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Conflicts in the scarlet letter
Conflicts in the scarlet letter
Literary divices in the Scarlet Letter
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Everyone is sinful or guilty in a way, weather it is lying or doing Adultery. “Guilt is through the spirit and Pain is the body.” It is mistakes that are caused by people. Because you will have to be guilty first, in order to suffer the pain that was caused by their sin. Mr. Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he had to suffer his own sin, because he committed adultery with Hester and had a child called Pearl. Hester has to suffer from her own sin, because of adultery and she has to fight the society with no one helping and no one by her side. This is the same situation in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor had to suffer the sin of his own, because the affair between him and Abigail Williams. But all the people …show more content…
They do not trust you because you have done sin that hurt them. John had affair between Abigail Williams, he cheated on his wife, and Elizabeth doesn’t really trust him even he have repent. “ELIZABETH, reasonably: John, have you ever shown her somewhat of contempt? She cannot pass you in the church but you will blush— PROCTOR: I may blush for my sin. ELIZABETH: I think she sees another meaning in that blush. PROCTOR: And what see you? What see you, Elizabeth? ELIZABETH, conceding: I think you be somewhat ashamed, for I am there, and she so close. PROCTOR: When will you know me, woman? Were I stone I would have cracked for shame this seven month! ELIZABETH: Then go and tell her she 's a whore. Whatever promise she may sense—break it, John, break it. (Miller 59).” In “When will you know me, woman? Were I stone I would have cracked for shame this seven month!” John is really frustrated by his wife’s suspicious to him and Abigail’s relationship. He is living in his sin and he wants everything have never happened before. This shows that John is trapping in his own sin, he cannot forgive himself and also he can’t face his unfaithfulness to his wife, so there are no trust between him and Elizabeth. He is really suffering from his sin, he wants to be trusted, and especially by the person that he loves the most. If the closest people around us wouldn’t believe us, then who else will ever trust us anymore. It is painful to not be trusted by anyone especially tour beloved ones, because of your
John Proctor, like every creature, is imperfect and struggles internally with the guilt of an affair, the love of his wife, and his reputation in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Even though Proctor was a Christian and loved his wife, he committed an adulterous act, but felt genuinely guilty thus illustrating Miller’s resistance to creating a wholly good or wholly evil character. He was a man who made a mistake, a mistake that influenced Salem’s witch trials and resulted in numerous murders and imprisonments. One may ask, does Proctor’s rejection of a false confession atone for his sin?
In spite of John being an honorable man, his affair does lead him to his downfall. The affair between John and Abigail leads to serious chaos in Salem. In the court, John had already confessed that he committed adultery. When the court brought in Elizabeth Proctor to say that he had confessed, she lied to save his name. “She only thought to save my name!” (p 195 line 964). Elizabeth wanted to save his name and his life even though she knows he had an affair, even though she does not lie. However, John was a genuine man for confessing that he did commit
In The Crucible, John Proctor is a good man with a deadly secret. He has a wife, children, and a good name in the Puritan society. However, his lust for Abigail Williams leads to their affair, which could potentially ruin Proctor’s status in Salem if anyone were to find out. Proctor is, above all, a proud man who places great emphasis on his reputation. Proctor regrets his past actions, and dislikes Abigail for continually provoking him to love her. Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, is suspicious of his relations with Abigail, which causes tension in their marriage. His negative feelings toward Abigail grow stronger and stronger as the
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.
When the play sets in action, John has had a past affair with his servant, Abigail Williams. His wife, Elizabeth Proctor, is very forgiving of his sin, but John has his mind set that he will not confess to anyone else, in fear of ruining his good name and reputation. The affair between John and Abigail causes the start of chaotic witchery and accusation. After the affair, Abigail becomes horribly jealous of Elizabeth Proctor. Proctor realizes there is only one way to stop all the witch hysteria in Salem, and that would be to admit to adultery which is considered a sin. . Also in the beginning R...
Two examples of this connection from The Crucible are John Proctor and, to a lesser extent, Reverend Hale. Before the play began, John had an affair with his servant, Abigail. Because of the high standards he held himself to, the knowledge that he had not been faithful to his wife left him wracked with constant guilt and caused him "...to regard himself as a kind of fraud" (Miller 79). To make matters worse, his wife, Elizabeth, found out about the affair. In a perfect example of how a guilty conscience can affect a person’s thoughts, Elizabeth 's knowledge of John 's unfaithfulness led John to make every attempt he could to please her over the subsequent months. Unfortunately, his guilty conscience did not subside, and was the ultimate cause of his decision at the end of the play to not "confess" to being a witch (Miller 260-261). As for Reverend Hale, he was the driving force behind the witch trials at the beginning of the play. As the events progressed, however, he began to believe the victims and realized that they were not, in fact, witches. Feeling guilty that innocent citizens were being hanged, he came back to Salem even after the trials were out of his hands to attempt to convince the remaining accused to confess (Miller 241-242). Lying was strictly forbidden in his faith, so Hale would have never asked anyone to falsely confess if he had not felt an extreme sense of guilt for the entire series of
To admit to adultery takes integrity. To tell the truth no matter what the consequences takes integrity. To stay true to one's morals and be able to accept any punishments to keep one’s integrity, is a genuine trait. During the Salem witch trials many were unable to keep their integrity, but there were some who did. The Crucible written by Arthur Miller takes place during the Salem witch trials, when many people were forced to lie in order to live. John Proctor is looked at in the play as an adulterer, and sinful man. Nevertheless, John Proctor's public and private selves differ dramatically, but overall Mr. Proctor is truly a honest and integrity filled man.
