Maintaining Audience's Interest in The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in response to people’s vicious behavior in America during the Red Scare and fight against communism. Communism accusations spread quickly, and people turned against one another. This correlates to a similar relationship that takes place between characters as the plot progresses in The Crucible. The play’s characters accuse others for personal gain or the feeling of safety. Situations heat up while characters take sides, and under the court’s pressure, a character’s morality and true nature show. Arthur Miller uses fire and heat throughout the play to symbolize the devil’s presence and how evil spreads through Salem’s community and court system.

In the dramatic and fictional play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller meticulously uses certain characters to enhance the readers understanding, and help the reader grasp the different themes being presented through their word choice, tones, and various actions. Arthur Miller chose to use, Elizabeth Proctor, the saint wife of the protagonist John Proctor to exemplify multiple themes the reader sees throughout the play. Elizabeth Proctor through her various actions and words throughout the play shows that “Even the most honest people become dishonest when they feel threatened.” Through her beliefs and words she also shows that “Life is not worth living without a good reputation.” Miller successfully uses Elizabeth’s personality and her actions to

In every play there are multiple points the author is trying to get across. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he uses the different motifs and characters to get these points towards the reader. John Proctor show a different light of Miller’s story. Proctor does not only go through a crucible himself, but also goes through the town’s crucible. A crucible is “a container employed for heating substances to high temperatures; a severe, searching test or trial.” (Dictionary.com). Throughout the story, John Proctor is dealing with his demons and, in a way, the town’s demons. John Proctor eventually becomes the answer to his on crucible and the town’s.

The Crucible was not widely accepted when it was originally released. The literature was Arthur Miller's response to McCarthyism and the Red Scare. During the play Abigail Williams accuses most of Salem of being a witch. This leads to mass hysteria within the town. Which in turn leads to Reverend Parris bringing Reverend John Hale to Salem. Hale is there to sort out and get rid of any presence of the Devil. There is a multitude of themes in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. These range any where from guilt and revenge to authority and integrity. A very apparent theme is pride. Pride controls many things in the play: how characters act, how they feel, and what they say. Pride can be easily confused with integrity. Pride and integrity

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible uses the ideals of Puritan morals to convey the dangers of hysteria and paranoia. This demonstrates the individual’s struggle to weigh integrity and ethics, for themselves and the community during times of distress. Within the play, Miller uses the lechery of John Proctor and Abigail Williams to exemplify the skewed theocratic system that bases law and virtues off Puritan morals. Throughout the crucible, many characters are forced into actions against their principles in Puritan society, striving to escape persecution of themselves and loved ones. Elizabeth Proctor lies for her husband John Proctor, due to her belief in puritan morals, marital vows and a “good name”.

Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible, is a quintessential masterpiece. The Crucible provides a nuanced commentary on the lives of men and woman who are affected by the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem. Miller provides a substantial representation of personal integrity that encourages the audience to acknowledge, that when members of the community feel threaten they throw their personal integrity away. This is highlighted through the characterisation of Abigail Williams, John Proctor and Reverend Parris.

In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the setting of Puritan Salem, the twisting plot, and developing characterization to propel the play. Arthur Miller takes advantage of the mindset of villagers in Salem at the time. For instance, there was a pressure to be perfect, to never be caught doing anything the reverend wouldn’t approve of. Every action was closely monitored by your neighbors and any other bystander at the time. Next, plot comes into the play by developing a sense of background and history between the characters by using jealousy, fear, and mass hysteria. An example of this would be the jealousy of Abigail Williams. Fear and mass hysteria were brought into play because of the fact that this was the villagers only chance to seek revenge

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a famous play which was written in the early 1950’s. The Crucible is a play based upon the events in 1692, which led to the ‘Salem Witch Trials’, a series of hearings before local magistrates to prosecute over 150 people accused of witchcraft. This was due to the hysteria caused by a group of girls accusing innocent people of witch craft. The play was set in Salem, Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. Salem was a very isolated and puritanical community, so their biggest fear was the devil and witchcraft. A person being accused of witchcraft was the worst thing possible in this society.

The Crucible can convey many different themes. I believe that the main theme of the Crucible would be jealousy. I chose this as an overall theme for many different reasons. One example of jealousy in the play would be when Abigail Williams wanted Elizabeth Proctor dead so she could be with John Proctor. Abigail tried to accuse Elizabeth for stabbing her in the stomach with a needle and also tried to get Mrs. Proctor in trouble by placing the needle in the doll to make it look like she had possession of the same needle that Abigail was stabbed with. Another example of jealousy would be when Putnam wanted George Jacobs to die so he could take all of his land. George had the most land in Salem which would benefit Putnam if he got the land. While Abigail Williams had been blaming everyone for dealing with the devil she was the one who danced in the woods and dealt with the devil first. Just a few days later Abigail said to Parris, “but we never conjured spirits,”. Abigail does just the right thing and planned every step out to prevent the court from finding out that she had dealt with the devil. The Crucible focuses mainly on how much a town can become destroyed and how many people can become falsely accused all because of one person and one certain spirit. Abigail caused many innocent people to get hanged or crushed by bricks. Jealousy is a disease.

