Puritanism and The Crucible

722 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Arthur miller the crucible characters essay

The Crucible by Arthur Miller talks of a group of Puritans who believe that witchcraft and wizardry is the Devil’s work. There was a story of the Puritans not being able to dance or sing because it was considered witchcraft, but it was a myth. Puritans were allowed to dance and sing. The characters within The Crucible were shown as the strict and precise Puritans who cared about their religious lives, more than their social lives, after their movement to Massachusetts. Even though there were several religions that were considered to be Puritans, they were all extremely precise when it came to their religion being questioned.
Puritans, whether they are Presbyterians or Congregationalists, believe in the thought of predestination and Reverend Parris was an example of a priest who encouraged this belief in his church. Although it was not spoken directly, Parris refused to believe that witchcraft was the cause of the deaths of babies. Parris knew that “all features of salvation were determined by God” (Campbell). To Puritans, everyone was “innately sinful” because of the “original sin of Adam and Eve” (Heyrman). This gave Parris a reason to keep the thoughts of witchcraft affecting people to a minimum, until later in the play. Even when witchcraft was in question, to the Puritans, there was always a way to “go to God for the cause” (Miller 29). In their eyes, there are “certain ideas … emotions and actions” (Miller 35) that God puts in their minds. Reverend Parris is believed to have “the light of God” (Miller 69), which would mean that he was most likely the messenger. He would tell the townspeople of revelation and help them down the path that God created for them before they were born. This could explain why some of the townspeop...

... middle of paper ...

...ate. Arthur Miller managed to portray his characters as real-life people. Puritanism was not a religion and neither were the Puritans. They were religious movements from a greater church. The characters of The Crucible lived the righteous lives of the Congregationalists and they stood their ground as they were accused, just as the real people did.

Works Cited

Campbell, Donna M. “Puritanism in New England.” Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. 04 Jul 2013. Web. 02 Dec 2013.
Heyrman, Christine Leigh. “Puritanism and Predestination.” Diving America, TeacherServe©. National Humanities Center. Jan 2008. Web. 04 Dec 2013.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Evanston: McDougal Littell Inc. 1997. Print.
“Puritan Life.” U.S History Online Textbook. ushistory.org. 2013. Web. 04 Dec 2013.
“Puritanism.” 2013. The History Channel Website. 03 Dec 2013.

Show More
Related

  • Were The Puritans Carl Degler Analysis

    409 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the provocative article, Were the Puritans Puritanical?, Carl Degler seeks to clarify the many misconceptions surrounding the Puritan lifestyle. He reveals his opinions on this seventeenth century living style, arguing that the Puritans were not dull and ultra-conservative, but rather enjoyed things in moderation. They had pleasures, but not in excess. The Puritans could engage in many pleasurable and leisurely activities so long as they did not lead to sin. According to the article, the Puritans believed that too much of anything is a sin. Degler writes about the misconceptions of Puritan dress, saying that it was the “opposite of severe”, and describing it as rather the English Renaissance style. Not all members of Puritan society

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography On The Crucible

    399 Words  | 1 Pages

    The focus of Miller’s The Crucible is an appalling witch trial that morfs the once-peaceful town of Salem into a cutthroat slaughterhouse. As a lucrative playwright and a not-so-subtle allegory author, Miller is a seasoned wordsmith who addresses people akin to himself, and is not secretive about that information. The Crucible best serves its purpose as a learning device and a social statement, especially at the time of its publishing. Miller‘s piece showcases the appeals in an easy-to-identify manner that is perfect for middle or high school students who are new to the appeals, or for English majors who have no problem pinpointing them, making this play ideal for a classroom setting.

    Read More

  • What Are The Similarities Between The Crucible And The Scarlet Letter

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the Crucible, people died because they were accused of witchcraft. They were accused because people thought they were bewitches. People thought the girls were bewitched because Rev.Parris saw the girls in the woods dancing around a fire. A chicken head was cut off and Abigail drinks the blood of the chicken. Society in the Crucible was that the Puritans believed everyone should share the same values and beliefs. So, if anyone

    Read More

  • The Naivety of Holden Caulfield and America Exposed in The Catcher in the Rye

    1396 Words  | 3 Pages

    As America slowly began molding into the creases of different values and cultures, so did its literature. One trait that had always been securing itself within the lines of these literary texts was the protagonists’ naivety. Theses characters typically established an intention to do good things, but eventually fail due to tumbling upon tempting obstacles and falling into the trance of distractions. An example of this situation occurred long ago during the 16th and 17th century. A cult of English Protestants known as Puritans aimed to “purify” the Church of England by excreting all evidence of its descent in the Roman Catholic Church. The Puritans enforced strict religious practices upon its believers and regarded all pleasure and luxury as wicked or sacrilegious. Although their “holy” cond...

    Read More

  • The Parallels Between Arthur Miller's Life and His Play, The Crucible

    1501 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Crucible: Good Puritan or Good Person?

    994 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Human Motives Exposed in The Crucible by Arthur Miller

    1463 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Crucible: Hysteria And Injustice

    1618 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.

    Read More

  • The Puritan Family

    670 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Puritan religion had a surprisingly strong claim for the men and women who are hypersensitive to the disturbing forces that transform England in the middle of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Marriages remain far longer in their lives also the Puritan’s family in the beginning of the seventeenth century New England was more stabilized, adapted, and connected unit also the young Puritans was taught in mixture of constructive parts and the girls was taught as a housewife just like their mothers their lives were complicated.

    Read More

  • Women And The Salem Witch Trials

    1678 Words  | 4 Pages

    The church and Christian beliefs had a very large impact on the Puritan religion and lifestyle. According to discovery education, “Church was the cornerstone of the mainly Puritan society of the 17th century.”( Douglas 4). Puritan laws were intensively rigid and people in society were expected to follow a moral strict code. And because of Puritans and their strict moral codes, any act that was considered to go against this code was considered a sin and deserved to be punished. In Puritan theology, God h...

    Read More

  • Arthur Miller's The Crucible

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.

    Read More

  • The Crucible by Arthur Miller

    597 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many years ago, the culture and atmosphere was amazingly different. The expectations of people and communities are extremely high. During the Puritan times, many laws and regulations existed pertaining to government, religion, and witchcraft. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the one word that best describes the Puritan beliefs and the community structure is strict.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Abagail In The Crucible

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    The play The Crucible is set in a puritan society; a society which is a theocracy, where priests and church figures have all the power. Abagail; a servant girl becomes the antagonist of the story. Abigail’s character is the victim of the Puritan society in which she rebels.

    Read More

  • Puritan Essay

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    Puritanism as a religion declined, both by diluting its core beliefs and by losing its members. This phenomenon was at work even in colonial days, at the religion’s height, because it contained destructive characteristics. It devolved into something barely recognizable in the course of a few generations. We can observe that the decline of Puritanism occurred because it bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Critical Review

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller in the Early 1950’s. It was written during the “Red scare, when McCarthyism was established. Many anti-communists wanted to prevent communism from spreading just like in The Crucible many wanted to get rid of witchcraft. Many would accuse others of witchcraft in order to not be accused just like many would accuse people of communism. In The Crucible witchcraft would be punishable by death. Many were scared to be accused; therefore many would admit practicing witchcraft in order to save their lives. The Crucible is considered a good play because it is based on real life events during the Salem witch Trials and shows how fear played a role in the individual’s life just like during the “Red” scare.

    Read More

More about Puritanism and The Crucible

Open Document