... imprudent statement, Americans often reacted in superstitious mistrust. Everyone became suspect. In order to eradicate or at least lessen the public paranoia, Twentieth Century American author Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a warning of what could happen to innocent individuals in the 1950s. It seems quite by chance that Miller visited Salem, Massachusetts in the spring 1952. Some 250 years before ... of former leftists into born-again patriots, and so on. Apparently certain processes are universal. (Miller, "Why I - 1-6) After Miller recognized the similarities in the two historic...

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• Grade Level: High School

... life witch trials that happened there, and the prosecution of innocent people brought upon by hysteria. The title of the play being The Crucible, the term "crucible" is never actually mentioned. The word crucible, in simplest terms, means "a trial." Although the play is based around a series of court-trials, Miller chose it as the ... good opinion of Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, and Martha Corey. He chooses helping his good friends over his personal benefit. John Proctor has yet another crucible to overcome. Before the witchcraft trials began, he and Abigail Williams, the niece of R...

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• Grade Level: High School

... life witch trials that happened there, and the prosecution of innocent people brought upon by hysteria. The title of the play being The Crucible, the term "crucible" is never actually mentioned. The word crucible, in simplest terms, means "a trial." Although the play is based around a series of court-trials, Miller chose it as the ... good opinion of Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, and Martha Corey. He chooses helping his good friends over his personal benefit. John Proctor has yet another crucible to overcome. Before the witchcraft trials began, he and Abigail Williams, the niece of R...

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• Grade Level: High School

... of tension and hysteria in the "yellow bird scene". I will also be discussing the context of the writing. The title is important because a Crucible is a dish used in chemistry for separating impurities from metals. The metal is placed in a dish then heated and all the impurities in the ... weakened as John is seen to be a liar. Abigail's credibility is re-enforced because Danforth is leaning towards her side of the argument. In the Crucible the stage directions are often used to build up tension. The stage directions can provoke many emotions including sympathy, suspicion, curiosity, te...

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... restoring the community's purity); the trials brand all social deviants with the taint of devil-worship and thus necessitate their elimination from the community. Hysteria Another critical theme in  The Crucible  is the role that hysteria can play in tearing apart a community. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always considered upstanding people, ... to propagate lies. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. The Witch Trials and McCarthyism There is little symbolis...

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... to make a decision that can be critical to his morals and principles. There are many interpretations of the word crucible as there is for the theme of Arthur Miller's, The Crucible. Closely related to the word "crucifixion", The Crucible is about a man put in a crucible situation, who is forced to choose between life and morality, just as Jesus Christ did. Miller interweaved these scenarios ... a means of redemption. Both of these themes can be abridged to form one main theme, good versus evil. Based on the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, The Crucible explores the vulnerabi...

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... They are both condemned for beliefs they did not practice and the refusal to name others who did the same. The young girls in The Crucible used slander to ruin people's good name for revenge and attention. The most prominent of them was Abigail, who wanted revenge on Elizabeth Proctor, ... both for kicking her out and being John's wife. The Crucible is a play that accentuates the consequences caused by jealousy. Abigail Williams was a very smart young girl, but she only cared about her reputation. She ... instead condemned of witchcraft. Abigail ends up being a prostitute, with the cas...

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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Arthur Miller is a historical play, but more importantly a social and psychological drama. The diverse ways the themes are developed through The Crucible are through characters, plot, setting and dialogue. The importance of the witch-trials is, that in themthe moral crisis of a society is explicit, is directly enacted and stated, in such a ... punishment that initially motivates Abigail and the other girls; then the revealing in power they display during the trial. Above all The Crucible investigates the mass hysteria which infects the whole community. The concept of evil is central to...

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... Abigail Williams, although it isn"'"t mentioned that Elisabeth is his third wife. He was also much older than Miller portrayed him as. In '"'The Crucible'"', Proctor is suppose to be around 40 years old. He was actually closer to 60. Other things were simple like his occupation. It is mentioned ... from Barbados, then she may have had more rights than Miller leads us to believe. There were many other fictional parts to Arthur Miller"'"s '"'The Crucible'"'. One is that the Putnams only had one living child. Although they lost many children, they had six living in 1692. Losing children was...

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... injury can become more courageous. Many people in everyday life, characters in books even, are challenged to stick to their morals and strengthen their courage through everyday life. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller many characters including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor and Rebecca Nurse have strong moral values and courage. John Proctor is a good man of strong moral beliefs, concerned only ... for the safety of his family and personal welfare. John is one of the main characters in the play The Crucible as well as the "tragic hero". Throughout the play, The Crucible, the theme of mor...

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... "a severe test of patience and belief, or a trial". This definition pertains to Arthur Miller's four-act play, "The Crucible." The definition is suiting, because it is during this play that the wills and motives of women and men are put to the test when they are accused or accuse ... through a number of options. He simply didn't have enough courage to follow his morals or his principles when it mattered most. Another character whose true colors are shown during the crucible is John Proctor. In act one he is a shady figure who cheats on his wife with their hired help Abigail Williams. A...

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... also of love, lust and above all betrayal. The characters in this drama all play curious roles in this depressing time in our country's history. The movie version of The Crucible produced in 1996 is also written by Miller. Certain scenes that were only discussed in the play are acted out in the movie. These scenes remove much of the viewer ... among classes. The division between the rich and poor is clearly shown in the movie and provides an interesting side story to the central theme. The movie version of The Crucible changes the perception of many of the characters and destroys the dr...

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... since America is a free country he believed people should not be questioned for their beliefs. Out of this, Arthur Miller was inspired to write "The crucible", which is a story about people attacking others for witchcraft practices and beliefs. In a way Miller extracted some of the "cold wars' ideas on communism and ... assimilated them to the crucible where girls attacked others for their beliefs and social disposition, for example the girls only had to dislike someone to have them named at the trials ... . If you were to find the definition of the word crucible you would discover these...

