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Role of religion in english literature
The crucible and today's society
The canterbury tales in middle english
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Some of the finest pieces of work ever written have been based off religious and secular beliefs. Many authors will often find a time period and use that for the basis of their story. Two books I want to focus on are the Canterbury Tales and the Crucible. Both of these works were written based off a specific time period and the way the story was formed reflects the beliefs and customs of that time period. As each of these stories progresses we can see how the religious and cultural differences are explored and how the “old” world use to be compared to our society. The Crucible uses witchcraft to influence the book and how Puritan society was afraid of witches. The Crucible also shows how Puritan’s operated in daily society and how their culture …show more content…
was. The Canterbury tales focuses on a religious pilgrimage of different stories and how the Church at this time was facing corruption. The Crucible written by Arthur Miller focuses on the 1600s in Salem, Massachusetts and how the belief of witchcraft and sorcery made people afraid of women. This book wants the reader to understand how Puritan society felt about certain practices and how their strict religious beliefs lead to a purging of women and their skepticism of their neighbor. The Crucible takes place in a Puritan town in Massachusetts. A group of young girls are dancing in the woods when suddenly they are caught the minster. One of the girls falls into a coma and people in the town suspect that this is a form of witchcraft. The Reverend questions the girls about what has happened and none of them tell him anything. Abigail Williams, his niece, is talking with John Proctor, a local farmer, who engaged in an affair with her a year earlier. The girl suddenly wakes up by violently screaming and the crowd begins to argue over what has been done to her. The Reverend goes and interrogates Tituba, one of the girls in the woods, and she confesses to summoning the devil and starts to name other townspeople who have called the devil before. At the same time the Reverend’s niece Abigail and Betty come forth naming people conspiring with the devil and those who may be witches. John’s wife Elizabeth has been accused of being a witch but the people did not go after her. The other wives of the men in town have also been arrested and were said to have been witches. John wants to help his wife in any way he can and he convinces the servant Mary, to testify that the girls are lying (SparkNotes). When Abigail gets word of this she pretends that Mary put a spell over them and then Mary accuse John of being a witch. The witch trials are still continuing and the whole town is on edge.
Abigail has run away and the Reverend begs those accused of witchcraft to take a plea and agree to being witches in order to save their lives. John agrees to confessing, but he refuses to name other people and the court demands he does so. In a bit of rage John loses control and says that he is not guilty. The witch trials come to an end and Proctor is sent to the gallows along with others accused of being witches.
Towards the end of Act III Danforth, the judge overseeing the witch trials in Salem, makes a statement that perfectly sums up how people felt about the trails:
You must understand, sir that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time-we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shinning sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it
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(Miller). This statement perfectly states how the authorities felt about the ongoing witch trials. Danforth, just like everyone else in Salem sees the world in only one way. There is no in between when it comes too good and evil. Things in this world are either from God or the Devil and that is it. The court and local government belongs to God and he has sent his blessing over it. Questioning the courts is like questioning God himself and that is seen as a sin. The court is only doing God’s work and anyone who goes against the court is working for the Devil. There is a lot going on this story and first I am going to focus on the Salem Witch Trails, which greatly influenced the story.
The Salem Witch Trials began during the summer of 1692 after a group of girls were possessed by the devil and then accused other women in the town of being witches. This is the exact thing that happened in the Crucible. As more and more cases began to develop special courts were created to handle the trials. Those found guilty of being a witch were either hung or burned at the stake. There was a great fear among the Puritan people because they were in a new colony. They were suffering from the effects of the British war with France, the smallpox epidemic, attacks from the nearby Native American and their religious fears as well (History.com). A majority of women accused were not even witches and they were accused out of vengeance. Abigail and her friends did just that, they accused other women out of vengeance and to shift the attention away from
themselves. Puritan society stressed a very important factor and that was a belief in the work of God. Anyone in a Puritan community had that common belief in God and the moral principles he stressed. Another example in the Crucible where see Puritan society come into play is the affair between John and Abigail. Adultery was almost as bad as witchcraft in Puritan society. John and Abigail had an affair a year before the trials started to occur and that will stay with John forever. John’s wife Elizabeth is pregnant with a child and there is skepticism that she had an affair. She did not and she would even lie for John in court to protect him. Adultery was a big no-no and was punishable by death or stoning. Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials and Puritan society to influence him to write the Crucible. This story perfectly reflects how skeptical and nervous the Puritan’s were during the 1600s. There was also now way they were going to let anything try to counter their religious beliefs and way of life. If anyone went against the work of God, society would punish them and the Salem Witch Trials did just that
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
John Proctor a well-respected man in the city of Salem has a deep secret that plays a major role later on in the story. He had an intimate affair with a younger single girl named Abigail which he regrets greatly. Proctor shows his disgust when he argues with Abigail by insisting, “Abby I never give you hope to wait for me” (page168). Proctor exclaims that he surely regrets his sin and doesn’t want Abigail to think that he loves her and not his own wife. Although Proctor may still have feelings about Abigail he reassures her that he will never have emotional relationships with her ever again. He had the ultimate opportunity to get back at Abigail and stop the witch trials from happening when he meets Abigail alone in the woods; upon their encounter she confesses to John, “We were dancing in the woods last night and my uncle leaped in ...
