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A reputation is the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something. In fear of tarnishing one's reputation, individuals tends to go to extreme lengths in order to protect it. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the actions and choices of John Proctor, Reverend Samuel Parris and Abigail Williams serve to prove this to the audience. First of all, John Proctor will protect his reputation at all costs, even if it ultimately ends his life. Second, Reverend Parris will stop at nothing to keep his authority, even if he has to sacrifice his faith.
There has come a time in everyone’s life when their character was called into question, or someone accused them wrongly of something they did not do. This puts a person’s morality on the line and tests whether they will do what’s best for them or the masses. The Crucible by Arthur Miller shows the characters John Proctor, Deputy Governor Danforth, and Abigail Williams going through this same test. The play provides a narrative on how people choose to value their own reputation and honor over protecting the lives of themselves and others.
I am exploring the question of are we are motivated by fear, human nature, and just how far we will go for our reputations. All three of theses are major themes in the Cucubile by Arthur Miller. And each theme plays a major part in how the Crucible was rounded while also showing a very strong perspective on how the author wanted the reader to perceive the crucible. The reason I think that we continue to read, study, and perform the Crucible to this day is because it was a major part in history where many innocent people were killed due to fear and false accusations. The Crucible was written about a time period that Arthur Miller acknowledges as a time where fear and reputation totally took over.
Reputations Have Been Demolished In the play The Crucible the importance of someone’s reputation is crucial to their peaceful state of mind and others views towards them. The Crucible is a play written by the playwright Arthur Miller in 1953, the play is a nonfictional plot of the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Arthur Miller supposedly had a hidden message of McCarthyism within The Crucible. The characters within The Crucible their reputation is tested during the witch trials because one’s reputation could be destroyed by one untrue accusation.
In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, it said, “Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do”. Reputation is an important part in many societies that determines the lives of many individuals. The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, follows the town of Salem Massachusetts in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials. It started when several young girls began to accuse people in the town of witchcraft, particularly people the girls don’t like. Then the accusations start to spiral out of control and the town government ends up hanging many innocent people.
In Salem, having a good reputation is extremely important. You are accepted by society, and if you don’t have a good reputation you will be completely rejected. John Proctor would no longer be thought of an honorably straight and moral person. Reverend Parris would lose all of his respect and not be accepted by the citizens. And Judge Danforth would always be questioned and looked bad upon for accusing the innocent.
Thomas Jefferson: Our Most Evil President Many people believe that Thomas Jefferson was a great president and person. However, they were not informed that he owned hundreds of slaves, was a cruel master, and an extremely racist man. Although slavery was legal at the time and allowed people to purchase and own other human beings, Thomas Jefferson claimed to oppose slavery.
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.
Based on the tragic events of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, The Crucible is a hard-hitting tale that reflects upon the subjectivity of goodness and virtue, sparking the reflection of the importance of moral behavior during times of hardship and crisis. In an unyielding and restricted Puritan community like Salem village, a bad reputation could result in social exclusion and scorning from the community. As a result, many members of the community would go to extremes to avoid tarnishing their reputations. The Crucible asserts that those who are concerned only with protecting their standings are dangerous to a society, as they are willing to blame and hurt other people in order to protect themselves.
Reputation is the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something. Reputation can directly correlate with pride, which is a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one 's own achievements. Reputations are very important to the characters in The Crucible and if they want to preserve their reputation, through pride, they do whatever is necessary to keep it. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the characters John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and Judge Danforth all show dramatic actions to preserve their reputations, each of these characters either hurt themselves or others by being prideful and dishonest for the sake of their good name. There are several ways that Abigail Williams shows her objective of preserving her reputation in the book.
By looking at The Crucible by Arthur Miller one can see that the characterization of John Proctor reveals the theme of reputation and integrity, which is important because refusing to tell lies to protect his reputation and stop delirium from spreading throughout Salem. John Proctor states that the woman of Salem who have been locked up for witchcraft:”Excellency, does it not strike upon you that so many of these women have lived so long with such upright reputation”(3.1.305-309). Proctor represents reputation because he would rather die than have his reputation downed to a victimizer. Protecting his reputation motivates John Proctor to deny that witchcraft exists in the village. All he hears is crying out of screams and wailing which is a cause of the Devil 's work: “What 's she doing?
In a setting of Salem, Massachusetts 1692, religion is the direct reflection of one's social standing. Reputation is extremely important for the town, as it is your only way to get a fair hearing and respect from the people. The protectiveness of reputation is necessary in The Crucible to justify yourself when presented with fallacious arguments. In this play the importance of reputation is revealed though the uses of ethos, logos and pathos. The protectiveness of reputation is uncovered through various characters such as Reverend Hale, Reverend Parris, and John Proctor.
Our countless endeavors, whether wrong or right, tend to just how much someone values their self-worth. We humans are naturally built to muse upon how others think of us, and this is the basis for our self-conscious pursuit for our reputation and identity. No where is this more apparent in The Crucible. The play, The Crucible, is a homage to many themes, as it dives into the story of The Salem Witch Trial. Preserving one’s reputation is a theme exemplified heavily in the book, as almost every character struggles with their identity, which in turn, affects their decisions.
Reputation is a very present theme in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. In this play, many people are accused of being a “witch” based off of false evidence. Because of this, people are very concerned about losing their integrity or their name. The purpose of writing with this theme is to emphasize that witchery is major way of ruining your name at that time.
For example, Deputy Governor Danforth knew the truth behind witchcraft, but he refused to announce it because he feared that his reputation would be destroyed. Next, Abigail caused many people to be hanged so she denied the truth and kept her name clean. On the other hand, John Proctor died because he valued dignity, and decided not to live with a dirty name. All things considered, many characters in “The Crucible”, valued their reputation among other people more than the truth, which caused other people to get harmed and die. The Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were the cause of the death of a lot of innocent people because having a good reputation was very important to some characters in The Crucible, like Judge Danforth and Abigail.
