In every book, in every movie, and in every person different components fight for control, the id and superego. When either the id or superego gain control, chaos can ensue. Only when the two become balanced can things continue harmoniously. This is called the ego. A perfect example of this process taking place is comparable to a teenager home alone. The id would act rebelliously and throw a huge party regardless of consciences. The ego would act realistically and invite only a few friends over. While the superego would do neither and make the id and ego feel guilty for breaking the rules. Much like this scenario, Arthur Miller's The Crucible shows the three psychological aspects through the characters Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Elizabeth Proctor.
Abigail Williams represents the id. "The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality" (McLeod). Abigail acts purely on her desires; if she wants something, she doesn't consider the consequences. This is apparent when she tries to seduce John Proctor on several occasions. "John—I am waitin‘ for you every night" (Miller). Even though
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Proctor is married, Abby continues to throw herself at him. This is due to "the pleasure principle" (McLeod). Acting upon this principle leads to "primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented" actions (McLeod). One could say that Abigail Williams portrays the previous description perfectly throughout the play; after all, she did accuse almost the entire town of witchcraft. The ego "mediates between the unrealistic id and the external real world" (McLeod).
While Abby, a wild, pleasure seeking character, embodies the id, John Proctor, a practical man, represents the ego. Even though he committed adultery with Abby once before, he refuses to give into her again. "Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I‘ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind—we never touched, Abby" (Miller). By committing adultery, Proctor shows his willingness to give into his passions. However by refusing Abby’s advances, he shows his control and restraint. Freud calls this the “reality principle.” McLeod’s article continues to elaborate this by describing the reality principle as “working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands” (McLeod). Proctor symbolizes the ego due to his realistic
choices. Opposite the id, the superego strives to achieve perfection. “The superego incorporates the values and morals of society… and can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt” (McLeod). Throughout The Crucible, one person constantly causes feelings of guilt in John Proctor- Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth knows the difference between right and wrong, and she makes certain she shares this information with her husband, John. After Elizabeth discovered John and Abigail’s secret, she punished John making him feel guilty for his sins. “Spare me! You forget nothin’ and forgive nothin’. Learn charity, woman… I cannot speak but I am doubted, every moment judged for lies, as though I come into a court when I come into this house,” (McLeod). John speaks to Elizabeth in the previous quote. He describes the guilt he has and how Elizabeth continues to make him pay for misdeeds. These actions are that of someone who represents the superego. Arthur Miller presents the id, ego, and superego through the characters of Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Elizabeth Proctor. Abby, the wild, reckless, and rebellious girl, embodies the id. John acts realistically; He embodies the ego. Elizabeth tries to tame and control John, thus making her the superego. Everyone has these three psychological aspects. There is rarely a time when the three are in harmony. And as demonstrated in The Crucible, this can cause lots of drama.
‘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.
Corruption has always existed in our society since the beginning to present time due to conspiracies such as the witch trials and the communism era. The Crucible by Arthur Miller was written during the era of communism to mere the hysteria. The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. It’s a corrupt witch trial in Salem that’s due to false accusations of witchcraft for personal gains. John Proctor is the protagonist in the story The Crucible who goes through the ultimate test by choosing his reputation over integrity. He also had an affair with a young girl named Abigail who is the antagonist and is the main reason the bloodshed is occurring in Salem. Initially, Proctor hesitates to deal with his sin, but as the play progresses, he begins to understand its effects; this ultimately leads him to find goodness in himself as he stands for the truth.
