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Literary Analysis Of The Crucible

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The Crucible Literary Analysis The theme in a story is the concealed message that the author is trying to portray. The theme can be compared to a baby crying. Sometimes it is obvious as to why the baby is crying, but often times it is a mere thinking situation. The baby cannot tell you why it is crying or what he/she wants. Instead, you must use common sense and figure it out. That is how theme works. The author conveys how he/she feels about life or human experiences in the story, but as a reader, it is your job to evaluate the text and discover the meaning of it. Arthur Miller in the book, The Crucible, conveys many themes about human experiences. Mass hysteria, intolerance, and good vs. evil are just some of the many themes that …show more content…

One of the many themes in The Crucible is mass hysteria. The witch trials are occurring because everyone in Salem is alarmed by the thought of Satan being among them. Miller uses mass hysteria in the book to show how simple it is to create disruption among a society. The theme is important because it “warns us of the dangers of reacting blindly because we are afraid of something” (enotes.com). When the judge asks Mary Warren to faint and she can’t, she says, “I heard the other girls screaming, and you, Your Honor, you seemed to believe them… but then the whole world cried spirits… I only thought I saw them but I did not.” Mary was alone the second time she went to court and that was why she could not faint. The other girls weren’t there to influence her actions. She simply copied them to save herself. The people of Salem were caught up in the midst of everything going on around them and they followed the person next to …show more content…

Intolerance is important in The Crucible because it demonstrates how fast people’s attitudes and beliefs can change due to an event taking place in their town. Judges Hathorne and Danforth exhibit intolerance towards the people being trialed. If somebody spoke of another person performing witchcraft, the judges would not tolerate it and had that person thrown in jail even if there was no evidence to back up the statement. They were definitely substituting a role of unjustifiable reasoning. Miller uses intolerance to show that the people of Salem, especially the judges, were narrow minded and wanted everything to go their way. Their principle of belief was that “a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road

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The times back then were terrible. The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1953 about The Salem Witch Trials of 1692.McCarthyism was the “witch hunt” for the communist in 1953.the parallels between The Crucible and McCarthyism are naming names,lack of proof ,and reststance. The first reason they are parallel is because of naming names. Hollywood director Elia Kazan went in front of the HUAC twice. The first time he did not confess and names.

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The legal system should be trusted to determine guilt or innocence. In my first anticipation guide I found this to be true, but after reading The Crucible I completely changed my mind. I think that the courts should be trusted to an extent. I believe this because the courts are run by humans and humans make mistakes.

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“Character Analysis over The Crucible” Arthur Miller is a commonly-known playwright, most famous for his 1953 play, The Crucible. The basis for The Crucible came from the witch trials which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during the puritan era. Miller even uses some of the same characters in his dramatized play that were a part of the original witch trials in Salem. However, Miller made a few alterations to the historical members of the Salem society in order to suit his dramatic purpose in The Crucible, particularly Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Samuel Parris.

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The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatic play that expresses a very important message and that is how far people would go to save themselves from the hands of death. There are many characters in the Crucible who are guilty of taking innocent lives, but there are three major characters who, without a doubt, are the most at blame. The play takes place in the city of Salem, a city filled with people that would do anything to keep their reputation clean. Throughout the play, Miller is introducing multiple characters that experience changes in their decisions and negatively influence more people eventually leading up to the witch trials. The main point that the story revolves around is that people would rather lie and blame someone else instead of confessing and accepting the punishment.

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Reasons Behind The Crucible Arthur Miller’s main purpose in writing The Crucible was to show the similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Trials and to warn against government propaganda. At the time that The Crucible was published, America had a huge fear of communism. Anyone accused of having ties with the communist party was shunned. It much resembled the Salem Witch Trials in how the government, or leader of the time, used fear against the people to gain power. For example, Joseph McCarthy can be compared to Reverend Parris in how they both lead the people into the belief that there were intruders in their mists that had plans to sabotage the community.

