Examples Of Paranoia In The Crucible

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The Crucible, Arthur Miller takes the reader into the society and community of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Introducing him or her to a densely populated cast of characters who represent all different sorts of personalities. Miller exposed just how easily and how quickly paranoia can spread throughout a society, and to what lengths people will go to protect the values and the institutions that they consider to be sacred. A tragic hero dies a good man when brought to trial over nothing more than child’s play and dishonesty. Miller dramatized his characters nicely, pitting extreme types against one another to show just how infectious and ridiculous paranoia can become …show more content…

"My wife will never die for me! I will bring your guts into your mouth but that goodness will not die for me!" (Act Four, page 1248) Proctor ultimately viewed his decision as the last chance he had to honor his wife and soon to be born child. Besides the individual guilt he was relieving himself of, John Proctor knew that to lie would have been the wrong thing to do when it came down to being Puritan. He knew that the society in Salem was didentegrating at a rapid pace and in the end he refused to subject himself to their corruption. At one point John proclains to the twon’s authorities. “ You are pulling Heaven down and raising up a whore.” (Act three, page 1262) during that time not many knew how right he was, and of course, soom after his death, people realized he was rought, John proves to the community that even though he might not have been perfect, he was still a good and virtuous personinsede, who would have rathered died a saint than to live as a liar. In the end, Proctor became quite the maty by diplaying that having goodness wth God came first. Eventually, John Proctor gained more from the geroic decisionn to die, than he prbably would have if he had lied to stay alive. Even Elizabeth, his wife, knew that dieing he was feigning something he had been searching for, for a long time. “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him." (Act Four, page 1273) Only as time went on, and the people of Salem realized how biased they had been, did the memory of John’s courage, as well at the real that refused to live as liars, truly stand out to prove that the society had made a horrible mistake by mudering these heroic and saintly people. John Proctor's main fatal flaw