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How Does Arthur Miller Use Irony In The Crucible

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In “The Crucible”, Arthur Miller displays one of the flaws of mankind by bringing us back to a period of time where confusion and panic spread. The Salem Witch Trials were a dark period of time, filled with false accusations and unjustified executions that ultimately showed how humans are able to be manipulated and used by others to achieve personal goals. A similar period of time to that of “The Crucible” was during the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy accused many individuals of being associated with communists including Miller himself. Miller’s usage of irony in “The Crucible” brings to light all of the imperfections that occur in these situations and shows the extent of how brainwashed a society can become. Irony was a prevalent rhetorical
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175 Words | 1 Pages

Sardonic tone reveals the characters’ true nature and hypocrisy to the audience through contradictions in writing. When introducing Mr. Putnam, Miller writes that “he was a man with many grievances, at least one of which appears justified” (Miller 14). The second part of the sentence undercuts the first, discrediting Mr. Putnam and his grievances. Miller’s sardonic tone indicates what he thinks, and by extension what he wants the audience to think, about Mr. Putnam. The tone also acts as character building for Mr. Putnam, revealing his personality.

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221 Words | 1 Pages

Dramatic irony is a huge part of 'The Crucible' as throughout the play, there are many ideas and notions that the audience knows but the other characters do not. In many scenes, especially scenes with Abigail Williams, there is an ounce of dramatic irony that causes frustration among the audience, whilst also creating a story line. An example of this is when the audience knows Abigail and "the girls" are lying about witches in Salem because of the scene in Act One describing how scared they were about people finding out what happened in the woods. The audience, Abigail and "the girls" know the whole witch idea is a huge rouse but the other characters in the play do not have any idea. This causes the audience to become overly frustrated and

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980 Words | 4 Pages

During the time that Arthur Miller created the Crucible, America was dealing with a very similar problem compared to the Salem witch trails. This problem was called McCarthyism, it was believed that a few hundred communists had entered the country, and they posed a threat to American safety. The accusations of communists in the country caused mass paranoia among the entire United States. Arthur Miller was one of them accused of being a communist and was trialed for it, which most likely lead to the creation of his play the Crucible. After the end of both events - the Salem witch hunt and McCarthyism - the effects afterward left devastating results and lingered for many more years to come.

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807 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout history the fear of corruption and change has compelled people to go to drastic measures to prevent it. The Crucible, a play by arthur Miller, is set in an environment of religious citizens who fear that the devil and witchcraft will corrupt their society. Much like The Crucible, McCarthyism caused the citizens in America to fear corruption of the government by communism. Arthur Miller used his play the crucible as a direct response to McCarthyism and through this play Miller writes about the Salem witch trials during the McCarthy period to comment on how history repeats itself. The social and political factors in The Crucible resemble those in America during the red scare and McCarthyism.

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790 Words | 4 Pages

Arthur Miller was a playwright and a political activist speaking up addressing societal issues. One of his most well-known works being The Crucible, addressed McCarthyism and its absurd purpose. Miller, creator of The Crucible was blacklisted, and accused of being a communist along with many other entertainers (“Arthur Miller”). Through all this ignorance and delusional fear, Arthur Miller was inspired to explore the similarities and parallels of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism.

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453 Words | 2 Pages

The Crucible is Inspired by the McCarthy time the 1950’s, Arthur Miller’s play, mainly focused the Salem witch trials, carelessness that can result from desires, and pleasure for others. Arthur Miller bases the play on historical things of the Salem witch trials. He starts of the play with Revered Samuel Parris’ daughter, his niece Abigail, the slave Tituba, and some village girls dancing in the woods. Rather than suffer punishment for their actions, the girls accused other women and men of witchcraft. The girls say that they saw the other people practicing witchcraft.

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696 Words | 3 Pages

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, as a response to McCarthyism, which is, in general, accusing people of crimes with little to no proof. It ran rampant through the United States during the Second Red Scare through the early 1950s (exactly when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible). In The Crucible, Miller juxtaposes the leaders, who rationally think for themselves, and the followers, who believe what everybody else believes, through irony, imagery, and denotation. The Crucible is riddled with irony, and Arthur Miller utilizes situational and dramatic irony to show the difference between followers and leaders.

