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Three major themes in the crucible
Greed in The crucible
Themes from the crucible
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In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, the characters' motivations seem to be corrupt. Taking a persons life away or saving it, is what motivation can do. The people of Salem tend to use it for there own personal gain instead of helping others. This can be traced back to Thomas Putnam's greed, Mary Warren's fear and Abigail William's lust to falsely accuse there neighbors of witchcraft.
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.
One character in The Crucible that shows fear and expectation as a motivation is John Proctor. John Proctor shows fear when Elizabeth displays depression, he wants Elizabeth to trust him that he loves her and does not love Abigail. John tells the court that he committed lechery for a couple reasons. The first is so Elizabeth will trust him again and the second is so that the courts stop believing Abigail. John wants Elizabeth to know that he loves her and he would do anything to prove it, he also wished the courts would stop trusting Abigail.
The person in the Crucible, other than the Salem girls, that I believe caused the trials is Mrs. Putnam, Thomas Putnam 's wife. There are 3 reasons why I suspect of this, the first, is about her beloved seven children who unfortunately passed away. Mrs. Putnam blames a witch for causing the untimely death of her children, which leads to disastrous effects. The second reason is that she starts a witch hunt and creates the atmosphere of mistrust and doubt in Salem when she spreads rumors of witches. This causes the whole town to go wild and start pointing fingers at neighbors, enemies, and friends.
Title Sometimes, it’s hard to see what someone’s intentions are. It may be especially hard to tell if a person in power is truly using their power to do good, or if they’re putting up a front in order to gain personal benefits. In The Crucible, Reverend Parris used his title and influence for personal gain. Things like this don’t just happen in literature. There are people in our world today using their status and influence to gain money or more power.
Greed. Self-centeredness. Stinginess. Self-indulgence. Self-worship.
Brooke Portice 10th Grade English Miss Mortinsen 30 May 2023 Unit 4 Performance Task Though separated by centuries, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Carol Plum-Ucci's The Body of Christopher Creed share a common theme: the destructive power of fear, ignorance, and suspicion. Both show how these emotions can lead to cruelty and destruction in society, as the community turns on each other and innocent people's lives are ruined. Fear is a reaction to danger accompanied by feelings of dread or a sense of being threatened. Suspicion is a feeling or thought that something is possible, likely, or true.
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.
In The Crucible, greed is the overall theme. For instance Reverend Parris shows the first act of greed. As Reverend Parris argues with his niece Abigail he proclaims, “But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it” (Miller 10). In the scene Reverend Parris is fearful about his enemies discovering there are practices of witchery in his household and therefore his enemies will use
In Arthur Miller's “The Crucible” (1953), it is shown that people seem to forget basic morals when dealing with mass hysteria. Puritans in the play do not want the devil or any other demonic figures such as witches in their community, they will go to great lengths, as far as turning their back on their own people to get rid of these demonic figures as shown in “The Crucible”. This idea of witches in the community caused chaos in the village which led to the deaths of 20 people in the village. Do people in the play not care about the consequences other people face because of their actions? In the play, loyalty falls far below self selfishness in the face of mass hysteria.
“This won’t hurt me more then it will hurt you!” Why must people possess the undying urge to sacrifice someone else's life to satisfy there own selfish desires?Why must lust,jealousy and greed all lead to death?Looking back into the Salem witch crafts of 1962, there are three characters in particular that showed the most vengeful tendencies of them all. Arthur Miller timeless classic,“The Crucible”demonstrates the fight between good, and evil by showing traits of human conditions that each, and every generation is cursed to obtain. The most obvious character that showed the most hateful intentions right from the start was Ms Abigail Williams. There are many things our sweet Abby does to show her vengeful,and lustful qualities.
By using the devil which everyone feared at the time, they got what they wanted. These actions were made by love and selfishness, love which ties to many emotions, including jealousy, which as young girls they could have had to start these trials. And selfishness, which these people were known for. Even if the person accused was innocent, they did not care, for they only cared for themselves. In a small town where mostly everyone knew each other, some people began to create grudges, rivalries, and hatred for one another.
Who's to Blame For the Salem Witch Trails? In Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth, and John Proctor are responsible for the witch trials. Not only is Abigail one of the characters responsible for the witch trails, but she is the one who instigated the witchcraft fervor within Salem. John is one of the characters responsible for the trails because he has an affair with Abigail.
One’s self has experienced loneliness from choice or forced into isolation. The novel ¨Of Mice and Men¨ written by John Steinbeck, took place during the Great Depression, near Soledad, California. The protagonist, George and the antagonist, Lennie are mid aged, white men who are working on a ranch with other mid aged, white men. Along with ones who aren’t as focused at the time, such as Crooks, the negro or black, Curley’s wife, the woman and, Candy, the old and weak man were treated differently from all the white, strong males in the novel due to the setting the novel. This making distance in relationships in Of Mice and Men, isolating these characters into loneliness.
The play, The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller demonstrates the implications of a society in complete chaos over an irrational fear of witchcraft in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Fear plays an immense role in the way people make their decisions, such as when the characters of Danforth and Mary Warren resort to hypocrisy when no other options remain. Danforth and Mary Warren both embody hypocrisy, as seen when Mary says she cannot lie anymore and then lies when she becomes scared for her life, and Danforth when saying lying will send a person to Hell, but then forcing people to choose between lying and death. Mary Warren exemplifies hypocrisy extraordinarily well in the scene when she and Proctor travel to the courthouse so she can confess that the girls have pretended everything and they never actually saw spirits.