...Self-preservation and the downfall of Salem Self-preservation is the act of protecting one’s self. It is often correlated with pain and fear and it is regarded as a basic human instinct. People often use self-preservation to protect their image and reputation in society, thus potentially having to lie and hurt someone else’s status in the process. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, many characters demonstrate self-preservation to avoid the consequences of their own actions. This results in prolonging the witch trials in the town of Salem, causing the destruction of the community. Reverend Samuel Parris is a prime example of a character that uses self-preservation throughout the play to maintain his high position in society. When he realizes that his daughter Betty and his niece Abigail danced in the woods and potentially performed witchcraft, he knows it can hurt his reputation to be associated with them, especially if the rumours of their blasphemous actions are proven to be true. In act one Parris speaks with Abigail and says, “I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character" (Miller 11). The townsfolk already question his values and see him as an unfit minister for the town. Parris is afraid that the actions of his rebellious daughter and niece will destroy the name he has worked to build over the years and thus give the community...
Words: 1040 - Pages: 5
...Proctor is the tragic hero of the Crucible and that his decision to choose principle over self preservation was an honorable act with the goal of affirming his goodness before God. In the second act of the Crucible, the audience first meets the character of John Proctor while he is in his home with his wife Elizabeth. The reader’s initial reaction of Proctor is that he is a benevolent husband as he states “I mean to please you Elizabeth” (50) and is otherwise kind and respectful towards his wife. However, as the act progresses, the reader comes to find out...
Words: 1021 - Pages: 5
...In 1954, playwright Arthur Miller was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as part of a series of trials remarkably similar to the witch trials portrayed in his play The Crucible, written two years previously. Just over forty years later, with HUAC long out of power, The Crucible became a film with a budget of $25 million, produced by the well-known Twentieth-Century Fox Film Corporation (IMDb). The perseverance of this story is a testament to its intriguing portrayal of power struggle during the Salem witch trials that applies to many situations even today. The movie version of the play alters the text and storyline; in particular, the scene in which Tituba is accused and confesses was changed in several ways in order to focus on the details of the witch trials that made them so effective....
Words: 733 - Pages: 3
...collective human experience. In turn, preconceived notions of the audience are challenged by the exposition of humanity’s complexity to invoke personal assessment and reflection. As such, it is presented within Arthur Miller’s tragedy, “The Crucible”, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romantic fiction, “The Scarlet Letter”. Both works explore the contradictions of judgement and consider the inconsistencies of personal integrity, encapsulated under the guise of Puritanism within New England America, political agenda, and historical calamity. Therefore, audiences foster introspection and reflection by developing nuance surrounding the inconsistencies of human...
Words: 1531 - Pages: 7
...Fear can influence decisions and corrupt ones morality. The fear of death, judgment and isolation all have the capability to make good people do bad things. Arthur Miller portrays this phenomenon in his book The Crucible. In The Crucible there are distinct examples of fear debilitating ones ability to make the right decision. Mary Warrens fear of death resulted in many deaths. John Proctor’s fear of judgment kept him from revealing the truth. Lastly, the fear of the unknown, in the mind of the townspeople, set off a series of devastating events that transpired throughout the book. Furthermore, fear darkened their conscience, and as a result, self preservation became prioritized above all else. Mary Warren, naturally a honest women, wanted to confess to the dancing and conjuring spirits in the woods. However, Abigail disagreed and threatened to kill her and, consequently, fear overtook Mary until she was Abigail’s slave, or rather, a slave to fear (Miller, pg.19). Mary knew the truth, the truth that could have saved lives, but withheld it. She lied and became dishonest, for the reason that she was afraid of being hung as a witch herself. Therefore, she accused John Proctor, an upstanding man, and in doing so, she put him to death (Miller, pg.118). She was terrified of death, and Abigail made that horror something real that she couldn't overcome. So in turn, she took the pressure off herself and took a mans life to preserve her own. Abigail was a dishonest and deceitful...
