...Proctor’s action of infidelity rippled a commotion within Salem that was rooted at the breaking of trust within a marriage. John realized his fault once he saw the harm it brought to Elizabeth but the deed was already done and the world of turmoil was nothing as he expected. Salem was a Godly community that was seeped with religion and strict societal norms. When fear and change hit the town, nothing rational happened. John attempted at making things right by ending it with Abigail but this only drove her to manipulation. She exploited the town’s weaknesses and managed to turn everyone to falsely accusing innocent people. These allegations brought helpless Elizabeth down with them. John rightfully blamed himself for the entire situation but...
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...Abigail Williams is responsible for the chaos and turmoil in "The Crucible" due to her actions and manipulations. She falsely accuses numerous citizens of witchcraft, causing fear and hysteria in the town. Despite Mary Warren's attempt to testify against Abigail, she faces opposition from the other girls who are under Abigail's influence. Abigail continuously tries to convince people that everyone else is a witch, using tactics such as pretending to see and hear spirits whenever a witness tries to testify against her. Abigail's past and present experiences contribute to her actions, but they do not excuse her behavior. She witnessed the death of her parents at a young age, had an affair with John Proctor, and threatened those who crossed her....
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...Animal Farm Comparative Essay Rebellion, gluttony, and manipulation are all common themes when it comes to the struggle for power. Animal farm by George Orwell, a book which all of these take place is remarkably similar to the Crucible by Arthur Miller and Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Animal farm, The Crucible, and Macbeth are all written similarly and revolve around the same themes, such that many characters in Animal Farm and Macbeth portray similar characteristics. Animal Farm and The Crucible share common themes and conflicts. In all three books the structure of peoples values change drastically for a turn for the worst. These novels and play all follow popular foundations of literature which revolve around inner evil, the addiction to power, and the loss and regaining of self-identity. Animal farm and Macbeth’s antagonists, Napoleon and Macbeth portray similar characteristics. Napoleon and Macbeth both share important roles in their respective books in that they directly influence and change the fate of many. The two power hungry tyrants go to an extreme to achieve their goals but in two very different ways. Napoleon a more cunning character abuses his superior intellect to deceive the other ignorant farm animals in order to gain power. Through Machiavellian methods he slowly begins to take over the farm by convincing the animals to be more reliant on him, ultimately making his self-proclamation of leader a reality “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon...
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...Crucible: Movie Vs. Novel Two thumbs up for Crucible, one to the movie and one to the novel. Both amazing and well worth your time. This story will keep you intrigued with quenched fists. The picture, derived from Arthur Miller’s classic novel, is slightly predictable to those who read the book, but is compensated for with astonishing acting and terrific cast. For the preponderance, the script of the movie follows that of the novel. The bare bones of the picture discretely parallel 17th century Salem witch trials to 1950’s communism. Thus, achieved by interrogation, manipulation, betrayal and encouragement of betrayal between characters. For instance, in both the novel and movie, the girls turn on one another, while John Proctor ends the whole affair by owning up to a mistake he’d never made, but is not freed because he didn’t resort to invoking another victim’s name. One key difference between Crucible, the novel and “crucible”, the movie is the emphasis on the affair between Proctor and Abigail Williams. The book mentioned it and while it was a main detail of the novel, it wasn’t the core like it had been in the movie. And while the affair is one of the few differences between the two, little differentiations were picked up in the details of the situation, like the repetitively mentioned fact, that they never touched, in the novel and came in physical contact multiple times in the film. While both the book and the picture were very similar, there were various...
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...The Crucible The play, The Crucible written by Arthur Miller in 1952. It takes place in Salem, Massachusetts when the witch trails started a paranoid frenzy. “The Crucible evokes a lethal brew of illicit sexuality, fear of the supernatural, and political manipulation.”(New Yorker). Arthur had inspiration from the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s. He was also inspired because this was written on the tail end of the World War II. Arthur wanted the audience to see how similar the government was treating Americans. Compared to the 1692 paranoia of Salem witch craft era. How people was getting treating was inhuman respect and reputation goes a long way. Salem took this and Religion very seriously. “When in 1950 McCarthy addressed the Ohio Candy Women’s...
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...Character Analysis of Abigail Williams Author Miller’s drama The Crucible takes place in the seventeenth-century in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem suffers from witch-hunts, trials, and false accusations. In effect, the town is full of worry and suspicion; and when young girls falsely accuse self-righteous neighbors in Salem of witchcraft, the town goes against itself, which ultimately causes a conflict between power and aggression. The personality of Abigail Williams, the understood leader of all the young girls, ultimately causes the whole play to go into effect. Abigail displays that she is sinful, envious, and manipulative. Abigail Williams’ characteristic of sinfulness causes her to be the antagonist of the whole play. Abigail commits...
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...The allegories by George Orwell and Arthur Miller denounce the harmful effects of tyranny, as it generates deception and fear, enabling despotic individuals to gain power and control. Miller’s play, The Crucible, advocates for the necessity of transgression to gain autonomy, as Salem’s theocracy is eventually broken; however, it is Orwell’s novella, Animal Farm, that exposes the unjust reality in which rebellion does not always guarantee freedom,...
