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English literature essay writing
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Analyse how settings are used to help you understand characters in the written text(s). 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. During Author Miller’s era of the 1950’s, the ‘cold war’ was happening. Senetor Joeseph McCarthy was completely against communism and began to arrest the communists and people assosiating with them. Those arrested were forced to either name names to identify those who were communists or thought to be, or else they would remain in jail. This was callef McCarthyism For many, being prisioned was a terrible frightening thought so they would name names including any that they could think of that could be innocent. Author Miller was arrested for associating with communists and refused to identify others, and wrote The Crucible, using it as an allegory to identify the problems of society and it’s flaws of the corrupt government. a reflection of society’s repitition similarly The crucible’s setting was in the year 1962, in the small Puritan society of Salem. One night some of the girls in the village were in the woods doing love potions when they were caught. The girls lied and said that witches made them do it. In an extremely religeous society the influence of witches was immensely frightening and as the thought to identify witches arose, so did mass hysteria of the... ... middle of paper ... ...I feel more strongly that Author Miller has put a purpose in the text that by standing against a corrupt government at the suspence of everything to do the right thing is for readers to be influenced to always stand up for what they believe in despite any consequences. Through time it can be seen that the worls has a nature of repeating its history. We can learn a lot about reading Author Millers text the crucible as his own experience and setting of the troubling cold war has been reflected onto the characters of John Proctor and Giles Corey which give me a deeper understanding of them. Because of the parallel settings of Author Miller’s era, the 1950’s cold war, and the text’s setting the 1692 Salem witch hunt, I begin to question my own ideas of doing the right thing and if it came down to it, that I should always try to as good things will come of staying true.
This whole play by Arthur Miller shows how our community will turn on each other to save ourselves no matter if it’s right or wrong and it’s true in our society today. It also shows how a good man regained his happiness and holiness by standing up for what’s right against the lies and sacrificed himself for the truth.
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, was written during the early 1950s.It was the time of The rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s.All throughout history, accusations of witchcraft have been used as an excuse for the discrimination of people who cultures, traditions, race, and ideas were not easily accepted nor understood by the society even if it was untrue.In today’s society students are taught this because it show’s how important “The Crucible, and McCarthyism were and what changes they went through because of the human condition.It is extremely important and appropriate because it allows students the opportunity to respond in terms of their own experiences .The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism had many similarities. In The Crucible Abigail
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a protest paper to the brutality of the Red Scare .The Red Scare was the inoperable fear of Communism within the United States. This scare was caused as a result of the Cold War in the 1950’s. During the Cold War the US was scared of an attack of the Soviets, and the Soviets were equally as scared of an attack upon them by us. Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, saw this fear as an opportunity to rise to power. McCarthy had many supporters that were primarily Republicans, Catholics, Conservative Protestants, and Blue-collar workers. McCarthy ruthlessly utilized scare tactics to get people to believe and follow him blindly into his accusations as to innocent citizens supporting Communism and either having them jailed or killed by providing phony evidence. Arthur Miller was not intimidated by this he wrote the Crucible as “an act of desperation” (Miller). This desperation was to counteract the lack of speaking out about personal beliefs during the Red Scare for the fear of breaking the law. In The Crucible, Miller wrote about a character named John Proctor who is very similar to Miller himself. Both the author and the character had to overturn the same personal paralyzing guilt, not speaking out soon enough. Nonetheless, their eventual overcoming of this guilt leads them to becoming the most forthright voice against the madness around them.
When asked about The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, critic Harold Clurman claims that the play is “chiefly a study in mass hysteria in which superstition conspires with self-interest to incite a society to destructiveness” (handout). This quote accurately portrays the message of revenge and greed serving as common characteristics in times of uncertainty that echoes throughout the play, clearly exemplified through Mr. Putnam, Reverend Parris, and Abigail Williams. During this time, land lust and revenge were common incentives to accuse a person of being a witch, and these three characters clearly exemplify these common reasons. As static characters, Mr. Putnam, Reverend Parris, and Abigail Williams remain constant in their motives throughout the play. Through Mr. Putnam’s lust for land and desire for revenge, Reverend Parris’s obsession over self-image, and Abigail’s jealously of Elizabeth and love for Proctor, The Crucible supports Clurman’s claim of Salem being a society driven by people with characteristics of greed and revenge rather than principle.1
With treasures of valuable lessons to learn, Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ is a sturdily startling fictionalized account of the McCarthyism era that took place in the 1950s. The rigid religious and moral views by Salem’s religious leaders on the townspeople, overthrowing the community’s thoughts by ruling with absolute terror and violence subsidizes to a town’s mass hysteria when Abigail, a young girl coated with selfishness and wickedness, along with her group of friends indict innocent people who have slighted them of performing witchcraft. The use of potent and unnerving imagery is extremely tragic and painful to witness positioning the audience to evoke an emotional reaction towards the innocent people blamed in the text and therefore indirectly
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.
“The Crucible”, is a play that tells a real life phenomenon, set in 17oo’s Salem, Massachusetts where a town of Puritans were settled. When a slave woman and a group of young, trouble-making girls begin to act out, the town becomes suspicious and the madness of the witch trials begin. The play serves as an allegory for “The Red Scare” an era in U.S. history that unforgivingly persecuted communists. There are multiple parallels that can be drawn between both of these stories. One major difference is who can be named responsible for each event. In “The Red Scare”, the U.S government is mainly to blame, but in The Crucible we can pinpoint specific characters that greatly contributed to the horror of the witch trials. These characters are John
The Crucible Film The audience are first brought into the film by the white credits on
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.
The Crucible, takes place in the small Puritan village called Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The witchcraft trials grew out of the moral system of the Puritans. This split the town into two, those who were considered witches and those who wanted good.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
"'A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between.'" Act 3, Scene 1 pg. 87 . The characters in the play are either portrayed as good or evil with no in between , which makes life even harder for them . Salem mislabeled people in town as good or evil , but they had very little or no evidence at all to support it . Salem labels Rebecca nurse as a witch and evil , when really she was innocent and took care of everyone's babies. Abigail was an evil character who was a liar, vindictive and careless , the people of Salem viewed her as good character .
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.
Explore Miller’s dramatic presentation and development of the theme of power and authority. Even though The Crucible is not historically correct, nor is it a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, it still stands out as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance, hysteria, power and authority is able to tear a community apart. The most important of these is the nature of power, authority and its costly, and overwhelming results. “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or against it,” says Danforth conceitedly. With this antithesis, Miller sums up the attitude of the authorities towards the witch trials that if one goes against the judgement of the court
The Crucible is about senator Joseph McCarthy and his "communist witch- hunts" that were attempting to root out subversives in government and the entertainment industry. The play itself is about the 1692 Salem witch trials in which a group of girls accused others of being witches. Arthur Miller draws parallels between this event and his own trial for supposedly being a communist agent. This essay will speak of two themes I noticed throughout the book: deceitfulness and reputation. These themes will be presented through text references and characters within the play.