Examples Of Motivation In The Crucible

Character Motivation in The Crucible; Vengeance and Desire
Imagine growing up in a Puritan society, constantly having to follow the strict and normally harsh religious rules that were at the very core of the Puritan life. You would think that the townspeople of Salem would have a mindset to obey all the strict rules, due to the fact that they were threatened by the looming presence of the noose. This was not so in the case of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. All things considered, the character motivation was completely different from what you would expect from a Puritan society. This is strange, because they still had the strict lifestyle of every society around them, but the townspeople didn’t heed to it. There are many examples of these negative-emotion based character motivations scattered all throughout the story. Character motivation in The Crucible was caused by people's thirst for vengeance, power, and other self-based factors that ironically are opposites of Puritan society.

The character motivations were mostly caused by self-based factors, like desire and jealousy. To be more specific, the major causes were vengeance and desire, self-preservation, and preservation of loved ones. All of these were blended together as people were convicted; confessing in order to live, and accusing others of witchcraft. Miller effectively tied in the causes of this motivation as an example of what life was like in the McCarthy era. He used Abigail as an interpretation of Senator Joseph McCarthy, as he was making a “red hunt.” He compares the social attitude of the 50’s as nearly one and the same as the social attitude of the Puritan society in The Crucible. So, therefore, character motivation in The Crucible was normally self-based and caused by negative emotions, as well as a literary interpretation of life in the McCarthy