...crucible refers to a container made of a substance that can resist great heat, for melting. In “The Crucible” the author uses characters that have moral problems that they either solve or fail to solve. John Proctor, Abigail, and Reverend Hale are considered the main characters in “The Crucible”. Abigail’s moral problem is lying. Abigail failed to solve her moral problem by choosing to lie to get out of various situations. Abigail did not like that Goody Proctor is the reason for her and Proctor’s failed relationship. Abigail chose to use Tituba’s voodoo skills to kill Proctor’s wife, Goody Proctor. Abigail is jealous of Goody Proctor because she has feelings for her husband John Proctor, after their affair. In the text Abigail stated to Proctor, “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” In this piece of text Abigail confesses her love to Proctor and she spoke of the affair between them. Abigail said if Elizabeth was no longer in the picture Proctor would be hers. (Include evidence from where Abigail was in the woods and she drank blood + explain) In Salem, Massachusetts, witchcraft is illegal and those who practice it are executed. In order to...
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...The Crucible Essay Brandon McDonald In the story “The crucible” by author miller witchcraft has taken its toll in the house of Salem. Everyone in the town will go crazy because they have found a women doing crazy thing in the house of Salem. So in the book they stated that if witchcraft keeps going that all people will be into witchcraft. The people of Salem are religious. Witchcraft affects everyone. So the good people what ever they do involve around god. Witchcraft is affecting everyone because they don’t want people doing it kill them. So they are trying to catch the people that are doing it and kill them. “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name”. The major part of witchcraft is that everybody hates you forever. The worst part is that they know when you’re doing it because you don’t show up for any community events. The town is all about God so they pray every day about witchcraft. They don’t want to get curtest so they go to church everyday to pray so they thought that a girl was doing it because she was acting weird and always quite. “A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir; I beg you—see what she is. . . . 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...
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...Transformation of Farmer John Proctor The characters inside of “The Crucible” live in the corrupt town of Salem. Suspicion of evil witchcraft activity between little girls turns into a controversy that will forever split the town. People are falsely blamed for a variety of reasons by an assortment of lying girls and sentenced to death by delusional judges of the court. These occurrences cause severe change in the main characters of the play; John Proctor, for example, undergoes major changes in behavior and attitude during the course of the play. Once his wife and family are involved, the trials become more than just silly happenings to Proctor. Towards the beginning of “The Crucible” Proctor’s actions were substantially influenced by how personal the cases in court became to him. When the trials began to spread to people who the Proctors’ care about Elizabeth wants John to go to court to tell how Abigail and the girls were lying. Afraid of Abigail telling on the affair, John Proctor is very hesitant to go to Salem. After Elizabeth tells John to hurry up and decide whether he is going into town, “I have good reason to think before I charge fraud upon Abigail…” (Miller, 194). Proctor decides that trying to save Rebecca Nurse and the others will only lead to Abigail ruining his name. Proctor, after being left amuck at the whole situation, leaves his anger out on Mary Warren. These decisions Proctor made will have resurgence later in “The Crucible”. John Proctor makes many choices...
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...based on your knowledge of the drama. Write a response on a separate sheet of paper. 1. Where does Tituba think that the Devil is going to take her? 2. Give one example of how Abigail shows her dishonesty in this act. 3. What effect do the trials have on Salem? Use three details from the drama to support your answer. 4. When first arrives at the Salem jail, Danforth complains, “There is a prodigious stench in this place.” How might this line be read to mean something besides a comment on the smell? 5. How is Giles Corey’s character reflected in his death? Use one detail from the drama to support your response. 6. What qualities does Proctor find within himself that prevent him from at last saving himself and signing the confession? Use details from the text to support your response. 7. Explain how Proctor is right or wrong for refusing to sign the confession. Use details to support your response. 8. A tragic hero’s fate, according to Aristotle, inspires pity and horror. Name the tragic hero in The Crucible, and describe how his or her fate inspires both pity and horror. 9. People accused of being Communists had a difficult time getting jobs; some even moved out of the United States in order to try to resume normal lives. How is Proctor’s situation like that of the people accused of Communist activities? 10. Based on the conversation involving Tituba, Sarah Good, and Herrick at the beginning of Act IV of The Crucible, what obsession of the day...