Words: 1253 - Pages: 6
...“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” - Joseph Conrad In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, the whole town is captivated by paranoia. This play is based on the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 in a small Puritan town in Massachusetts. When a young girl named Betty Parris falls ill, the entire village suspects witchcraft. Even though Betty’s cousin, Abigail Williams, recognizes that the illness is the result of fear and not black magic, she begins blaming innocent people of collaborating with the devil. This quote by Joseph Conrad expresses his thought that a supernatural source of evil is not necessary and that humankind is entirely capable of the depravity in...
Words: 952 - Pages: 4
...Americans had undergone the"worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people”. After the Church of England reformed, the Puritans contradicted this renewal, so in 1630 they immigrated to the new continent to practice their religion and to live their lives candidly. When they arrived they met the Natives and consider them savages and ignorant for their belief in spirits. The Indians wanted to make collaboration with the Puritans but the Puritans just wanted to obtain as much land as they could. As a result of that, millions of Indians were killed by trying to defend their own freedom and land. Both selections, (The Crucibles and The Scarlet Letter) emphasise this discrimination. Puritans fled to the new world for freedom but took it away from the Natives. Puritans victimised the Native Indians and by this they left a huge ramification in America till this day, the impact of racism. When Abigail was just a child, she witnessed her parents' brutal murders. "I saw Indians smash my dear parent's heads on the pillow next to mine..." (page 20). After the Puritans forced the Indians out of their home, the Indians stroke back and attacked Abigail's home town. The people of Salem believe that what happened to Abigail's parents was harsh and barbaric, when really they were just the same. The English attack and the Indians assailed back. What happen to the Natives...
Words: 1520 - Pages: 7
...The devil is not the only thing to fear. When rumors of witchcraft start to take over Salem, religious leaders begin to use their power in questionable ways. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the contrast between Reverend Hale's reasoned faith and Reverend Parris’ fearful authoritarian approach to religious thought reflects how personal motivations shape one’s interpretation of religious power. Reverend Hale practices his faith through a reasoned lens, seeking to understand the truth about witchcraft, and uses his power as a religious figure in an attempt to serve religious justice to protect the townspeople. First, when Reverend Hale is introduced, the stage directions characterize him as a man whose “goal is light goodness and its preservation, and he...
Words: 650 - Pages: 3
...certain situations like when someone else's feelings are at stake, personal protection, and self preservation. “ I have three children - how may I teach them to walk...
Words: 754 - Pages: 4
...The Social Science Mixed Racial and Cultural Groups in the United States ENG COMP II/ABE1314D Dr. Nicole Martinez and Mrs. Karissa Sullivan May 6, 2013 Mixed Racial and Cultural Groups of the United States is a huge topic being discussed recently because mixed racial relationships are increasing daily all around the world, but especially with-in the United States. There are many individuals who elaborate on whether or not each group expects to be treated as a separate entity, or be considered just Americans without the hyphen. Is the United States better off by classifying individuals by their ethnic background? What do we actually gain by these separate entities? Why is the government so concerned on everyone’s ethnic background? These are just a few of many questions that are being discussed and I will answer based on facts. While mixed racial and cultural groups continue to rise in the United States, it seems that the vast majority continues to pursue their separate ethnicity with-in the United States, but when approached abroad with-in another country, they seem to consider themselves as Americans vice African-American, Mexican American, Asian American, etc. (Perez and Hirshmann, “The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the United States). Many Americans have multiple identities that reflect complex ancestral origins, tribal and communal associations, and varied ideological outlooks on race and culture. In general, people do not change their ethnicities...
Words: 2233 - Pages: 9
...Analysing the Israel-Palestine Conflict in International Relations Perspective Introduction to International Relations Analysing the Israel-Palestine Conflict in International Relations Perspective Background Since the early 20th Century, Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting over the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. With the assumption that Palestine is a state to facilitate discussion, this report sketches out the most significant elements of the conflict on the three levels defined by Kenneth Waltz, and applies the Realist theory of international relations (IR) to the “Two-State” solution. Levels of analysis 1. First Level The first level focuses on individuals involved in the international relations. On Israel’s side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has an important role to play because he has the final word in all political decisions. On the side of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas enjoys an even stronger position. Not only is he the chairman of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), he is also the President of the Palestinian National Authority (PA), which is the ruling body for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. He does not to have to face elections as he runs an authoritarian regime. On the regional level, the most influential figure is Mohamed Morsi, President of Egypt, who is vital to negotiating efforts for the conflict. Egypt is the first Arab country to accept Israel as...
