arthur Miller presents him by rebelling against the authority in Salem. Out of the entire town he is the only person that speaks out, realising that the authority is unfair and unjust; he is not like everyone else in the town who keeps quiet to themselves. There are many situations where we the readers can see very clear examples of him rebelling against the authority that controlled Salem. One example of Proctor rebelling against authority in Salem was when he did not go to church on a Sabbath day and instead decided to pray in his own home ‘Mr Proctor, your house is not a church; your theology must tell you that’. That is one clear example of him rebelling
Many people take much pride in numerous things some being: their job, family, political views, even as much as in their favorite sport. People make mistakes big and small, but it is how one deals with the situation and the mistake, that shows the morality in a person, and shows who he or she may be. “The only crime is pride,” Sophocles, is still held to be true; for instance, pride itself can cloud a persons’ mind and caused him or her to commit the crimes he or she did. Pride is thought to be a good thing but in many cases it is proven otherwise. Even though there is some truth in “the only crime is pride” the crimes/mistakes caused by pride are not forgivable, and “yielding” does not help at all; pride is not just to prove oneself right, but also not to look “weak” in the eyes of others.
In The Crucible we have Reverend Samuel Parris who is the town minister and also the one everyone turns to for justice. Firstly being in a Patriarchal Society where the men have authority over the women and moreover being a respected religious leader, Reverend Parris is one of the sole authoritative figures we get introduced at the very beginning of the play. In Act I when they discover that something is plaguing the young girls in the town and they suspect witchcraft as the source if their illness, the townspeople approach Reverend Parris for answers. As the town’s figure head, they turn to his authority to expose the witches in their community and save the town from witchcraft. Without even any evidence to back his claim, Reverend Parris is just asked to declare that there is witchcraft and only then will action be taken. Given his authority, only he had the power to make such wild accusations and not be questioned about his claims. As Putnam simply explains to Parris that he need not worry about making wild accusations as no one would question his credibility given his innate authority in the town. Without much evidence to back his claims, Parris could simply throw speculated accusations and given his power, his claims were taken seriously.
During the salem witch trials a lot of people accused each others of being a witch or dealing with the devil most of them lied because they wanted something that person had people accused each other left from right and those who were accused felt to ashamed to lie and admit that they talked to the devil because no one would believe them.
Reverend Samuel Parris is one character from "The Crucible" who changed drastically throughout the course of the play. In the beginni...
First, Parris, the minster of Salem, is attached to his post and fears that he will lose his post if any of his family members are proven guilty of witchcraft. This is why Parris resorts to lies in order to hide the truth. For example, when Proctor mentions that Parris discovered Abigail and the girls dancing at night naked then Parris says “I can only say, sir, that I never found any of them naked, and this man is (Miller 105) –“. In the beginning of the story, Parris claimed that he had found the girls dancing naked: “Aye, a dress. And I thought I saw - someone naked running through the trees”, but now he lies in order to hide the truth (Miller 11). But Parris is not the only man who is committing unrighteous deeds, even Hale commits an unrighteous deed at the end of the novel. When Proctor was not confessing that he was the Devil’s man, Hale tries to persuade him into confessing a crime that he did not even commit: . “Let him give his lie (Miller 132).” Before, Hale claimed that “His goal is light, goodness and its preservation” but now he is falling towards the path of darkness because if Proctor lies than his name will be tarnished in society and the society will murder more and more people for such superstitious crimes (Miller 36). Many innocent people such as Rebecca have also been murdered because they were accused