The events that took place in Salem Massachusetts during 1692 through 1693, would forever define the colonial religious extremists, known as the Puritans. The Salem Witch Trials created a distinct nuance, that marked a dark period in American history. The dramatized version of the Witch Trials, The Crucible, resulted in a semi accurate representation of the historical events that occurred in Salem Massachusetts. The author Arthur Miller, wrote the playwright by incorporating factual content, as well as imaginary aspects that brought the characters of the Witch Trials to life.
In 1962 the penalty of witchcraft was to be hung or smashed. There was a big outburst of witchcraft and spells that were going around among the people of Massachusetts in 1962. Some of the women of Salem began the witchcraft many people started to catch on and fallow them. A lot of these people were hung do to what the bible said about the wrongs of witchcraft. When these women of Salem Massachusetts started to do witchcraft and pass it on to other people they were put on trial for their actions, which at the time was, illegal. It had caught on all over England and was spreading fast. Arthur Miller made a play called the Crucible that was about the Salem witchcraft trials. Arthur miller took the historical accounts and changed them to be suitable for the play. The crucible had many alterations to the historical documents that took place in1962 which were in the characters, the historical differences, and why the theme of history was changed.
John Proctor: “God in heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor”. John is a man of strong moral beliefs, concerned only for the safety of his family and personal welfare. He cares of nothing for the beliefs of any of the other people in the town and what his supervisor which is the Reverend, thinks either. After trying to avoid involvement in the witch trials he is later prosecuted for witchery and sentenced to hang. John trys to avoid any involvement in the Salem witch trials. His reason for doing so is to protect his image because he is afraid he will be committed of adultery with Abigail Williams. Following these events he trys to save everyone’s lives by admitting to this horrible offense adultery and ends up losing the trial along with his life. He did have a chance to live but instead of signing away his name and his soul to keep his life, he wanted to die honorably with his friends not without a name, a soul, and with guilt. “John Proctors decision to die is reasonable and believable”. Reverend Parris, the Salem minister and Proctors immediate supervisor, which says “ there is either obedience or the church will burn like hell is burning.” “The church in theocratic Salem is identical with the state and the community and will surely crumble if unquestioning obedience falters in the least.” Proctor, on the other hand, “has come to regard his self as a king of fraud,” as long as he remains obedient to an authority which he cannot respect.
Witchcraft started in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Superstition started when women were accused of acting strangely. These superstitions turned into trials, and later lead to mounds of hanged people. Most of the people accused were innocent, but the harsh judge rulings left them with nothing to live for. The only options for the tried, no matter if guilty or not, were to claim guilty, living the rest of their life in prison, or to plead not guilty and hang. Due to both consequences being equally as punishable, many people isolated themselves from society. Unfortunately, some people caused the uprising of the salem witch trials more than others did. In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams single handedly attributed to the
John Proctor committed lechery with Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams wants John Proctor to love her, but he is married to Elizabeth, and he doesn’t want to leave her for Abigail. Abigail knows that John doesn’t want to leave his wife, so she tries to get rid of her, first by drinking a charm to kill her, and she then accuses her of witchcraft. John knows that Abigail is trying to get rid of his wife so he knows that he has to tell the courts about what happened between the two of them so that they will realize why she is making the accusations on his wife. When he admits his fault to the court the girls turns around and accuse him of witchcraft in order to save themselves. John is put in jail for three months because of this accusation. After all of this time he nearly decides to admit to it, but he then realizes what it would do to himself and his name.
