Examples Of Annotation In The Crucible

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Scandal. Sex. Persecution. Desecration. These four distinct concepts are recurring themes which guide the life of John Proctor throughout the tale that is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. As a man of Puritan faith and values, John lives a humble life as a farmer until one exciting evening in the village of Salem, Massachusetts-- when a group of young girls dancing lewdly with a supposed witch in the woods are caught by the town Minister. One of the youth in particular, a cunning girl named Abigail, steals Proctor away for a conversation hidden from the general public, and their secret is revealed to us: their forbidden (not to mention pedophilic) affair a year prior, which had been discovered by John’s wife, Elizabeth. Abigail, anguished by Elizabeth’s discovery and seeking attention from her ex-lover, decides to conspire with her fellow young women to avoid confessing their actions from the woods. A dispute breaks out once a certain girl, Betty, awakes in a screaming fit; the townsmen grow suspicious of her behavior, as she acts as though she is bewitched. John Proctor is …show more content…

John’s willingness to partake in devilish temptation proves his incrimination in some form of witchcraft or another: perhaps his adulterous ways were simply a metaphor for conspiring with the devil himself. Sin, desecration, scandal-- are they not all condemned by the Christian faith? And if witchcraft is condemned as well, are the two inadvertently related? Perhaps the overlying double meaning of The Crucible plot is that sin of any kind will be brought to light eventually. The corrupted man that is John Proctor is an ideal personification of the Christian concept that salvation and forgiveness of sin is the guiding light of mankind, and will save even those who rebuke God’s word in the name of repenting their actions. For even as the case of John Proctor, God loves all, and God forgives

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