Playwright Arthur Miller uses deliberate characterization and controlled conflict to highlight societal problems in his play The Crucible. His use of relationships between characters, as well as the interactions that these relationships instigate, in his telling of the Salem Witch Trials is helpful in his ability to convey his overarching idea. The ideas of human failings like hate or greed, blind religious faith or the corruption that occurs in giving power to the formerly powerless, are revealed in Miller’s use of characterization and conflict in The Crucible. Abigail William is a clear antagonist of this play. She stirs up the entire town to chaos. She is ambitious, selfish, vengeful, manipulative and a wily liar. Even her uncle, Reverend …show more content…
All characters in the crucible are puritans, which means that they are religious and they often attributed frightening occurrences to devil’s work, but Miss Putnam is the most pious puritan in this book. When Betty blacked out, Mrs. Putnam simply concludes that Betty is bewitched and cannot hear Lord’s name without pain, while Rebecca Nurse thinks that it is a normal disease that a child gets. Mrs. Putnam’s seven babies all died without any apparent reason. Convinced that someone used witchcraft to kill her babies, Mrs. Putnam sent Ruth to Tituba to contact the sprits of her dead children to find out who killed her babies. She doesn’t mean to harm anybody; she just wants to find out the reason why her babies have been dying. Nevertheless, her blind devotion to god convicts many innocent people as witches. In the court, she strongly claims that her babies were murdered because of witchcraft, “They were murdered, Mr. Parris! And mark this proof! Mark it! Last night my Ruth were ever so close to their little spirits; I know, sir. For how else is she struck dumb now except some power of darkness would stop her mouth? It is a marvelous sign, Mr. Parris!” (Miller 16). She is willing to blame the tragic deaths of her children on supernatural causes, and she seeks similar revenge for what she perceives malevolent doings of