Arthur Miller's The Crucible Essay

has had an affair with Abigail a while ago, but now he wants to forget

The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller. In the town of Salem, the people’s obsession of trying to provide justice only caused injustice against the accused. The law of Salem was guilty until proven innocent. Their government was also a theocracy, and their obsession with religion also caused the injustice.

How many people have you met in your life that is stronger because of a difficult experience they went through? Most people are because we take these difficult experiences and grow from them and become better people. This is the exact case is expressed in the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. The story begins in Salem, Massachusetts 1692 right in the middle of a period of witchcraft hysteria. During this time many people were accused of being witches and wrongly convicted by judges Danforth and Hathorne. The characters in the story are struggling because of a girl named Abigail who gets caught practicing witchcraft and then starts naming and accusing others so that she doesn’t get in trouble; one of these people being a well-respected farmer, John Proctor’s, wife Elizabeth. The title, The Crucible, refers to a test, trial, ordeal, formation by fire, and vessel baked to resist heat, and the entire story is an allegory meaning it has a hidden meaning. John Proctor symbolizes a crucible by embodying the definition of one, as he went through a test and was formed by fire.

A person chooses not to take good care of his/her car, and as a result, the car malfunctions, resulting in the person having an accident. Every single action that a person commits leads to either a positive or a negative consequence. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a book filled with mistakes and the outcomes of those mistakes, and this piece of literature provides readers with an opportunity to analyze some causes and effects. Every character in the crucible created a situation that gave place for a negative consequence to take place. This led him or her to endeavor to protect the virtue of their reputation. Three most significant characters, whose actions are greatly emphasized throughout the story, are Abigail

 The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is a play that takes place in the sixteen nineties during the famous but tragic witch trials. The entire community is in pandemonium yet certain characters are also fighting internal conflicts. Miller uses three characters that manifest this internal battle ever so clearly: Mary Warren whose whole world turns upside down, John Proctor who must weigh the importance of his family against his reputation and Reverend Hale who must decide whether to do his job, or do what he knows to be right. 

the fact that he had to tend to his crops. Also he did not agree with

Arthur Miller's The Crucible Arthur Miller demonstrates the familiarities of the life he lived in the 1950's and of everyday life we live in through his plays. He communicates through his work to the way people are in society. The extreme witch hysteria deteriorated the rational and emotional stability of its citizens. This exploited the population's weakest qualities, and insecurities.

Throughout a person’s life, he or she is bound to make decisions that they will eventually consider mistakes. In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the protagonist, John Proctor, committed not only a mistake, but also a sin, adultery. Proctor, who is a Christian, is married to a woman named Elizabeth Proctor and has three sons. Before he committed adultery, there was a seventeen-year-old servant working within his house named Abigail Williams. Abigail was the one who Proctor not only committed adultery with, but also lechery because he was in his thirties, while she was only seventeen. His wife would have probably never known about it, but the guilt was eating Proctor alive and so he confessed. He regrets ever committing adultery because consequently his household has become a cold place. Elizabeth cannot fully forgive Proctor for committing the sin, so she turns the environment of the house into gloomy place for Proctor. Throughout the play John Proctor has had to perform certain things, which would make many people within the audience question if Proctor was a man of either conscience, character, or virtue.

Arthur Miller wrote the famous play, The Crucible, in order to compare the Salem witch trials to events of his time and to expose the social injustices that existed in his society due to the controversial Communist scare that was occurring. Though Miller wrote The Crucible for this purpose, its themes are quite appropriate when considering current events, as the audience is met with the ever-prevalent themes of the severity of false accusations, reputation, and integrity. There is no doubt that many current events relate to these themes, what with situations of destroyed reputations at the hands of others, integrity being called into question, and false accusations flying left and right.

Events in history, along with those today, have shaped the way people live and act within a community. Authors often relate past events to their work to help the audience make connections to better understand what they are reading. The Crucible written by Arthur Miller relates back to the Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Miller does this in order to make the readers obtain a better knowledge of the events that shaped our country’s history. While teaching a lesson, literature can also provide a connection to a reader’s life. People can often easily make connections to the lyrics of a song, which makes them feel like the is about their life or choices. Some events and characters in The Crucible have the ability to relate to modern day musical selections in order to convey the entire meaning of the play.

Beginning in 1245 in France and peaking in the late 1670s, witch trials become one method by which to subdue and control social deviance--beggars, drunkards, outspoken women, and even the mad. Control was placed in the hands of the church, which began to wane the Enlightenment took hold. Yet, twenty years after the “zenith” of these trials, in 1692, witch trials found new life within a small Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts (Cockerham 2014: 10-11). Scholars have returned again and again to this event, demanding that “Salem must be about something other than witches, demons, superstitious clergy, and hysterical children. Otherwise it simply does not make sense” (Rivett 2008: 495). So how do we begin to make sense of what seems to be a bizarre example of mass hysteria? Did these people simply go mad? I believe Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, holds the answers. In order to fully grasp the trials, first we must look to the broader social context of Salem. Using popular scholars of the time and the works of Weber and Durkheim, I will expose the social causes behind the deaths of these people, illustrated by Miller’s text. Then I will briefly explore the social context within which Miller himself was writing, exposing a pattern of paranoia and anxiety evolving out of isolation and individualism, a pattern which did not end in 1692.

In 1692, countless innocent people were hanged, tortured, or stripped of their reputation because they were falsely accused of being a witch. They would have to falsely confess to save their lives, or else have their reputation be defaced. Arthur Miller shows the chaos of people constantly living in fear that their neighbor would become greedy, and falsely accuse them of being something that they were not. Miller does this through the book “The Crucible”. Motives of revenge, greed, and peer pressure contribute to the hysteria and hangings in the Salem Witch Trials.

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the belief of witchcraft held poisonous consequences as accusations increase to devour the entire village. Since the Salem witch trials started, they heavily influenced the people and town of Salem. People of Salem were accused of being a witch on poor evidence. Such accusations of being a witch sacrificed many human lives. Even though the people of Salem realized that they were murdering the innocent, it does not make up for their deaths. The Puritan community of Salem became gripped with mass hysteria over activities that they believed to be witchcraft. It started with a strong belief system towards God but ended with on an irrational note. The death of the many witches cannot be justified by the mere fact that them being witches was a sign from god. The one societal problem that led to the Salem witch trials was perjury. This society-wide problem within the community of Salem exists solely because of human failings such as wanting high reputation, jealousy and hysteria.

Abigail Williams is the antagonist, she lied extensively well and ruined the lives of many by making false accusations.

Good leaders are essential to the functionality and prosperity of a community. They should be honest, genuine, and selfless. Good leaders keep the interests of the people they lead in mind when making all decisions instead of focusing on their own personal goals. It can be quite disastrous when leaders have ulterior motives or bad principles. When leaders are dishonest, deceitful, and selfish, it causes problems for the whole community and a distrust between the leader and the community. A person in power should lead responsibly and consider the consequences of their actions, before making any decisions, large or small. If a leader is irresponsible, it can have disastrous effects upon the community. In his play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller explores how the corruption of power leads to the destruction of a community through the characters Reverend Parris, Judge Danforth, and Abigail Williams.