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Corruption In The Crucible

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Back in the 1600’s the only people that had a large say in how things would be directed were the ministers and officials. Men generally had the greater influence, especially in Puritan towns like Salem. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, there is an odd shift of power that normally wouldn’t even be possible. Superstition and accusations start going around Salem and people are trying to differ between religious value and common sense. Absolute power and corruption are often a result of fear and this is most evident in The Crucible as young girls gain some influence over the town. Young girls’ words who were once not taken seriously are now taken literally in whatever they say. Abigail Williams and her friends made accusations which led to the …show more content…

If they were correct about their first accusations they must be correct about the other accusations right? The court and other people believed the girls, now they can accuse almost anyone they want: “It’s God’s work we do… I’m – I am an official of the court” (Miller Act II). Mary Warren, who is a young girl, became an official of the court and had a big influence over whether people would be guilty or not. This is a lot of power for anyone, and giving it to a young girl is questionable. Mary also had enough influence to “stop” Goody Proctor from being totally accused in court and said “But I never see no sign you ever sent your spirit out to hurt no one, and seeing I do live so closely with you, they dismissed it” (Miller Act II). People with enough sense know this too and fear starts to creep into those wondering if they will be accused or not. The girls and others also knew that once they accused someone, she would either have to confess or deny being a witch and be killed: “Hale: They have confessed it. Proctor: And why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that” (Miller)? So if someone is accused they will not get out of it scot-free even if they were truly

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In the movie “Just Ask My Children”, the boys wanted everything to be over with so they said the answers that the detectives wanted to hear and lied. As the court case got longer in The Crucible the word started to spread about witches and people started accusing each other of being witches. In Just Ask My Children the word started to spread about their court case and more and more of the same court cases started to happen every where . There was some severe

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675 Words | 3 Pages

Abigail then tells John Proctor (a man she had been having an affair with in the past) that the ill girls had nothing to with witchcraft. Elizabeth tells John to tell Reverend Hale what she had said, but he claimed that they would not believe him. The girls then started blaming innocent people of witchcraft from all ages claiming they saw the devil with them. There were many people who were hung pleading that they had nothing to do with witchcraft. John Proctor then grew tired of the accusations the girls so wrongfully laid upon innocent people.

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623 Words | 3 Pages

Preceding the Salem witch trails, the court fell under attack. Those who made confessions began to recant them. Though they played a direct role in the executions of innocent people, they insisted that they only made accusations out of force. In Document 77, Margaret Jacobs describes the ordeal of how she was told to either confess or be hanged. In another record, “Declaration of Mary Osgood, Mary Tyler, Deliverance Dane, Abigail Barker, Sarah Wilson, and Hannah Tyler,” the girls contend, “There was no other way to save our lives, as the case was then circumstanced, but by our confessing ourselves to be such and such persons as the afflicted represented us to be; they out of tenderness and pity persuaded us to confess what we did confess”

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692 Words | 3 Pages

Society as a whole seeks to satisfy themselves. This may be at the expense of their peers or individuals they are associated with. Arthur Miller brilliantly displays this dark side of humanity’s side in his play The Crucible. This play is based on the Salem witch trials in the early 1690s. During the Salem witch trials over two hundred people were accused of witchcraft and twenty were executed.

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676 Words | 3 Pages

At the same time he is doing his duty of making her confess. Nevertheless, Reverend Hale knows that John and Elizabeth are innocent, and that Abigail Williams and the girls are guilty of witchcraft.” You are goodwife Proctor”(2. 266-267). He could have done something more than just trying to convince Judge Danforth that they are innocent.

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678 Words | 3 Pages

Around the time of the witch trials, the people in Salem were very religious. Rumors were easily spread and it was nearly impossible to prove yourself innocent if people were talking about you otherwise. During the witch hysteria, innocent people were imprisoned and and executed because someone has accused them of being a witch. It is understandable that some would accuse others to save themselves from imprisonment or from possible death. However, I believe Abigail should be held responsible for the imprisonment and execution of innocent people because she threaten the girls, so they would act bewitched and she also lied about getting stabbed by a needle and making it look like as if Elizabeth Proctor did it with witchcraft.

