Crucible Thematic Messages

Themes are commonly found throughout literature, they are the lessons that are learned from books to prepare us for life. Thematic messages are commonly spread throughout the books, most of which are associated with a certain character. Authors tend to give different real-life themes to certain characters. For example, the antagonist might get the greedy message, and the protagonist will get the ‘life isn’t easy’ one. Themes are found anywhere and everywhere in literature, like a scavenger hunt. In Arthur Miller’s book « The Crucible », many thematic messages are found. The premise of Miller’s book was to compare communism to the Salem witch trials, the story is a play set in Salem, Massachusetts in the year 1691. It shows the background of

Vengeance is shown throughout the whole play. If you look at it, it’s basically how the whole thing started. One of the very first ways vengeance is shown is during the seance scene with the girls and Tituba. Abigail had just been fired by Elizabeth Proctor after discovering an affair between her and Elizabeth’s husband. Due to this, Abigail wants revenge on Elizabeth by wanting her to be dead. Another example of vengeance is when Elizabeth is accused by Abigail of witchcraft, her husband, John, tries to expose their affair to try to get back at Abigail for accusing Elizabeth. Because of Abby’s accusation, that’s why John tried to expose her. A third example is when Giles Corey accuses Thomas Putnam’s daughter, Ruth, of faking an accusation against George Jacobs. Putnam and his family had been taking land away from the Coreys for over a generation and Giles was fed up. There was proof of Ruth faking an accusation against Jacobs so that her father could acquire even more land. This probably wouldn't have happened if the Putnams hadn’t been previously known to take land from the

This angers Abigail to do many things throughout the play. This first one is right at the beginning, she is so jealous of the love between John and Elizabeth that during a seance, Abigail wishes death upon Elizabeth and drinks blood to make it “come true”. This only occurs because Abigail is jealous of John’s love for Elizabeth. Another form of jealousy comes from another character, Ann Putnam. Ann Putnam shows jealousy by being resentful towards Rebecca Nurse. The reason for this is that out of her 8 kids, only one survived. Rebecca, on the other hand, all kids survive. This comes later into place when the Putnams start accusing her of witchcraft since all her kids are alive and 78 of theirs died. Both of these characteristics of characters then came into place when it came to terms of power. Many characters in The Crucible thrived off of authority. Many of these characters abuse their authority. One example is Abigail. Abigail started getting « popular » when she first started accusing people of witchcraft. This then gave Abigail a lot of power because lots of people would begin to believe her due to the lack of proof from the convicted