The Crucible
The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in 1692 and is based upon the Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible is about a girl named Abigail Williams, who is in love with a man named John Proctor, who is definitely in my mind the protagonist. John proctor is married to a different woman named Elizabeth and has everything a man his age would want, he was living life good. John Proctor has an affair on Elizabeth with Abigail, which Elizabeth soon finds out to be true and she becomes very angry like any other person would be. John Proctor pretty much just used Abigail to fornicate with and nothing else, all he wanted was sex and he even admits to doing so. A group of individuals are caught in the woods dancing and are accused of witch craft. Abigail then used this as an opportunity, Abigail accused every one who she dislikes of committing witchcraft and being a witch, she is the one who keeps the idea that everyone is being taken over be evil going, she is the main cause of the issue. This was not a bad tactic considering during this time the witch tests were designed to fail We see the true Abigail, which is her being just not a lovely person at all, she is the bad word for a female dog if you ask me. John, Elizabeth, and many other towns folk are accused of witchcraft and of being witches, an again during this time period it was almost impossible to be proven innocent of being a witch, the decisions are already made up from the beginning. The story results in John Proctor being hanged, the reader not knowing what happens to Elizabeth, it is unknown if she dies or if she lives.
Abigail Williams is the bad guy of the story. Abigail is very manipulative, lying, revenge seeking, selfish character. Abigail's purpose to the story is that she serves as the antagonist and is in love with one of the other main characters, John Proctor. As I stated earlier she is very manipulative, this is seen very early in act one when she is caught doing witch craft out by the water, she hands all the blame over to Tituba and some other people. The part where it really gets twisted with Abigail is that she encourages the witchcraft, but then she is also the one who blames everybody for committing witchcraft and what not.
John Proctor is another main character in The Crucible's and serve as the protagonist of the story. John has everything that you could want back in the day, a good wife, good land, and etc., but he threw it all away by having an affair on his wife with Abigail. From then on Abigail flt the need to take down Elizabeth who is the wife of John Proctor.
Elizabeth Proctor is the wife of John Proctor and serves as a virtuous woman who stays true. Elizabeth is just basically a blameless victim, who only shows signs of sin when she is in court and lies about the affair suggesting that it never happened in order to protect John, but in doing so she ended up hurting him more than helping him.
Reverend Paris is another main character in The Crucible's. He is a greedy, self centered, worm of a character, who tries to play it off that he is a good guy and what not, but later on he is exposed for who he truly is and he is left broke on the ground like the piece of trash that he is. An easy example to see his greed and evil sent morals when he is standing over his daughters sick bed, he isn't thinking of his daughter, he is only thinking of his reputation.
The Crucible's by Arthur Miller takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, in the year 1692. Salem was mainly populated with puritans, who had very strong believes and very distinct differences between good and evil. They believe more in the Old Testament more than anything, having a strong, strict, and punishing God instead of a forgiving and loving one. During this time you did not mess with the powers of evil, you did not mess with darkness, the powers of evil and of evils darkness was very real to them, it was a very strict topic. Back in this time when being accused of witchcraft it was a very serious thing to them. When being accused it was hard to win or to be proven innocent, there were many corrupt things with that kind of thing. The tests and the trials that they did in order to test people of being a witch were very corrupt and were designed to fail, therefore a lot of people were falsely accused and unjustly hung and murdered because of this, many death came because of this. In my opinion it is more of a depression time period, just because of how everything is explained. The only real desire was to have a good farm, good wife, and some children. But it is more of a depressing time to me because of the number of people accused of being witches and accused of doing witchcraft, because that is where the people were murdered and unjustly killed because of the accusations.
I would say The Crucible's by Arthur Miller would be more of Man vs Man. Man v Man because Abigail is accusing everyone of being witches and committing witchcraft, anyone she doesn't like she accuses them, and being the very manipulative, good lying, woman she is sh gets away with it quite easily if you ask me. Then it turns from Man v Abigail to Man v Society because then they are trying to defend themselves from everyone,because again they do not take witchcraft lightly during this time, they take it very seriously and they kill anyone who is even thought to be a witch, therefor if you were accused you are kind of screwed.
Three major themes of The Crucible's is Reputation, Good v Evil, and Lying/Deceit. Reputation is a very important thing in this reading being that if you had the reputation of doing witchcraft then you are going to be tried and you are going to be hung. It also shows how easy a reputation can be destroyed, even by just some lies told by someone or how your actions can ruin your reputation.
Good v Evil is quite simple to see because it is what the whole thing is based upon. The whole battle is Good v Evil. The people are trying to find the witches or find the evil and kill it in order to clean and save to society from evil. Back then they were very religious and strict so they didn't mess around when it came to that kind of stuff. Lies are easily seen by Abigail lying to everyone and accusing people of witchcraft. I am not sure how to word this,but I think the whole thing corrupted Elizabeth because she lied in court, yes because she wanted to save her husband, but it stated that it was the first lie she has said in perhaps her whole entire life.
One symbol in The Crucible is actually the word “crucible” according to a dictionary, a crucible is a container that is heat resistance, used to test how pure or if something is pure. When the whole witch thing came around and people began to throw the blame from person to person, none manned up and took responsibility, they all lost faith and chose to blame their problems and mistakes on other people.
The second symbol that was found when researching this book was paranoia about communism, to me it is a little far fetched, but somewhat makes sense. During the time of writing this there were real concerns of communism in the 1950's. Communism was also not something to joke about, but comparisons could be made between the witch hunts and what not and the rising communism that frightened Americans.
