...In the Crucible, by Arthur Miller my character Abigail is seen as a selfish person who only looks to do things for her own convenience. Throughout the book we can see Abigail do many actions to benefit herself rather than helping others. The reason she acts this way is because she is worried about her reputation. She also fears being singled out from the Christian community. The only thing she has left is her reputation which is why it is so important that she keeps it. In the phrase “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!,” she tries to act as if she was also a culprit in the situation. In another part of the book she threatens Betty to not speak a word about the accusations. “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.” Abigail will go to any extreme to save her reputation even if it means using violence to protect herself....
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...Movies tend to represent pieces of literature very different than the original piece writing. As a result of this, the movie version of a piece of literature may alter one’s view of the original writing due to many different factors. In the movie version of the crucible one may tend to see left out or added scenes that differ from the play. However, although the movie version of a text can sometimes be drastically different than the original piece, just how similar and different really are these two mediums in The Crucible? Despite the altering of some elements of scenes in the movie version of The Crucible, characters tended to remain more similar than they did different. One example of this is portrayed in the character of Abigail Williams....
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...Condemned Do you know the story of the crucible, if so do remember abigail williams. I just wanted to tell you do you think that abigail is guilty for the lies she made. She has committed in the town of salem. Is Abigail to blame for everything is she responsible? Abigail in the crucible is a very chaotic girl. She is a girl that hates everyone she wants everyone to do what she wants to do. She is a girl who will do something bad and she will get in trouble and she won’t get in trouble. Abigail is a horrible girl she made up a lie to get out of trouble and it cause many of innocent people to die for it. How much is Abigail to blame for the events that took place? She is all to blame for all of the horrifying events that happened in the town of Salem. She did...
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...Having someone executed for a false accusation is an extremely horrid offense. Although, in 1692 to 1693, it was a trend upon the people of Salem. Arthur Miller specifically wrote The Crucible about The Red Scare so this generation could know how there was a lack of knowledge among the men and women in the court. “It would probably never have occurred to me to write a play about the Salem witch trials of 1692 had I not seen some astonishing correspondences with that calamity in the America of the late 40s and early 50s. My basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralyzed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse,” Miller states...
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...Abigail is usually seen as the originator of most of the accusations of witchcraft. Some readers have seen her character as a victim of the Puritan society against which she rebels. I do not think that she is a victim of the Puritan society. She puts on all the attention on herself. She causes trouble and does not take responsibility for her actions. Abigail plans all of these plots and they work out in her favor. She is an evil genius when it comes to planning something that she wants. In the Puritan society, it is very religious. They mostly focus on sin and salvation. In the Puritan society, if someone does something that is out of the ordinary, they would accuse the person as someone who performs witchcraft. They would accuse...
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...beliefs can lead to disastrous things. While the film, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, depicts the overall history of the Salem Witch Trials, it does have historical inaccuracies within the characters and their relationships that change the way we perceive history. Witchcraft has been present since the Paleolithic period but it began to show up in colonial America in the middle of the 17th century. It became a capital offense as far back as 1642. Shortly after becoming a law, the first execution was made in Connecticut. This case was disturbing because it influenced everyone, in puritan societies, to believe that Satan was close at hand and physically able to act in the real world.. At the time, Salem was a Puritan community in which was built upon those who fled religious execution therefore the religious authority and the government was not separate. Those who would question local authority were blamed for questioning royal authority. Eventually the hysteria spread to Massachusetts in 1692 after two young girls had been acting in alarming and been in physical pain. The physician concluded that the girls were not victims of a physical or mental illness but victims of witchcraft.2. These two girls were Abigail Williams and Betty Parris. Abigail Williams, who was 11 years of age, had a...
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...they get away with it. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Abigail Williams is one of those mean girls. The Crucible displays the chaos of the Salem Witch Trials, during which, an accusation meant time in jail and a trial. If the indicted person admitted to practicing witchcraft and repented, he or she was set free; but if the accused did not confess, that person lost their life. Abigail is one of the girls that charges many people of witchcraft, which leads many of those people to their hanging. She especially has it out for John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, because Abigail would love to replace her. Ever diabolical, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft...
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...The Crucible In the tragedy play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller there were a lot of characters involved with the Salem witch trials, but there were only three characters who were responsible for it. The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials who several young girls were supposedly afflicted by witchcraft. And so the girls accused innocent people in their town for witchcraft also mostly accusing people who they or their families dislike so they would be hanged. In total 20 people were killed due to the witch trials. The three characters who were responsible for the Salem witch trials are Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris, and Betty Parris. Abigail Williams has most part why the witch trials started because she knew this was all a...