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501 Words | 3 Pages

An interesting fact about John Proctors affair with Abigail affects the story a lot because I wasn’t expecting that secret to ever come out. I honestly didn’t think it was that deep because he curved her twice. So I thought she would get the hang of he don’t want her anymore and that he wants his wife. But, instead she wants to frame Elizabeth and put a lot of people life in risk just to get something she isn’t even going to get. Abigail puts a lot of people live in danger and goes through all this mumbo jumbo just run out of town.

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171 Words | 1 Pages

Out of the many varying types of irony presented in Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, situational is by far the most evident. Miller included this to show the idea that the entirety of the Salem witch trials was ironic. The Puritans followed the concept of a theocracyin an attempt to bring the community closer together and ultimately rid themselves of the danger of wicthraft. However, this was most certainly not the case in Salem. Sotuational irony playes a part in this towards the end of the play when the survuors are starting to realize all of the bad things that have come from their actions over the past year, “there are orphans wandering from house to house; abandoned cattle bellow on the highroads, the stink of rotting crops hangs everywhere,

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421 Words | 2 Pages

G.Williamson 27 January 2023 CCR English III Block 2 ¨The crucible¨ is a story that revolves around the salem witch trials. Many different themes could come from this story. One main theme I thought of was irony. Irony is known as a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.

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1257 Words | 6 Pages

The Salem witch trials proved to be one of the most cruel and fear driven events to ever occur in history. Many innocent people were accused of witchcraft, and while some got out of the situation alive not everyone was as lucky. Arthur Miller the author of The Crucible conveys this horrific event in his book and demonstrates what fear can lead people to do. But the reason as to why Arthur Miller felt the need to write The Crucible in the first place was because the unfortunate reality that history seemed to have repeated itself again. In the article “Are You Now or Were You Ever”, Arthur Miller claims that the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trials were similar and he does this through his choice of diction, figurative language, and rhetorical questions.

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719 Words | 3 Pages

Arthur Miller constructs his play upon the famous Salem witch trails. Miller's Crucible was written in the early 1950s. Miller wrote his drama during the brief reign of the American senator Joseph McCarthy whose bitter criticized anti- communism sparkled the need for the United States to be a dramatic anti- communist society during the early tense years of the cold war. By orders from McCarthy himself, committees of the Congress commenced highly controversial investigations against communists in the U.S similar to the alleged Salem witches situation. Convict communists were ordered to confess their crime and name others to avoid the retribution.

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660 Words | 3 Pages

Miller’s purpose of The Crucible was to represent and mirror the social injustice under McCarthyism as people falsely accused each other because their fear, jealousy and solely hatred of one another. Although, around 1950-1954 the “innocent until proven guilty” clause existed, most trials and accusations were led by “guilty until proven innocent.” Despite Miller’s efforts to criticise people’s actions as

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867 Words | 4 Pages

The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism have an uncanny relation to one another. In Salem people were afraid of not appearing christian enough, meanwhile during the 50’s Americans feared of being accused of communism. Also during the McCarthyism era and the witch trials innocent lives were ruined when people were forced to accuse others or be accused themselves. Though The Crucible is an allegory for McCarthyism, it focuses some of its attention on the question what is more important, your honor and reputation or your life?

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775 Words | 4 Pages

In Arthur Miller 's play The Crucible, false accusations and fear are used to imprison and kill many people accused of being witches. In this way, The Crucible stands as an allegory for McCarthy 's communist hunt, during which many people were also killed and imprisoned due to accusations of communism. By comparing McCarthyism to the Salem Witch Trials, Miller is able to communicate that people should not conform to societal trends because these trends may be misleading and cause innocent people to get hurt. Many characters in The Crucible serve as allegories to McCarthy 's communist hunt, specifically Abigail Williams, Giles Corey, and Betty Parris.

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