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Lies In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

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Miller uses children as a truth hidden behind a lie as some believe they live in a world of virtue. They were chosen to be the main accusers for their “purity,” their sense of judgement of witchcraft, and their sadistic actions that are considered untrustworthy and unrealistic. He intends to use it as a way to reveal the reality of children and their poor judgement within the play. “...I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw him;...” From this quote, it unravels the contempt hysteria during that particular scene. The contagious realm spreading throughout Beverly Hills caused an inconsequential phase of gullibleness. The character including Abigail Williams, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Warren are responsible for …show more content…

Towards the beginning of the story Parris punctually stated, “I have given you a home, child, I have put clothes upon your back - now give me upright answer. Your name in the town - it is entirely white, is it not?” Abigail with an edging resentment responded, “Why I am sure it is, sir. There be no blush about my name.” This connects to the color symbolism, white. White is remarked as pure, clean, and a color no one can ever blemish because it will always remain in its first position- white. The purity dictates Abigail and the children ways of masking their monstrous actions and using their mask to allure others to them. Even from the beginning, no one realize that they are falsely accusing someone, the townspeople use their logical thinking of “they are just children, they do not misbehave or lie.” Therefore, Abigail uses that advantage to bypass all consequences, although it is primarily her fault. This is a way to help readers understand that being too trusting can lead to dire consequences as it is one of the main points from the …show more content…

Instead of being accused of witchcraft, he was accused of being a Communist. The children are resembled as the people who accuse him and his growing agony can be represented as the victims. The vivid imagery of Abigail pretending to see the Devil or various superficial things displays an image of what Miller underwent and the only option he can do is to make a play called The Crucible based on his life. Abigail looks at the ceiling and said, “ I - I know not. A wind, a cold wind, has come.” This sets a frightening mood where her actions causes an eery feeling to the judge, which cause them to accept witchcraft is true. It is less frequent where one believe one person out of a thousand people because the majority wins. McCarthyism was what Miller faced and was believed to be one of the reasons why Miller came under the committee's inspection. “Did you see anyone with the Devil” as it similar to “Are you now or were you ever a member of the Communist party?” This relates to each other greatly and causes the creation of the children within the story. Therefore, he used innocent character’s to exemplify that he is innocent and uses the children to display those who blame him for being a

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In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, a group of ill-behaved girls following Abigail's agenda to fool the town into believing they are witches. The town falls victim to Abigail's mischievous and vengeful actions. However, Judge Danforth is causing mass hysteria and panic by accusing girls of being witches with little to no proof. His control of the town creates a negative impact on the community that affects the outcome of the trials. Judge Danforth is the one responsible for the events that take place in Salem during the witch trials.

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Miller, through Judge Danforth was able to illustrate this individual corruption by his rigidity of purpose, one which we find difficult to sympathise with as he miss uses his power to punish the innocent, in order please the town’s majority. This Is clearly noted at the back end of Act III where he asks a series of short, sharp questions “you are a lecher”, “-do you deny it Mr Parris”, -you deny every scrap and title of this”, in hope the truth will come out. This is significant because he’s combining this illicit fear of the supernatural and political manipulation in order to get a well-regarded individual in John Proctor to confess to witchcraft. With him dealing with political absolutes “witchcraft is an invisible crime … who may possibly be witness to it?” leads to countless flawed and irrational judgements.

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Abigail: Public Affairs One of the main characters of Miller’s play The Crucible is Abigail Williams. The story is about a small town called Salem and the conflicts it goes through during the witch trials. Throughout the play you will discover all the troubles and hardships Abigail Williams has brought to the small town of Salem. Abigail is all about reputation and is “a child of god” but in reality she is the antagonist in the story.

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During the late 17th century a total of 200 people were accused of participating in witchcraft, while 19 people lost their lives to the mass hysteria. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a group of girls start a huge uproar in Salem, Massachusetts when they start screeching about Salemites being associated with the Devil. Throughout the play write, it shows the consequences of mass hysteria and how it puts people's lives in danger. Abigail Williams causes a wave of mass hysteria and because of her trickery, innocent people have died by her and the other girl’s actions, for this Abigail is the most unforgivable character in The Crucible.