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...LC Plays and Performance – Formative Assesment To what extent are the plays you have studied on this module concerned with issues of gender? Both The Crucible by Arthur Miller and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare are highly evocative pieces of theatre that have transcended the category of brilliance and have had a profound effect on the course of Western literature and culture. Both plays explore a broad range of themes, from the supernatural to comments on the power of religion in society. However, I have chosen to explore the ways in which they portray the theme of gender. Firstly I will examine the issues regarding gender in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in particular the oppression of the female characters. I will explore Shakespeare’s portrayal of Titania and Hermia and his ability to disguise the deeper feminist consciousness that is at work. I will then look at the way in which gender is presented in Miller’s The Crucible, ranging from the heroic depiction of John Proctor to the oppositional presentations of Abigail and Elizabeth. William Shakespeare is a famously suggestive author in terms of highlighting issues regarding gender ideology. Although in some works, such as Othello, he reflects and arguably supports the stereotyping of men and women, he is also seen to challenge such representations. A Midsummer Night’s Dream dramatizes tensions between genders, from a young woman quarrelling with her father for the right to choose her own husband, to Theseus...
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...they did not confess they would be hanged in front of the whole town. The play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is all about the idea of the Salem witch trials. The Crucible is a play about people that can be related to a jack in the box that is capable of exploding with drama. The handle of the jack in the box is the stirring of the drama started by Tituba by confessing to being a witch. “No, no, don’t hang Tituba! I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir”- Tituba (847). By Tituba confessing to being a witch it is stirring the handle to a whole mess they won’t expect later. The only reason she confesses to being a witch is because Putnam wants to hang her for not confessing. When she confessed it triggered something in Abigail to start a whole parade of blaming people. Tituba is the conductor to spinning the handle of the jack in the box. When the handle is done being spun and toy jack pops out of the small wooden box spreading fear through young kids. As like the jack head popping out Abigail and the girls spread fear through Salem. Abigail is a very dauntless young women who is not afraid to lie to get her way. Abigail and her minions (girls) goal was to get Elizabeth Proctor arrested for being a witch and hanged to death because Abigail was in love with Elizabeth’s husband John. “Abigail were stabbed tonight; a needle were stuck into her belly-” - Hale (860). By Abigail being “stabbed” in the belly with a needle it gave her extreme power in the village...
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...there are certain characters one might hate and others one might love. In The Crucible, most readers aggressively hate Abigail from the beginning. Arthur Miller ensures this happens by utilizing the stage direction, Abigail’s actions and dialogue with others, and other’s actions towards Abigail to give off the impression that Abigail is vindictive from page one. Arthur Miller purposely portrayed Abigail as vindictive by how he wrote the stage...
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...Centuries of art, literature, thought, and religious doctrine have painted women as temptresses and wicked witches. The female characters in Arthur Miller’s 1953 drama, The Crucible, reflect these ‘evil’ women of myth and legend. The patriarchal, austere society of the Puritan town of Salem during the witch trials demonstrates the societal effect of centuries of female vilification. Powerful women have historically been branded as witches or accused of evil deeds as a way to...
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...Mass hysteria can lead to confusion and the altering of morals. During a time of large-scale panic, many aspects of society are affected and changed. In Arthur Miller’s drama, The Crucible, the court becomes flawed and operates under faulty logic by accepting flimsy evidence, performing unfair tests, and taking automatic proof of guilt. During the time period of The Crucible, religion played a major part in society. When religion is not strictly followed, the court automatically assumes guilt. When Proctor was asked if he was Christian, Parris chimed in by saying “ Such a Christian that will not come to church but once in a month” (90). Certainly in a time of mass hysteria and trials the church searched for anyone who did not strictly...
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...The Revolution in Salem: John Proctor The Crucible was a pay that was written by Arthur Miller in 1952 because he was accused of being a communist and he didn't agree with McCarthyism. During the Cold War many were accused of McCarthyism, which is making accusations without proper evidence, and Arthur Miller was a victim of this. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory to McCarthyism. Arthur Miller wrote about people being accused of involvement with witchcraft. Throughout the play The Crucible many of the characters are changing because of what is happening around them, with everyone getting accused of witchcraft. One of the main dynamic characters, a character that has a significant change in attitude, personality, or behavior, in this play is John Proctor. John Proctor is a considered an honest man in Salem. In the first two or three acts we see that John Proctor could be considered non-religious. John Proctor wasn’t very religious...
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...Discuss how an idea developed in a text you have studied. In the play ‘The Crucible’ written my Arthur Miller an important idea the developed throughout the text is reputation and injustice. It shows us that in an environment where people are shelter, oblivious, and ignorant, peple may behave in ways that are unjust in order to protect their reputation. Arthur Miller was able to develope these ideas through the setting and characters. He was able to incorporate his own experience into his play as he was a victim himself of McCarthyism. The Crucible is set in a small town, Salem in Massachusetts, America in 1692 where people were oblivious of anything other than God, believing that they were self righteous. In such time, reputation determined how people looked at you and was considered something of great importance. “A man will not cast away his good name“ shows us the importance of people’s reputation at that time. When something is regarded as such a high level of importance to someone, people will do anything in order to protect it even if the means are considered unjust and ‘unrighteous‘. Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of ‘blackening my name in the village‘ after commiting adultery with John Proctor, Elizabeth’s husband. This cause her to fear for her reputation, and how people will view her. Afraid of her reputation, Abigail Williams acts in fear to and pointed the finger at Tituba claiming that she was practising witchcraft ‘she sends her spirit on me in Church; she...
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