In this passage Arthur Miller precisely chooses his words to enhance the reader's understanding of the setting. Self denial is when you deny yourself of every physical and emotional needs. Self denial for the puritans was crucial for their survival. By practicing self denial they ate barely enough food to survive, they spend long hours in their fields and not a lot of time sleeping They also had to be vigilantes. When Arthur Miller used the word purposefulness he allows the reader to deeply understand what there life was like during the colonial times. With purposefulness everyone has something that they could be doing for the day and woke each day with a purpose and understanding of what had to be accomplished. Which means that the community