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In 1692, the Puritan village of Salem is against the practice of witchcraft and their opinions are divided amidst the majority who believe the accusations are true and the minority who think the accusations are not provable. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible shows how two of the characters, Reverend Hale and Abigail Williams, reflect these groups. Reverend Hale had previously belonged to the majority until he began to understand how the system of the theocracy is corrupt and now takes the side of the minority; Abigail Williams went a different direction because when denying the accusations that were made, she began to make them towards others for her own benefit. Reverend Hale and Abigail change their ways throughout the play based on how

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This play is the Crucible written by Arthur Miller. The universal theme is lies and deceit because those two things can corrupt the minds of the towns people and the lies will eventually come back to haunt you. The conflict John Proctor and Abigail Williams, also Abigail and Elizabeth, and Tituba and the town’s people will be proven. First, John Proctor and Abigail Williams have conflict because John committed adultery with Abigail and his wife found out.

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In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, it is clear that most people (specifically the court) favour the accusers more than the accused. Act three has many examples of why this statement is true, both directly and indirectly. The court is supposed to be a fair place for people who are accused to try to prove their innocence, and the court takes advantage of these accused people and gets them into even more trouble. At the start of the play, the people of the court are introduced as fairly untrustworthy and suspicious people. If one person says anything, the court believes them no matter what, unless they are the accused, of course.

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811 Words | 4 Pages

In the first Act, Abigail manipulates the girls into helping her lie about the forest “incident” in the beginning of the play. "Now look you, all of you we danced and Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam 's dead sisters, and that is all. Mark this let either of you breathe a word and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you." (Miller I, 20). In this quote, Abigail becomes aware of what she did in the forest along with the girl and threatens them to keep silence if they want to keep their lives.

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422 Words | 2 Pages

Act Ⅲ of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible illustrates that lies can quickly spiral out of control and hurt people even if that wasn’t the initial intention. Lying is generally the response of someone is looking for self protection or to protect someone else. Children often lie to their parents because they feel the need to protect themselves and telling the truth could be detrimental to their protection (Smiley 1). More often than not, lies spiral out of control because they become too complex, as the lie typically needs to be covered up from another lie, which needs to be covered up by an additional lie and so on. Miller portrays that lies frequently become too complex and cause damage to the liar and the people involved mainly through Abigail

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771 Words | 4 Pages

Rumors can change lives, but in the 1600s rumors not only change lives but ended lives. In the Play "The Crucible" written by Arthur Miller, the audience can see how rumors of witchcraft costed the lives of many unfortunate woman. The play is based in Salem, Massachusetts and the lower ranked women in the society were being sentenced to death because they were accused for practicing witchcraft. Throughout this play the author shows the audience ways people can start and spread rumors. Rumors could be started through mass hysteria, a hope of hiding evidence to , and through social and political retaliations.

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660 Words | 3 Pages

Miller illustrates the process of the false accusations based on fear through one of the protagonists Abigail. Abigail is a young girl who gets caught dancing and doing suspicious actions with her friends in the forest by her

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1371 Words | 6 Pages

When beginning the play Arthur Miller chooses to implicitly establish the concept of Original Sin in the Puritan society of Salem. Original Sin is a belief that sin is innate to humans due to Adam’s fall, but humans must work hard to repress this sin. While Original sin is never mentioned explicitly Arthur Miller references its importance to the Salem society implicitly in the establishing narration of the play in act 1, writing “Probably more than the creed, hard work kept the morals of the place from spoiling”. Here Miller uses situational irony as well as contrast, suggesting that this hard work, even more so then religious belief are used to keep this society intact. Furthermore, earlier in the paragraph, he states “Their creed forbade

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920 Words | 4 Pages

Pride is a quality that makes one feel good about himself, but also leads to destruction if exaggerated; as seen most of the time. Destruction has been the end result of pride on many occasions and has found its way to the town of Salem, Massachusetts, where the play The Crucible is set. In Arthur Miller’s play, a group of teenage girls are involved in a witch gathering and are accused of witchcraft, but upon questioning, the girls blame a multitude of townspeople for witchcraft instead. They put these innocent people on trial and the pride of many characters winds up killing 20 innocent people. Pride is the leading motivation for the catastrophic events in The Crucible due to its representation among many characters including Reverend

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481 Words | 2 Pages

Miller conveys his point that allowing selfishness and fear to consume society can be devastating and harmful to life through his use of the witch trials and the mass hysteria that occurs during

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677 Words | 3 Pages

In the small town of Salem, religion was a strict priority, and strange illnesses like these were often thought to be the devil’s work. Miller demonstrated the paradox in The Crucible from the beginning of the play by allowing Abigail Williams and the other girls to unjustly accuse whomever they wanted of witchcraft. The play presented us how too much power is dangerous, for the temptation was always there to abuse it. Under the justification of a theocratic government, the people in authority in Salem abused their almost absolute power, destroying many innocent people in the process. What theocracy illustrates is how the law is not always based on truth, and that if it is not we should stand up to it.

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