In Act One, Abigail tells Proctor that the accusations made by herself and the rest of the girls are false and that they only said them because they were afraid of what punishments they will receive for dancing in the woods. “I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl’s a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she’s a fraud, and the gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone- I have no proof of it.” (1237) In this example, John has told his wife what Abigail told him, and is struggling with the decision of telling the court about the falsehood of the trials. Because of his conflicts, John, throughout the play, becomes bitter and resentful of himself for his weakness towards Abigail. His resentfulness also leads him to question whether he should live a lie or die with pride. “It is a pretense, Elizabeth...I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man. My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.” (1269) This decision weighs heavily on Proctor and leads him to his resolve: he wants to die with honor and pride. John Proctor, up till his weakness with Abigail, has been a good and righteous man. He wants to die with as much integrity as he can, and his wife and their children understand his choice. John Proctor is hung with Rebecca Nurse and
A lie can protect the integrity of someone when the truth is nowhere to be found. A lie becomes one 's reality when all hope is lost. Lies can protect bare emotions or embrace one 's false accusations, however once said the truth no longer exists. Spoken with words or depicted by actions, lies evolve from innate feelings within and conspire individuals to act in detrimental ways. The propensity of individuals to lie within the Puritan Society develops from the fear of not fitting within the standards and expectations a Puritan is expected to have. While a lie is a considered a vast sin in the Puritan community, many rely on this sin to covert other ones previously made. In Arthur Miller 's tragic play The Crucible,
The motivation of John’s behavior is to be an honorable man. At the same time he knows he must confess to committing adultery, which will desecrate his name, but save the lives of the accused. In the courtroom, John confesses about his affair with abigail saying:“ She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it now.” (Act 3 Lines 380-384)
Pride has kept John Proctor from coming forward with the truth, as adultery is a sin. Social status is everything in the town of Salem and if John came forward with the truth, his status would be ruined During his questioning in court, John Proctor, fed up with Abigail 's lies, admits to the affair in front of the entire town. He has come clean, but at what cost? When Elizabeth enters and is questioned, not allowed to look at her husband, she denies the allegations of the affair for him, which ends up condemning them both. “Proctor: … She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it; I set myself entirely in your hands. I know you must see it now” (220-221). The above quote is an excerpt from The Crucible that shows John Proctor has finally cast aside his want for social status and has chosen honesty to save his wife. The reason this scene is so crucial is because it changes the course of events that would have followed if John Proctor had kept quiet about the affair. Elizabeth also played a key factor in the event, since she lied about the affair for him, mistakenly condemning both her and him from what would follow. If John and Elizabeth both admitted to the affair, they could of
Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments Arthur Dimmesdale. The vile physician offers his ‘help’ to the sickly Reverend, but he gives the exact opposite. Chillingworth inflicts daily, mental tortures upon Arthur Dimmesdale for seven long years, and he enjoys it. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all connected by their sins and shame, but what they do in regards to those sins is what sets them apart from each other.
This reveals that the lies and deceit told throughout the play drive the plot, as characters, such as Elizabeth and John Proctor, in the play are significantly affected by the accusations made against them. This is revealed, as Proctor is too concerned with his reputation to confess his affair with Abigail and end the witch trials. Throughout the play, the imagery of God and the Devil is directly tied in with lies and deceit. The Crucible is set in a Puritan theocratic society, where every citizen is concerned with religious piety and purity.
John Proctor is both flawed and honorable. After having an affair with Abigail. His wife has been unable to forgive him for this, and their marriage is unhappy, John has the guilt from his past affair weighing down on his shoulders, he apologizes for the mistake but it is shown that the guilt is still there “I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches round your heart. 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!” this shows that the guilt is crushing him that he has been trying to apologized for his wrong doings but hasn’t been forgiven he needs his wife to forget about the pass and move on he will do anything to show his wife he is devoted to her. John Proctor knows what he will do knowing that now his wife is charged with witchcraft he must go to the court and prove to them that this is all a hoax and this his wife is not involved in witchcraft and that Abigail is making this all up. John makes a ...
though out the rest of the book. One of the main character's that is affected