Words: 1977 - Pages: 8
...Wrong Nature William Cronon This will seem a heretical claim to many environmentalists, since the idea of wilderness has for decades been a fundamental tenet-indeed, a passionof the environmental movement, especially in the United States. For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth. It is an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity, the one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness. Seen in this way, wilderness presents itself as the best antidote to our human selves, a refuge we must somehow recover if we hope to save the planet. As Henry David Thoreau once famously declared, “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.“’ But is it? The more one knows of its peculiar history, the more one realizes that wilderness is not quite what it seems. Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation-indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history. It is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it is a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made. Wilderness hides its unnaturalness behind a mask that...
Words: 11026 - Pages: 45
...3673 THE ‘UNCANNY’ (1919) Freud - Complete Works. Ivan Smith 2000. All Rights Reserved. 3675 THE ‘UNCANNY’ I It is only rarely that a psycho-analyst feels impelled to investigate the subject of aesthetics, even when aesthetics is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty but the theory of the qualities of feeling. He works in other strata of mental life and has little to do with the subdued emotional impulses which, inhibited in their aims and dependent on a host of concurrent factors, usually furnish the material for the study of aesthetics. But it does occasionally happen that he has to interest himself in some particular province of that subject; and this province usually proves to be a rather remote one, and one which has been neglected in the specialist literature of aesthetics. The subject of the ‘uncanny’ is a province of this kind. It is undoubtedly related to what is frightening - to what arouses dread and horror; equally certainly, too, the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with what excites fear in general. Yet we may expect that a special core of feeling is present which justifies the use of a special conceptual term. One is curious to know what this common core is which allows us to distinguish as ‘uncanny’ certain things which lie within the field of what is frightening. As good as nothing is to be found upon this subject in comprehensive treatises on aesthetics, which in general prefer to concern...
Words: 13536 - Pages: 55
...CARIBBEAN EXAMINATIONS COUNCIL Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate CSEC® CHEMISTRY SYLLABUS Effective for examinations from May–June 2015 CXC 21/G/SYLL 13 Published by the Caribbean Examinations Council. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the author or publisher. Correspondence related to the syllabus should be addressed to: The Pro-Registrar Caribbean Examinations Council Caenwood Centre 37 Arnold Road, Kingston 5, Jamaica Telephone Number: + 1 (876) 630-5200 Facsimile Number: + 1 (876) 967-4972 E-mail Address: cxcwzo@cxc.org Website: www.cxc.org Copyright © 2013 by Caribbean Examinations Council The Garrison, St Michael BB14038, Barbados CXC 21/G/SYLL 13 Contents RATIONALE ................................................................................................................................... AIMS ............................................................................................................................................. CANDIDATE POPULATION ............................................................................................................. SUGGESTED TIME-TABLE ALLOCATION ........................................................................................ ORGANISATION OF THE SYLLABUS .................................................
Words: 24316 - Pages: 98
...“You will know them by their fruits.” Mt. 7:16 CHRISTIAN PURITY By Randolph Sinks Foster FOREWORD The past generation produced some outstanding leaders and writers among the advocates of the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification. The writings of these authors are of such high rank and their value has been so tested by time that today their books are worthy to be recognized as classics in this field of religious literature. That these writings, all of which are now out of print, may be preserved and made available to the people of the holiness movement today, the publishers are presenting this series of Abridged Holiness Classics. The abridged message is that of the original author from which has been deleted material mostly applicable to the previous generation. The man called upon to undertake the task of abridgment for the first four volumes in the series is the Rev. John Paul, who is well known as a Bible scholar and as an authoritative preacher and teacher of the doctrine of entire sanctification. That Doctor Paul has done an admirable work will be recognized by the reader of this series which starts with the following titles: “Purity and Maturity,” and “Perfect Love,” by J. A. Wood; “Possibilities of Grace,” by Asbury Lowrey; “Christian Purity,” by Bishop Foster. It is the sincere prayer of the publishers that these classics in abridged form will be the blessing to the readers of this generation that they were to the generation to which they were written originally...
Words: 30530 - Pages: 123