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In the overture of The Crucible, Arthur Miller characterizes the Puritans as hardworking, yet emphasizes their many negative traits to analyze the type of environment necessary to produce mass hysteria. While no one truly knew what the lives of the Puritans were like, the Puritans were feared greatly because their society was seen as "a barbaric frontier inhabited by a sect of fanatics..." Everyone viewed the Puritans as fanatics because they often minded other people 's business. This, consequently, created suspicion, eventually leading to the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials took place during a period of utter fear and chaos, where many were afraid that individuality was on the rise.

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Analyzing and Explaining Themes in The Crucible In a dramatic work, authors can create thematic ideas through character conflict. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, there were many themes presented that stood out. Of those themes, the most important and recurring theme was the choices that the characters had. Throughout the play, many characters were given the option to tell the truth, maintain their integrity and face the consequences, or to lie so they don’t get in trouble or hurt their reputation.

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The first act of The Crucible sets up the play to showcase Salem’s infamous case of mass hysteria, caused by the fear of so-called witches. In the town of Salem, religion is the law, and the land is controlled by strict priests and ministers. As for how strict they were, Miller gave an example, “Their creed forbade anything resembling a theater or ‘vain enjoyment’. They did not celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer” (Miller 4). For the children growing up in Salem, pure fun was not common, and their boredom led to an event that led to dozens of trials and some deaths; this boredom, for lack of a better word, led some girls and a slave-woman, named Tituba, into going to the

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Authors use themes in their books to connect the real world with the context in the book. There are many themes that are described in the events, characters, and messages within the play. Arthur Miller creates relatable themes that show the emotional effects of mankind in his book The Crucible. At the beginning of the play, Reverend Parris is at the bed side of his niece, Betty, worrying about what her dabbling’s in witchcraft would do to his already poor reputation in Salem.

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In The Crucible by Arthur Miller the fear of witchcraft plagues Salem, Massachusetts and splits the town into those who use the trials for revenge and those who want the good of the town. Miller uses McCarthyism, making accusations without proper evidence, to show how the group of girls accuse people of witchcraft without real proof. As more accusations consume the town, almost everyone is in jail or have been hanged. Miller’s play is universal and enduring because he examines the power of suggestion throughout this play, and this is still prevalent in today’s society. When people get accused of witchcraft, the townspeople go along with what the majority is saying or doing.

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Taylor Darrow November 27th, 2017 Lit Analysis Arthur Miller uses the theme of revenge continuously throughout the play, The Crucible. The hysteria in Salem is intensified by the theme revenge. Revenge intensified the way that people felt as well. Abigail Williams was out for revenge on John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth throughout the whole lay. There is a few other examples of people who were out for revenge in the Crucible as well.

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Shawn Jande Ms. Clancy American Literature B3 15 November 2015 The Crucible Analytical Essay Imagine, being accused of a crime you didn’t commit by your neighbors and friends out of jealousy, and desire. This is what many people in the town of Salem had to go through during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. People's motives such as: gaining and maintaining power, and aspirations for what other people had caused them to make irrational, and atrocious decisions. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, desire and power drive characters to create chaos in the community.

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As said in the documents I read, the theme is "the fundamental and often universal idea of a literary artwork". One major theme that I have learned throughout this play is Intolerance. The society set in The Crucible is theocratic. That means that the church and the state are one.

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The Crucible is a story by Arthur Miller this story was released during the Mccarthyism era and is written to relate what is going on during Mccarthyism time and compared to what had happened during the time of the Salem witch trials. The setting or the crucible will impact the characters, the plot and the tone of the story. The setting of The Crucible affected the characters because during this period of time Salem Massachusetts was a Puritan colony. The Puritans were very strict people, for example on page 1154 of Arthur Miller's The Crucible Paris the town's Minister threatens to beat his slave Tituba “ You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to death Tituba” that statement says that the fact that Parris is going to whip Tituba to death if she doesn't do what he says and confess that he is willing to kill anyone who does not follow the rules. Another

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