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Essay On The Crucible

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Critique of a Author's Craft: Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” “The Crucible”, a play written by Aurther miller, has many layers of meaning and the play is set in the Salem witch trials of 1692, but was written in the early 1950s as a Red Scare and the “witch hunt” atmosphere of the time. Miller wrote the play for the anti communist hearings and the play was also intended to be about the dangers of government overreach, mass hysteria and suppression of individual rights. It was intended to raise awareness about these issues. The point in the play is to show how easily a community can be whipped into fear and paranoia, leading to mistreatment of innocent people. He also shows how individuals are willing to sacrifice others for their own gain, and how fear and false accusations can be used to manipulate those in power. His main point he wanted to get across was for people to realize the dangers of government and suppression of individual rights. One of the main dramatic devices …show more content…

The characters in the play, such as John Proctor and Abigail, are complex and two faced, and their interactions with each other help to convey the themes of the play. For example, John Proctor's struggle with his moral sense and his decision to speak out against the witch trials regardless of the personal cost, highlights the importance of individual integrity and standing up against injustice. Abigail's manipulation of the other characters and her role in instigating the witch trials serves to illustrate the destructive power of fraud and manipulation. Overall, Miller's use of characterization in “The Crucible'' effectively conveys the play's central message and helps to bring the story to life. One of the key conflicts in the play is the struggle between the individuals and the community. This is illustrated by the witch trials, which are instigated by the community and fueled by fear and

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From Salem to McCarthy: How Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" highlights the dangerous consequences of fear and political hysteria. McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials are two significant events in American history, separated by over 200 years. However, they share many similarities in terms of their impact on American society and culture. Both events involved accusations of wrongdoing without sufficient evidence, leading to the persecution of innocent people. In the Salem witch trials, people were accused of practicing witchcraft, while in McCarthyism, people were accused of being communists.

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In history there have been many major events that have shaped the times we live in. Two of the major events of our time are the "witchunts" of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a drama and fictional story of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692-1693. Miller wrote the play as a parable for McCarthyism, when the United States government ostracized people for being communists.

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“Character Analysis over The Crucible” Arthur Miller is a commonly-known playwright, most famous for his 1953 play, The Crucible. The basis for The Crucible came from the witch trials which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during the puritan era. Miller even uses some of the same characters in his dramatized play that were a part of the original witch trials in Salem. However, Miller made a few alterations to the historical members of the Salem society in order to suit his dramatic purpose in The Crucible, particularly Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Samuel Parris.

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The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatic play that expresses a very important message and that is how far people would go to save themselves from the hands of death. There are many characters in the Crucible who are guilty of taking innocent lives, but there are three major characters who, without a doubt, are the most at blame. The play takes place in the city of Salem, a city filled with people that would do anything to keep their reputation clean. Throughout the play, Miller is introducing multiple characters that experience changes in their decisions and negatively influence more people eventually leading up to the witch trials. The main point that the story revolves around is that people would rather lie and blame someone else instead of confessing and accepting the punishment.

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The Crucible reflects the compelling power that fear holds on people and the erratic behaviours that it drives people to perform, and forces them to believe that they must forfeit their humanity by turning against their fellow people to ensure themselves of a false sense of security. After John Proctor, who is a man that holds a high status in society and is well-respected begins having an affair with the familys teenage servant Abigail Williams, they both begin to illustrate rampant hysteria. Despite the misogynistic system of the village, Abigail is a dominant accuser of witchcraft in Salem who begins to go around accusing many people of witchcraft which results in many innocent deaths. Abigail holds a manipulative and power-hungry nature which causes her to perform reckless actions to destory the lives of others, which begins with her affair with John Proctor that enables her to hold power over him. However, there is a main inconsistency throughout the play which is the fact that John names himself, and acts as a honest man but he begins an ongoing affair with Abigail.

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The Salem Witch Trials accusing others of a feared crime showed definite evidence that mass hysteria was to blame. Salem was a religious settlement, following Puritan beliefs (Miller, 6). A large fear for everyone in Salem was the touch of the Devil (Miller, Arthur). According to Puritan beliefs, if a man or woman was touched by the Devil he would convince them to do witchcraft. Once word was mentioned the Devil had possibly touched Salem, the fear spread.

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As time has passed, throughout history, during different periods of time there are parallels. There are three eras that we are focussed on, where there are three types of people during each era. The three different eras that we’re focusing on, are The Salem Witch Trials (1600s), The McCarthy Era (1950s), and Today (2000s); the three types of people are the people who are the reasons why there’s accusations towards the accused, the accused, and finally the accusers.     In The Crucible, or during the Salem Witch Trials, the person that’s the reason why characters were accused is John Proctor. The accuser in the play, who decides to point fingers at everyone, is Abigail Williams.

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When in conversation, statistically speaking when someone is lying, they won’t make eye contact with a person they’re talking to. In this essay, I’m going to go over the differences and similarities between John Proctor and Abigail Williams from the book “The Crucible”. This paper will contain the differences in personality, emotions, and actions they take. Likewise, it will also contain similarities in these listed traits. To start off I’ll begin with their differences in personality.

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Power in Salem flourished in 1962 at the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials. Power is the ability or right to control people, things, or outcomes. The way to have power is to capture it. In the Arthur Miller play, The Crucible, one person abused their power; while the other person was elevated in their social structure in order to save or end innocent people’s lives with her power within her knowledge. In The Crucible, Abigail Williams and Tituba express their power through the means of threats and actions, good or bad.

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The Crucible by Arthur Miller and Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne are two stories that are based on mass hysteria and public shaming. Both stories and their topics are what helped to shape America’s early identity. In The Crucible, the townsfolk accept and become active in the hysterical climate not only out of genuine religious piety but also because it gives them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to act on long-held grudges”. This shows that there is mass hysteria in the story based on the quotation and its explain why people have mass hysteria or why they do it. A group of teenage girls is discovered dancing naked in the woods by the town minister.

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The threat of Communism and the Red Scare put fear of group mentality into many people during the late 1940-50s.   The authors of 1984 and The Crucible used their respective works to comment on the social injustice going on in their own lives, which connects to injustice the exists throughout time anywhere in the world. Miller wrote his play, set in 1692, about Puritans and the Salem witch trials because he believed that, similar to his trial for HUAC in the 1950s, the trials in Salem were caused by false accusations and mass hysteria led by powerful individuals. In 1984, Orwell creates a world in the near future that shows group mentality and its threat to conform society with the government.

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Shawn Jande Ms. Clancy American Literature B3 15 November 2015 The Crucible Analytical Essay Imagine, being accused of a crime you didn’t commit by your neighbors and friends out of jealousy, and desire. This is what many people in the town of Salem had to go through during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. People's motives such as: gaining and maintaining power, and aspirations for what other people had caused them to make irrational, and atrocious decisions. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, desire and power drive characters to create chaos in the community.

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Scapegoating: Taking Heat From Someone Else's Flame In an interview on Faith and Religion with Bill Moyers from PBS, Margaret Atwood once said, “Under stress, society will always scapegoat a person or a group of people.” This belief is shown in the texts The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the cartoon “It’s okay -- We’re hunting Communist” by Herb Block, and her own poem “Half Hanged Mary”.

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