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...religious power whose function was to keep the community together…” (Miller). “...at a later period in the history of New england, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people...” (Hawthorne). The Puritan standards are very rigid. They believe that if you commit any sin you should be put in jail or killed. Both books contain characters who are accused of a sin that wouldn’t be as big of a deal now - and punishments that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment now - such as public shame and hanging. Abigail in The Crucible and Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter both commit similar sins. Abigail is intimate with a married man and Hester is intimate with someone who isn’t her husband. “I look for John Proctor who took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart!” (Miller). “...heard of Mistress Prynne and her evil doings.” (Hawthorne). They were probably both lonely and decided to have affairs even though it was highly condemned in the Puritan society. I think Hester, at the beginning of the book, is similar to Abigail because they are both being rebellious, but try to hide what they’ve...
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...person. These scenarios can give one an entirely new perspective on life, and turn around his way of thinking. Events such as the Salem Witch Trials show the people involved what they could not see before. In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Hale, and John Proctor gain valuable insight into themselves, as well as others. Elizabeth Proctor has many moments which show how she is changing throughout the play. When she is trying to persuade Proctor to tell the court that Abigail said the girls were not practicing witchcraft, Elizabeth blurts out, "John, if it were not Abigail that you must go to hurt, would you falter now? I think not." Elizabeth is confessing that she believes Proctor had an affair with Abigail. She is giving him no mercy by showing that she will never forget what happened. When Elizabeth is being accused of stabbing Abigail, she instructs Proctor to go to court, and tells him "Oh, John, bring me soon!" Elizabeth is gaining trust in John. She is forgetting his act of adultery and now has faith that he will defend her. At the end of the play, when Proctor is sentenced to death, Elizabeth says that "he [has] his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!" Elizabeth is admitting that John was righteous to confess his sin of lechery, and she should have pardoned him. She considers herself impure for not showing mercy, and does not want to take away from his glory. Elizabeth has transformed from an ignorant victim of adultery, to a forgiving...
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...just accuse them of witchcraft and without evidence it actually works 3-tituba- reverent Parris slave, accused of trying to conjure dead spirits Abigail- 17-year-old niece of Parris, affair with proctor, control the girls involve in the witch trial Betty- teenage daughter of Parris, afraid of Abigail, fakes that she is under a spell 4-putnam send her daughter Ruth with Tituba to conjure the death of her mother seven death kids...
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...In "The Scarlett Letter", written in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne establishes commodity into the relationships between characters. Commodity in a relationship is where people must have a profit or gain something from the relationship otherwise they will not be apart of the relationship. The main victim of this commodity is Hester Prynne. The reason behind her rejections is because of her sins as an adulterer and social status cause many townsmen and regular people to reject her and avoid her at all costs. The other people in these relationships include Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Perhaps the most important relationship in The Scarlet Letter is Roger Chillingworth and Hester Prynne. Although their relationship doesn't last very long we do learn and discover lots of information about their past. We find out Roger Chillingworth is actually Heater's husband who she left to venture to America while he stayed in England. Hester could easily tell everyone in Salem who Mr. Chillingworth actually is when she is being publicly shamed but she refrains and keeps silent. Mr. Chillingworth or Mr. Prynne tells Hester he will not publicly admit to knowing her in the past as it would destroy his reputation as a doctor and as a man. “It may be," he replied, "because I will not encounter the dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman.” (Hawthorne page 157). Chillingworth also threatens Hester by giving her an ultimatum to keep his secret or he will tell everyone...
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...of the witch trials out of his craving for recognition, he soon had to conform to the beliefs he instilled in others. In Act II of the play, the audience gets the first glimpse of Hale’s change of heart. After John Proctor shares with him that Elizabeth's sickness was not a result of witchcraft, Hale begins to question what he has started. This was shown through the infliction in his voice. Miller describes his words to be spoken as, “deeply troubled,” or, “in great uncertainty.” Although he clearly begins to see the injustice of the situation, he continues to support the beliefs that he introduced to the community. At the beginning of Act III, the audience can see which way Hale decided to go. He timidly starts trying to defend those on trial by somewhat suggesting that those accused should have a chance to defend themselves. However, after the court silences him his suggestions morph into demands and he even questions the court about the fairness of the trials. In Act IV, Hale does all that he can to save or postpone the hangings of Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor. When he was questioned on the matter, he confesses his guilt as he asked if, they, “could not see the blood on [his] head.” At this moment, it is easy to tell that his efforts to save John Proctor and Rebecca Nurse were also his efforts to undo the hysteria he started. The moments between Act II and Act III are where the internal conflict occurs. Hale had to make the decision of whether or not to stick to...