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... a society in which justice is under attack. What are the factors working against justice? In the play, The Crucible there are many factors working against justice which are as follow. Justice can be defined as the safe- keeping of human rights, dealing ... in which they are controlled by. All these factors will be discussed to explain the factors working against justice in Arthur Millers, The Crucible. The use of false accusations for the personal benefit of certain characters is an imperative factor working against justice. Without this aspect, the issues of The ... Crucible would not ...

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... John Proctor, who is in his middle thirties, is married to Elizabeth Proctor. John is pretty much an even-tempered man. In Authur Miller's book The Crucible it is clearly shown that John Proctor is not an honest man. Proctor is not honest in that he cheats on his wife, he bluntly confesses that ... have known her." In other words, he cheated on his wife Elizabeth. Unfortunately, in the end Elizabeth finds out that Proctor cheated on her. In Miller's The Crucible John Proctor bluntly confesses that he lies. At the end Mr. Proctor is being tried for being a witch and right before he is goi...

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... set in the 17th century when Puritanism was very strong. People believed in God and followed strict religious. During Act 1 of The Crucible a group of young girls where dancing in the woods around a fire. The girls thought that Reverend Parris was thinking that they were practising witchcraft. Witchcraft in the 17th century was a ... keeps, I note that you are rarely in church on Sabbath day." This shows that Mr Parris believes in the strict religious rules and that everybody should be in church. The Crucible is a drama of conflict and tension. Through out the play there are scenes whe...

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... by Arthur Miller, many problems arise, some as serious as life or death. Many innocent people in The Crucible were hanged. Of course there are many people that may be to blame for the witch trials. However The Crucible leads the reader to believe that the majority of the guilt could be found in Abigail Williams, Mary Warren, and John Proctor. Although ... they knew they were doing something horribly wrong, Abigail's manipulative ways made them continue to follow her even more intently. Quite the opposite of Abigail Williams other people in The Crucible have the best of intentions, but s...

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In the play "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller there are many villains. The worst amongst these villains is Abigail Williams. Abigail is a young, beautiful, teenage orphan who loves John Proctor. John Proctor is a man in ... to Elizabeth Proctor, but sinned and had an affair with Abigail. She knows that she can not have John because of his wife. Abigail is the worst villain in The Crucible because of how crazy she is. Her presence is always felt throughout the play because of the decisions she makes. She creates lies to save herself and hurt others. She ... witchcraft but then later in the st...

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... a time when you had to make a decision, but you didn't want to choose either choice? During the play, The Crucible, many big decisions were made. Some were good decisions and some were bad, but they were all very difficult to make. The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller in which many people are accused of witchcraft and have to make big ... decisions that may affect their life. Rebecca Nurse was a character in The Crucible with a big decision to make. Rebecca had eleven children and twenty-six grandchildren. She has been around so many children that she decides to help with Bet...

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... the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller it is clear to the reader that many of the characters are hypocrites. Throughout the play characters constantly preach virtues that they don't practice or possess. In ... Salem were so busy telling each other what they were doing wrong that they didn't even use there own advice on themselves showing how hypocritical they really were. In The Crucible the play lives up to its title in how the accused people were forced to undergo ... ...

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... of the witch hunts in Salem. What's happening in the 21st century? Is society going to sit here in fear and hysteria then eventually die? The Crucible is a play written by Arthur miller in 1953 explaining about the witch hunts in Salem. Look at what happened in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century ... way. The Bali bombing has brought the fear of terrorism to Australia and the way we have reacted makes it easy to relate it to The Crucible. Initially in Bali the western tourists possessed power. The Balinese were given power to survive. The tourists obtained the power, as they were the...

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... Power of Lie Centuries ago, good, evil, and lies had a whole different meaning than what they do today. During the time that events in The Crucible had taken place, the Puritan community had a lack of tolerance for anything that was not, in their opinions, good and pure behavior. Though there is not ... eventually make one feel so bad that they would break down and confess, even if it gave them a reputation that they did not really deserve. In The Crucible, it is very hard to find a strictly "good" Puritan. One person that I find to actually be considered good is Reverend John Hale. He ...

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The Crucible was a very entertaining and educational movie. In the Puritan New England town of Salem, Massachusetts, a group of young girls go dancing in the forest with a ... had heard rumors of her affair with John Proctor. Abigail now finds that she has influence over people, and she takes full advantage of it. In a sense I think The Crucible is a classic tragedy, John Proctor being the story's tragic hero. Honest and upright, Proctor is a good man, but has a secret. His lust for Abigail Williams led ... role in this story. Being based on true events that happened in 1692 in Salem, I do n...

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Themes of The Crucible In Arthur Miller's, The Crucible, there were many themes expressed throughout the play. The themes were the undertone of the story and described exactly what was happening at the time of the narration. In the ... be set free was to confess to being guilty of witchcraft, although, in actuality, there were no witches. In the end, many innocent people died from these witchcraft trials. The Crucible uses strong themes to show the events and actions which took place in the year of 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts. One major theme in the play was justice. This theme ... asked ...

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... definitions: 1) a container made of a substance that can resist great heat and 2) a severe test or trial. In The Crucible, John Proctor is representative of both of these definitions because of the situations that he must overcome and the people that he has to deal with. Abigail Williams, the ringleader ... he shows here that he has become a stronger man by telling her that he will ruin her. However strong a man John proves to be, he is not indestructible, just like a crucible. One can definitely see the signs of his downfall after he himself is accused of assisting the devil. "I have ...

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• Grade Level: High School