The reduction of Proctor’s age, allowing the affair with Abigail, alters both his motivations and his status in the Salem trial. It has been stated by Miller that he identifies strongly with Proctor, due to his own adultery and failing marriage (Lecture 02/03/17). Because of this identification, Proctor becomes the hero and focus of The Crucible when in fact it is the accused and convicted that are at the center of the events, the horrors the presumed witches endured could potentially be forgotten by readers, the real significance of the events is lost. As stated previously, the insertion of the affair alters Proctor’s motivations to speak up against the trials, in the play, it is Proctor’s guilt regarding the event that motivates him to call out against the judges. Historically, what prompted Proctor to do such a thing was the fact that his own son had been tortured to denounce witches in Salem (Lecture 2/03/17). By attributing the flaw of adultery to Proctor and making him confess it, Miller adds what he views as a layer of heroism to the protagonist, once again diverting our attention from the real heroines of the story, women like M. Corey and S. Good who spoke up against the trials (Lecture

Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible, portrays the theme of Fear in a way that mischievous or vengeful people can use the theocracy of the time, superstition, and panic from the Puritan time to their advantage. If one were to read the play, one would assume that the character Proctor would be the main character. Those people are sorely mistaken; the actual main character is Abigail. Abigail has been manipulating everything behind the scenes and has used the natural fear in the town to put the town to its knees. Arthur knew this; he wrote the play at the time of the Red Scare, a witch hunt against suspected communists in the United States. He wanted to make a play that alludes to the fact that these practices were in use during the Red Scare. As a result, Miller created Abigail, an evil girl with a passion for destroying the town. Before one understands how she can bring the town crashing down, one must know a bit about the Puritan Era in American History.

Published in 1952, during a period of cold war tensions, which culminated in the ideological "witch trials" of the McCarthyism era in America, the allegorical play, the crucible, by Arthur Miller, is set in Salem Massechutsets, in 1692, during the Salem Witch Trials. The author has intentionally used allegory to draw parallels between the two events and invite the reader to think critically about the persecution that occurred during both time periods. One of the themes that the author has used to position the reader to recognise the immorality and idiocy of both historical events is the representation of personal integrity. This is achieved through strongly contrasted characterisation through characters such as Abigail Williams and Rebecca Nurse , as well as the use of textual features such as irony,symbolism, and dialogue. In the play characters can be assorted into three distinct groups: those who have completely relinquished personal integrity in favour of personal interests, Those who have good intentions, but struggle to display integrity at times and those who continuously display integrity, even when faced with harsh punishment. In "The Crucible" Miller has utilized a multitude of textual features to create characters whose personal integrity ranges from being nonexistent to exemplary. The positive characterisation of Rebecca Nurse and the conflicted but developing characterisation of John Proctor positions the reader to sympathize with and view them in a positive

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to show the widespread hysteria that can occur when people panic. The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during a time when neighbors were throwing accusations against each other about forming pacts with the devil and drinking blood. It is said that Abigail Williams is the main antagonist because she commenced the perjury that happens in the play. Being aware that Abigail 's faults and flaws are quite obvious in the play, she most certainly does not deserve the blame for the outcome because the supporting characters of Reverend Parris, John Proctor, and Tituba and the other girls accused of witchcraft, all added their own deception to the pandemonium that occurred and were just as responsible for the play’s outcome.

The Crucible used factual accounts of the Salem Witch Trials and thematic elements to create a drama that affects today’s society. This essay will detail how the characters and events interpreted the main themes and historical context. There were three main themes presented in The Crucible: Puritanism, reputation, and hysteria. Of these three, hysteria would be considered the main theme throughout the play and is still present today. Arthur Miller integrated themes such as: Puritanism, reputation, and hysteria to provide insight into the Salem Witch Trials and today’s society.

The Crucible is a play by American author Arthur Miller. The play starts out with ten year old Betty Parris laying on her bed unconscious. Rumors begin to circulate that Betty fell victim to witchcraft. This drives the whole town insane and trust between peers has been lost. The accusations of witchcraft lead to a trial in which the whole town is involved in. John Proctor, a farmer, is having an affair with Abigail Williams, who is Parris’ niece. Betty eventually wakes up screaming and alerts the whole town. Reverend Hale arrives to examine Betty and her friends and tries to solve the dispute. After many hours of interrogation from Hale and Parris, Tituba finally admits to conspiring with the devil and she accuses everyone else of letting it happen. Abigail and Betty soon join in making the three of them witches in the town’s view. Though ostensibly a play about witchcraft, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is actually a play about greed and jealousy and how quickly it can turn people against one another.