Despite these good qualities, John Proctor had many flaws as well. Lust was a constant struggle for Proctor in many forms. For instance, when Abigail was working for him and his wife, he lusted after her and committed adultery by having an affair. Afterwards, Proctor was extremely repentant and stopped seeing her. “Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more” (Miller 21). This essentially lead to his demise because of the affair, Abigail became infatuated over Proctor to the point where she went into the woods with her friends and Tituba and practiced “witchcraft” to kill Proctor’s wife. “You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife!” (Miller18). When the girls were caught and the whole “witch” hysteria broke out, people were getting accused and executed, including Proctor, who wouldn’t confess to witchcraft and died because of it. If Proctor never lusted after Abigail and had an affair with her in the first place, accusations of “witchcraft” would have never happened and his death. Throughout the book unlike many other characters, Proctor never accepted the girl's story about witchcraft to be true. He on the other hand knew
The Crucible is in the format of a play. John Proctor is established as the hero through the use of Miller's contrast in characters. Upon his introduction, Proctor seems to be the only calm, sensible and logical character among the rising hysteria of Abigail's threats, Parris' damnations and babble of the Putnam's. Proctor is easily set apart from the other characters and the beginning of the play due to the obvious differences in character. Miller also builds up the climax throughout the book by making the conversations very quick paced and intense.
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
The primary dramatic focus in the play The Crucible is the moral struggle of its protagonist, John Proctor. Certain characteristics of John Proctor's character and also the environment of the Puritanical Salem alleviated this problem for him. The main issues running through out the play are a series of dilemmas that John Proctor faces. The first and foremost of these is his guilt over his adulterous affair with Abigail Williams, the second his hesitation to testify against Abigail to bring out the truth and the third, his final decision to make the ultimate sacrifice.
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.
The issues of power, that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, portrays are concerned with, who has the power, the shifts of power that take place and how power can consume people and try to abuse it, for either vengeance, jealously, material gain or sexual desire.
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, various characters, whether it is from physical trials or unseen personal struggles, experience some kind of major conflict. There are those who spend every day in fear, wondering whether or not they will be falsely accused of witchcraft. There are others who struggle with more internal trials, such as forgiving those who have hurt them. The protagonist, John Proctor, was a man of strong moral constitution, and held himself to a high standard for the sake of his good name and family. As a result of this, he struggled with a major internal conflict throughout the play.
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play filled with backstabbing and deceit, but compassion and forgiveness are the prevailing themes hovering above the rest. People in the book are engrossed in a culture which lets women do no more than cook, tend the house and read. Women and girls in this culture often become bored with their lives and attempt to find outlets and this happened in the puritan lifestyle of which the Crucible is engrossed in. Compassion is a main theme of this book which takes its effect through Hale’s actions in the court, John Proctor’s attitude towards Abigail's love and Elizabeth's forgiveness of Proctor for Adultery.
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.
The Crucible, as Originally produced by Arthur Miller in 1953, is a well acclaimed tragedy that still holds reverence today. Given its prestige and overall dramatic richness, it can be understood why the Playmaker’s very own Desdemona Chiang chose to recreate and reimagine the play. The Crucible, being set in Salem Massachusetts, is centered around the spectacle of witch hunts that occurred in the year 1692. As imagined, mass hysteria, fear, and paranoia, occurred because of this. The plot of the play is centered around the protagonist John proctor (Ariel Shafir), a prideful man who finds himself entangled in these bizarre events. Throughout the play, Proctor (Ariel Shafir) and his allies struggle to convince the Salem townspeople of the nonsense and inaccuracies that surround the witch hunts. The conflict of the play has an underlying message as it represents the struggle between reason of the human mind and irrational hysteria. The theme of The Crucible embodies how a community can turn so quickly on one another, and
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.
Throughout the story, Abigail Williams is a self-centered, mean, and deceiving person who will always get her way. Many people went through pain and suffering because of the lies she put on everyone's name. She cared about no one except one man, John Proctor. John and his wife
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller establishes the universal theme that good does not always prevail over evil. It shows that fear and suspicion can produce a mass hysteria that destroys public order and rationality. This theme is clearly identified through the character's actions throughout the play. Three characters in the play demonstrate different types of human condition through the decisions they make. Reverend Hale and John Proctor represent the human condition to choose rationally while Danforth advocates a more traditional side. All but Danforth have a change of heart from the given situation. The Crucible argues that even when a society is corrupt, a person with high moral character can follow their conscience to make a good decision.