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735 Words | 3 Pages

The townspeople believed that to become a witch you have to be put under a spell by someone who is already a witch so the girls couldn't of done it themselves. The girls may have been in shock and just started believing that they were under a spell. The witch trials were not only wrong but ineffective the tests do not prove that they are witches. The idea of witchcraft is false and anything that was considered witchcraft could be explained today by science.

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1112 Words | 5 Pages

As Bob Marley once said, “The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” Integrity is the quality of being honest and upholding one’s morals and principles. Living in a fast-paced and ever-changing society, human beings have come into contact with adversity and hardship all throughout history. Those who act with integrity during tough times have a major influence on those around them, and taking a stand and upholding ones’ beliefs and morals at great self sacrifice can inspire and encourage others to do the same. Arthur Miller’s 1953 play, The Crucible is a prime example of upholding integrity, and the characters within the play face difficult choices between doing

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393 Words | 2 Pages

The girls in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible lied about the elders in Salem resulting in the excommunicating and deaths of several of the townspeople. Teenaged girls still lie about adults and adults’ lives are still ruined by the lies. Universally, one of teenagers favorite targets to lie about is teachers and coaches. They lie about grades, about bullying teachers, about homework, and about the abuse from coaches and all the lies end up costing the teacher, not the teens. The girls in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible lied about the elders in Salem resulting in the excommunicating and deaths of several of the townspeople.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

Power in our society nowadays is very misgiven and abused. When people have power they tend to use it for their own benefit and to manipulate people into believing them. In the play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller dramatizes the Salem witch trials of 1692 in order to show his audience how easy it was to be accused and hung for witchcraft. In the Crucible a group of young girls were caught dancing in the woods and in order to not receive a punishment they lied saying they got witched. The girls blamed many people of the town of being witches and caused conflict all over the village.

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565 Words | 3 Pages

She accuses all of the wives in the village basically, she also shouts names of random people and says that they are capable of witchcraft. Need I remind you that these are innocent women that she is putting all of the blame on, but for what? To save herself, if she as innocent as she claims to be then there should be no need for cover ups. She also lied about Mary Warren being a bird that was apparently attacking her and the girls. She was a very manipulative girl throughout the whole trial, she accused many and lied about a lot.

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2048 Words | 9 Pages

A honey bees ' wings stroke 11,400 times per minute, making a distinctive buzzing noise (Delaplane). There are many things that people don’t know about bees. Such as when beekeeping started, the difference between hobbyist and commercial beekeepers. There are also different types of bees, different types of honey and different uses of honey. Most people are perfectly fine never encountering a bee or knowing anything about them.

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914 Words | 4 Pages

Published in 1952, during a period of cold war tensions, which culminated in the ideological witch trials of the mcarthy era in America; The crucible by Arthure miller is set in 1692 during the witch trials in salem massachusetts. The author has used allegory to position the reader to draw parrelels betweeen the to time periods and critisize the persecution that occured in both eras. One of the main themes that Miller has used to portray this viewpoint is the representation of personal integrity. Integrity is the quality of having strong moral pronciples. This is acheived through strongly contrasted characterisation of characters such as Abigail williams and and Rebecca Nurse, aswell as the inclusion of textual features such as irony, symbolism

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429 Words | 2 Pages

Abigail Williams is not your typical teenage girl. She is a girl that will drink blood to kill someone, accuse people of witchcraft, and have a affair. By looking at The Crucible, one can see that Abigail Williams develops the theme of reputation, which is important because people who fear losing their reputation spread hysteria. Protecting her reputation motivates Abigail Williams to accuse others of being a witch.

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1011 Words | 5 Pages

Because the accusers were merely young women, of course they would be telling the truth. This demonstrates how males ruled Salem, but how women could efficiently portray their purity and trustworthiness through their innocence and ability to appear naïve, as men were privileged and women were marginalised and of as lower class. The power that gender has also deeply affects the power that a name holds. Men are the ones who carry on their name, therefore it is important that their name holds a certain power or role in the town. For example, Proctor did not want to admit to being part of any witchcraft because he did not want to have his name blackened for the sake of his children and wife.

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