John Proctor is an honest, though harsh, man who is clearly the protagonist of The Crucible. Before the beginning of the play, John had an affair with Abigail Williams, a girl who worked in his household, which was abruptly ended when Elizabeth Proctor, John's wife, fired her. This event causes Abigail to desire revenge against Elizabeth while she still pines for John. Once the trials are well underway, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of being a witch, which leads to her arrest. John goes to the court in defense of his wife, where he reveals that he did indeed committed adultery with Abigail in an attempt to expose her as a fraud and a liar. Unfortunately, John's appeal falls on deaf ears and he is arrested as well. While his wife manages to get a temporary stay of execution, due to the fact that she is pregnant at the time of the trials, which in the end saves her by insuring her life until the chaos, hysteria, and persecution comes to an end, John is sentenced to death. The play ends with his hanging, but his death puts an end to the trials.
In Arthur Miller 's famous play The Crucible, innocent people are falsely accused of witchcraft and are killed as a result. Even the thought of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600s would put the whole village into mass hysteria. Mass hysteria refers to collective delusions of threats to society that spread rapidly through rumors and fear. This is the main cause of why so many people were arrested and killed for witchcraft. One way people could save themselves was by falsely confessing to have performed witchcraft. Many people did not do this though. This is because the townspeople were held to very strict moral values and must uphold their good name in society. They did not want a bad reputation. In The Crucible, by Arthur
It was easier for them to blame the devil for the problems of society than fix the problems of their own strict way of life. So the girls involved with Abigail, like Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren, named many people in the town as witches. These people were put in jail and would be hanged if they did not confess to the crime of devil worship or witchcraft. Another part of the developing plot is that John Proctor knows Abigail and her friends are lying, but he is afraid to say anything because eight months before he had an affair with Abigail and did not want to be seen by the town as a lecher, which means wife cheater. So, Mr. Proctor has to fight with himself to come out and tell the truth, or his wife might die because of Abigail saying she was a witch.
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 they are essentially breaking their relationship with God. Like everyone else in Salem, Danforth draws a clear line to separate the world into black and white. The concurrent running of the “Crucible” image also captures the quintessence of the courtroom as Abigial stirs up trouble among the people that have good reputation and loving natures in society. In a theocratic government, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the Devil.
...00s of years apart, and the Crucible wasn’t as harsh and bloody as the Holocaust. Both witch hunts killed off certain people that were discriminated against because of the word of one person. The modern day witch hunt, the Holocaust, was terrifying for the Jews, as well as other people, gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled people. The witch hunt back in the 1600s wasn’t as brutal against the people, and it was against whoever was convicted of being a witch, or committing a terrible crime. The groups of people that were harmed during these two witch hunts, lost everything, nothing in the world could relieve the pain they went through and suffered. The Jews lost 2/3 of their population in Europe, whereas the people in Salem lost their loved ones, and had to endure the torture of the court on their town, making them able to survive life after the witch trials were over
This combination of fears, unholyness, sin, and loss of social status each stemming from the others, created a vicious cloud of anxiety and suspicion within the town. And ultimately, with no other way to lessen the tension that grew from the pressure of religious standards, the witch trials were a much needed, but terribly unfortunate, outlet for the Puritans. If they had not had such strict principles in their
The Crucible is considered the outline of the real life events during the Salem Witch trials in 1692. Abigail Williams, the niece of Reverent Paris was found conjuring in the forest along with his nine year old daughter Betty and other girls. After that event the witch trials began. In real life, Abigail was the one who began the witc...
John Proctor faces many decisions in response to his moral dilemma to try to save his life. One of the difficult decisions John makes is to reveal that he had an affair with Abigail Williams and thereby has committed adultery. If the local court convicts him of this crime, he faces being jailed. Also by admitting this crime, John reveals a weakness in his character. This flaw in his personality will make it harder for him to stand up in the community as an honorable and believable person. In trying to convince others that witchcraft does not exist John’s dishonesty with his wife will make him less convincing to the community.