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...Lindsey Sibille Ms. Gonzales AP English III, 1 16 October 2015 The Crucible Book Card Assignment Authorial Background Arthur Miller is the award-winning playwright of The Crucible along with many other famous plays such as Death Of a Salesman and All My Sons. Born in Manhattan in 1915, Miller experienced the pressing and devastating times of the Great Depression and both World Wars. His first two plays were The Man Who Had All the Luck and All My Sons, with the latter being performed on Broadway in 1949. His next play, Death of A Salesman, received a Tony award, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Pulitzer prize. These awards allowed him to rise to fame and helped his career skyrocket. Despite his successful playwriting...
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...The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play that is based on the Salem witch trials and shows how people react in mass hysteria. The mass hysteria was caused by the religious belief that witches were in the town of Salem. A story that was made up by the girls in the village to save themselves the punishment of dancing in the woods. Religion was used in the crucible to manipulate in many ways such as misinterpreting religion, manipulation through lies, and to enforce the strict rules that held the community together. The play of the Crucible is based on the real witch trials in Salem. Arthur Miller changed the real events to fit with the play better. Like the ages of the girls, making them older to fit in his time. The author also did a great...
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...Charlie Chaplin is a Communist (Biography.com staff; Andrew). Multiple other renowned actors, screenwriters, and directors were accused just like this during the Red Scare (Andrew). Miller created The Crucible during this time of paranoia (Hosey). In the 1950s and 1940s, after the Cold War, Russia became a direct representation of everything anti-American, thus Communism was anti-American (History.com staff). The House of Un-American Activities Committee was created to rid America of Communist (History.com staff). McCarthy lead this extirpation and exacerbated the situation to a point of utter chaos and paranoia called the Red Scare (History.com staff; Hosey). This campaign began with an attack at the liberal Hollywood, blacklisting of Hollywood...
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...Abigail Williams is the opposite of one’s thought of a Puritan. She is selfish, manipulative, ungodly, and especially fond of her adulterous relationship with John Proctor. In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, Abigail attempts to save herself from embarrassment by initiating a cruel witch hunt, accusing those who are innocent but are in the way of her own devious plan. She lies about her and her friends attempting to murder Elizabeth Proctor with witchcraft in the woods by turning the blame on others. Abigail continuously displays her intentions as the play goes on changing from lust to power hungry. Abigail is tried on her honesty and self pride, contributing to the theme of power given without judgement tends to corrupt. Miller uses Abigail's...
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...Gillian MacDonald 21 March 2013 ENG 4U Mr. Chalmers The Ringleaders of the Salem Witch Trials In the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the theme of hysteria is dominantly present throughout the entire play. It is not hard to narrow down the cause of the widespread hysteria to three people that inevitably had their hand in the trials. The devious character, Abigail, shows her wicked mind and skill of manipulation in the play so she can get what she wants, John Proctor. The slave, Tituba, gave into the accusations and started the hysteria of the witch trials. The last character that contributed to an entire town’s belief in witches would be Danforth. His stubborn and narrow minded attitude had people dangling from a rope. It is easy to say that Abigail Williams is the triumphant ringleader of the accusers in The Crucible. Constantly pointing fingers, she named name after name and everyone believed her whole heartedly. At the beginning of the play, Reverend Parris accused Abigail of witch craft but to avoid punishment she passed the blame to Tituba saying “I never called him! Tituba, Tituba…” (Miller 42). Abigail took no responsibility for her actions but blamed another person claiming, “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” (Miller 43). Once Tituba confessed to witchcraft, Abigail joined in by accusing others of witchcraft so the negative attention would not be on the girls. Once Abigail started accusing people, Betty woke up from her “infinite” sleep...
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...Throughout the play The Crucible, several characters undergo change but it is Reverend Hale that changes the most from the beginning to the end. Reverend Hale was summoned from Boston to evaluate Salem and diagnose any witchcraft present. Because of his eagerness to please the town of Salem he is manipulated into doing things that he thinks is right. Notably, Reverend Hale in the end manages to try to help the accused out of the trouble he got them into. In detail, upon arriving in Salem, Reverend Hale is very optimistic and ready for a challenge. In the following quote Hale shows his control over the current situation in Salem “Now let me instruct you. We cannot look to superstition in this. The devil is precise; the marks of his presence...
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...Analysis Abigail will stop at nothing to get what she wants no matter the cost or consequences. She is a jealous and deceitful woman in the Crucible by Arthur Miller. Miller writes about how she tries to manipulate people in order to get what she she desires. Her actions in the short story “The Last True Witch Hunt” further prove these characteristics about Abigail and how she behaves. In act one Abigail was talking to the other girls who were involved in the incident in the woods. She said to them “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you”. (p. 1244) Abigail is threatening the girls that if they were to tell anyone about what they were really doing in the woods that night she would harm them. This shows that Abigail is willing to threaten her own friends in order to protect herself. In my short story about Abigail she is willing to get another woman killed in order to be with her husband, exactly like she attempted to do in The...
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...In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, while there are other evils portrayed, Abigail Williams is by far the biggest evil throughout the story. She is a wicked teenaged girl who has her heart set on a man that she will never have and that causes bitterness to develop. While other characters display flaws and moments of unreasonableness, Abigail shows her level of monstrosity through manipulation, compulsive lying and allowing anyone and everyone to get hurt in order to obtain what she wants. Abigail is extremely manipulative, she has many people under the thumb of her control and often uses it to her advantage. For example, the girls all go into the forest and dance, and do other things considered unrighteous by the town. Abigail uses fear to manipulate...
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