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...are out of their wits’” (Kent 194) and the actions of the court that follow. Unjust authority subjecting innocents to harsh condition, unlawful trials, and executions during the Salem Witch Trials worked to inculcate and divulge three major characteristics among the people in both The Crucible and The Heretic’s Daughter: deceitfulness, intolerance, and forgivness. The poor conditions of the jail cells during the Salem Witch Trials made deceitfulness a common trait in The Crucible and The Heretic’s Daughter. John Proctor of The Crucible knew his wife, Elizabeth, was suffering in the Salem jail cells. In a hopeless, fruitless attempt to save her, he, for the first time in his life, told the truth about his affair with Abby. John’s thinking was the statement would discredit the accuser, Abigail herself. Though Elizabeth knew the truth about John and Abigail, she lied to protect him claiming, John was “‘a goodly man’” (Miller IV). The deceitful person in their relationship, John, made a liar out of his wife in an attempt to set her free. Similar to this, poor cell conditions in The Heretic’s Daughter led a starving, desperate Sarah to mislead Sheriff Corwin’s wife in order to receive food. Thanks to Andrew Carrier, Sarah’s brother, some people around the “‘good cell’” (Kent 251) were led to believe Sarah had the power to heal others. Convinced by her husband, the Sheriff, Goody Corwin was one of these gullible souls. Sarah mislead her to believe she could save her child order to “‘never...
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...the option of life or death, all of these characters chose to keep their reputations by doing the right thing and saving their lives. The importance of having a good name is a very important theme in The Crucible as shown by these characters. John Proctor was a very courageous man. He was the town’s model citizen and the person that everyone looked up to as a leader. For many reasons it is hard for Proctor to give up his good name. One being because he has a lot of respect for it and everyone sees him as the good guy. When Proctor had an affair with Abigail Williams he tries to show that she is guilty although he is hesitant...
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...The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play where the town of Salem conducts witch trials and exhibits extreme behavior resulting from dark desires. One notable character, Abigail Williams, was the cause of the mishaps within Salem and displayed an erratic behavior to the townspeople. Her distinct personality and persona have stood out within the plot and ruined John Proctor’s reputation. Abigail Williams actions and dialogue portray her, not only as manipulative but bossy and selfish. Abigail’s physical description ties into her manipulative nature. For instance, she is described as “a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling” (Miller 8) This suggests that she is powerful in regards to her lies and is tactical...
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...In the play, “The Crucible”, Preserving one’s reputation is a prevalent theme. Some characters tell the truth and others lie to protect themselves or for the people they care about. Three characters from the play that lied to preserve their’s or someone else’s reputation was Thomas Putnam, John Proctor, and Reverend Parris. John Proctor told the truth but didn’t want his name soiled. After he told the truth, he refused to sign his name on a confession paper. The paper would have been hung on a public wall for everyone to see for forever. He didn’t want his bad name to be known by everyone who looked at that wall. Thomas Putnam lied, unlike John Proctor, to protect his reputation. His family was always known for their good name. Thomas would...
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...In this part, Giles is pleading to Danforth telling him that people are telling lies about his wife because he doesn’t believe his wife is correlated with witchcraft nor does he believe it. “Proctor, handing Danforth a paper: Will you read this first, sir? It’s a sort of testament. The people signing it declare their good opinion of Rebecca, and my wife, and Martha Corey. Danforth looks down at the paper. Parris, to enlist Danforth’s sarcasm: Their good opinion! But Danforth goes on reading, and Proctor is heartened. Proctor: These are all landholding farmers, members of the church. Delicately, trying to point out a paragraph: If you’ll notice, sir-they’ve known the women many years and never saw no sign they had dealings with the Devil” (Miller 75). In this part, John hands Danforth a piece of paper containing a bunch of names agreeing to Rebecca and Martha Corey’s good name and saying they had no correlation with the Devil. “Proctor, his voice about to break, and his shame great: In proper place-where my beasts are bedded. On the last night of my joy, some eight months past. She used to serve me in my house, sir. He has to clamp his jaw to keep from weeping. A man may think God sleeps, but Gods sees everything, I know it now. I...
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...and turns that will grab the reader and show important aspects of the time period. The most drastic change in the crucible vs real life is that John Proctor, one of the main characters and Abigail did infact never have an affair. This kind of "love interest" or "forbidden love" is the juicy hook that a play evidently needs to grab theater audiences. (Gracyk) There is also no proof that Abigail even worked for them especially since she lived so far away from the Proctor home. (Davis) Really there is no evidence that they even knew each other. Although, Abigail did accuse him of witchcraft so they possibly had some kind of connection, but not romantically. Addition to falses in the story, it is also reliable and educational because of the truths. This whole story is based off of the truth about how there was a group of girls who out of nowhere accused the innocent of witchcraft. Tituba was historically the first accused of conjuring spirits and using magic, followed by Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne just like in the book. It is true that 19 people were hanged for not confessing witchcraft and Giles Corey did infact...
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