I could not find much of anything else considering that The crucible does not have many symbols within it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTykwR7nyuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-R3KL3x9oI
Citations:
"The Crucible by Arthur Miller." The Crucible by Arthur Miller. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.
"The Crucible." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar. 2013. Web.
"The Crucible." Pleasanton. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.
"Tituba - The Black Witch of Salem, Confession Scene." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.
"The Crucible : Spirits in the Courtroom Scene." YouTube. YouTube, 09 May 2010. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.
"The Crucible Picture." Pin The Crucible on Pinterest. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.
Abigail Williams is the bad guy of the story. Abigail is very manipulative, lying, revenge seeking, selfish character. Abigail's purpose to the story is that she serves as the antagonist and is in love with one of the other main characters, John Proctor. As I stated earlier she is very manipulative, this is seen very early in act one when she is caught doing witch craft out by the water, she hands all the blame over to Tituba and some other people. The part where it really gets twisted with Abigail is that she encourages the witchcraft, but then she is also the one who blames everybody for committing witchcraft and what not.
John Proctor is another main character in The Crucible's and serve as the protagonist of the story. John has everything that you could want back in the day, a good wife, good land, and etc., but he threw it all away by having an affair on his wife with Abigail. From then on Abigail flt the need to take down Elizabeth who is the wife of John Proctor.
Elizabeth Proctor is the wife of John Proctor and serves as a virtuous woman who stays true. Elizabeth is just basically a blameless victim, who only shows signs of sin when she is in court and lies about the affair suggesting that it never happened in order to protect John, but in doing so she ended up hurting him more than helping him.
Reverend Paris is another main character in The Crucible's. He is a greedy, self centered, worm of a character, who tries to play it off that he is a good guy and what not, but later on he is exposed for who he truly is and he is left broke on the ground like the piece of trash that he is. An easy example to see his greed and evil sent morals when he is standing over his daughters sick bed, he isn't thinking of his daughter, he is only thinking of his reputation.
The Crucible's by Arthur Miller takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, in the year 1692. Salem was mainly populated with puritans, who had very strong believes and very distinct differences between good and evil. They believe more in the Old Testament more than anything, having a strong, strict, and punishing God instead of a forgiving and loving one. During this time you did not mess with the powers of evil, you did not mess with darkness, the powers of evil and of evils darkness was very real to them, it was a very strict topic. Back in this time when being accused of witchcraft it was a very serious thing to them. When being accused it was hard to win or to be proven innocent, there were many corrupt things with that kind of thing. The tests and the trials that they did in order to test people of being a witch were very corrupt and were designed to fail, therefore a lot of people were falsely accused and unjustly hung and murdered because of this, many death came because of this. In my opinion it is more of a depression time period, just because of how everything is explained. The only real desire was to have a good farm, good wife, and some children. But it is more of a depressing time to me because of the number of people accused of being witches and accused of doing witchcraft, because that is where the people were murdered and unjustly killed because of the accusations.
I would say The Crucible's by Arthur Miller would be more of Man vs Man. Man v Man because Abigail is accusing everyone of being witches and committing witchcraft, anyone she doesn't like she accuses them, and being the very manipulative, good lying, woman she is sh gets away with it quite easily if you ask me. Then it turns from Man v Abigail to Man v Society because then they are trying to defend themselves from everyone,because again they do not take witchcraft lightly during this time, they take it very seriously and they kill anyone who is even thought to be a witch, therefor if you were accused you are kind of screwed.
Three major themes of The Crucible's is Reputation, Good v Evil, and Lying/Deceit. Reputation is a very important thing in this reading being that if you had the reputation of doing witchcraft then you are going to be tried and you are going to be hung. It also shows how easy a reputation can be destroyed, even by just some lies told by someone or how your actions can ruin your reputation.
Good v Evil is quite simple to see because it is what the whole thing is based upon. The whole battle is Good v Evil. The people are trying to find the witches or find the evil and kill it in order to clean and save to society from evil. Back then they were very religious and strict so they didn't mess around when it came to that kind of stuff. Lies are easily seen by Abigail lying to everyone and accusing people of witchcraft. I am not sure how to word this,but I think the whole thing corrupted Elizabeth because she lied in court, yes because she wanted to save her husband, but it stated that it was the first lie she has said in perhaps her whole entire life.
One symbol in The Crucible is actually the word “crucible” according to a dictionary, a crucible is a container that is heat resistance, used to test how pure or if something is pure. When the whole witch thing came around and people began to throw the blame from person to person, none manned up and took responsibility, they all lost faith and chose to blame their problems and mistakes on other people.
The second symbol that was found when researching this book was paranoia about communism, to me it is a little far fetched, but somewhat makes sense. During the time of writing this there were real concerns of communism in the 1950's. Communism was also not something to joke about, but comparisons could be made between the witch hunts and what not and the rising communism that frightened Americans.
I could not find much of anything else considering that The crucible does not have many symbols within it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTykwR7nyuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-R3KL3x9oI
Citations:
"The Crucible by Arthur Miller." The Crucible by Arthur Miller. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.
"The Crucible." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar. 2013. Web.
"The Crucible." Pleasanton. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.
"Tituba - The Black Witch of Salem, Confession Scene." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.
"The Crucible : Spirits in the Courtroom Scene." YouTube. YouTube, 09 May 2010. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.
"The Crucible Picture." Pin The Crucible on Pinterest. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.