The Role Of Vanity In The Crucible

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The world is not all kitty cats, rainbows, and sunshine. Society as a whole is deeply rooted in vanity. Hardly anybody cares about good ol’ integrity anymore. Of course, they do care about some things, and then those things are generally obsessed over. Not one single person can honestly say that they do not care what another person thinks about them. People stress out over what others may think about them, when in all reality those people are so stressed out over what that other person thinks about them that they do not even notice the first person. It makes sense, right? No. It does not. Vanity is the source of human demise, and this world is no place for escaping it’s firm grasp. Vanity is laced throughout literature in the form of …show more content…

This man is about as vain as it gets. He is given a church to preach in, home to live in, and family to love, but he cannot be content with any of it. As a Puritan preacher, he should not seek earthly possessions, but Reverend Parris is engrossed with his image. He requires fancy new candlesticks for the church and more money, although he already has a rather nice salary. He finds his daughter sick and instantly calls for a man well versed in witchery to prevent the people of Salem from speaking of witchcraft in his home. Parris knows that a group of girls, including his daughter and niece, are up to no good when they begin charging witchcraft on all of the townspeople, but he says nothing to contradict the girls and even speaks for the girls to protect his Godly image. He cares more about appearing in the right than saving the lives of his innocent congregation. In this way Parris harms himself and others all for the sake of looking pure. While Parris and John Proctor’s vanity can be discussed all day, Abigail Williams seems to be the definition of vanity. This young girl accuses nearly an entire town of witchcraft and is responsible for many deaths, all because she wanted to look good to the town. She took her transgressions and shoved them off onto someone else, so she

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