The Crucible Characters Essay Research Paper The free essay sample

The Crucible: Fictional characters Essay, Research Paper The Crucible: Fictional characters Chetan Patel The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller that was foremost produced in 1953, is based on the true narrative of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Miller wrote the drama to parallel the state of affairss in the mid-twentieth century of Alger Hiss, Owen Latimore, Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, and Senator McCarthy, if merely suggestively. ( Warshow 116 ) Some characters in the drama have specific dockets carried out by their accusals, and the fact that the drama is based on historical truth makes it even more challenging. The characters in this drama are simple, common people. The accused are charged and convicted of a offense that is impossible to turn out. The following witchery craze takes topographic point in one of America # 8217 ; s wholesome, theocratic towns, which makes the abortion of justness such a enigma even today. The grounds the scoundrels select the people they do for disapprobation are both simple and clear. All of the accusers have subterranean motivations, such as retaliation, greed, and covering up their ain behaviour. Many of the accusers have meddled in witchery themselves, and are hence double to be distrusted. ( Warshow 116 ) The tribunal inmates the victims on the most absurd testimony, and the reader has to inquire how the Judgess and the townsfolk could allow such a parody continue. The taking character of the drama is John Proctor, a adult male who frequently serves as the lone voice of ground in the drama. He had an matter with Abigail Williams, who later charges his married woman with witchery. Proctor is apparently the merely individual who can see through the kids # 8217 ; s accusals. The reader sees him as one of the more # 8220 ; modern # 8221 ; figures in the tests because he is hardheaded, disbelieving, and a voice of common sense. He thinks the misss can be cured of their # 8220 ; enchantments # 8221 ; with a good tanning. ( Warshow 114 ) At the terminal of the drama, Proctor has to do a pick. He can either squeal to a offense he is guiltless of to salvage himself from executing, or decease proclaiming his artlessness. He ends up taking decease because a false confession would intend implicating other accused people, including Rebecca Nurse. ( Rovere 2632 ) Proctor feels she is good and pure, unlike his extramarital ego, and does non desire to stain her good name and the names of his other guiltless friends by implicating them. ( Warshow 117 ) By taking decease, Proctor takes the high route and becomes a true tragic hero. The reader feels that his penalty is unfair ( particularly since the offense of witchery is imagined and unprovable. ) Because the tests take topographic point in a Christian, American town, the reader must so inquire if anything like this could go on in his or her ain clip. This is peculiarly true of people who saw the drama when it foremost came out, in the epoch of McCarthyism. Ann and Thomas Putnam are two provokers of the witchery craze in the drama. Ann Putnam is the 1 who first workss the thought that Betty is bewitched. Her motive for lying is obvious ; she needs to cover up her ain behaviour. After all, she had sent her girl to Tituba to raise up the dead in order to happen out what happened to her dead babes. She can # 8217 ; Ts have it said that she, a Christian adult female, patterns the heathen art with a slave from Barbados, or that her girl # 8217 ; s unwellness is her mistake because she sent her to take part in the black art, so she blames others. ( Warshow 113 ) Retaliation is another motivation of hers. Tituba # 8217 ; s fast ones led her to the decision that her babes were murdered while under the attention of a accoucheuse, Goody Osburn. Osburn is subsequently accused of witchery. Ann Putnam # 8217 ; s hubby besides influences her. ( Rovere 2632 ) Thomas Putman had nominated his married woman # 8217 ; s brother-in-law, James Bayley, to be the curate of Salem. He was qualified and the people voted him in, but a cabal stopped his credence. Thomas Putnam felt superior to most people in the small town, and was angry that they rejected his pick for curate. He was besides involved in a land difference with Francis Nurse, whose married woman Rebecca is accused of witchery. This is detailed in the film Three Sovereigns for Sarah, which shows fundamentally the same narrative as the drama. Many people died because of Thomas Putnam # 8217 ; s land hungriness. The Putnams, driven by their demand for retaliation and their greed, contributed to the immense farce of justness that was the Salem Witch Trails. The motivation of Abigail Williams is every bit easy to decode. Abigail is the ring leader of the group of misss who testify in tribunal against those accused of witchery. She and John Proctor had an matter antecedently, when she worked as a retainer in his place, and she evidently does non desire it to be over. She says to him, # 8220 ; I know how you clutched my dorsum behind your house and sweated like a entire whenever I come near! Or did I dream that? It # 8217 ; s she [ Elizabeth ] that put me out, you can non feign it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me so and you do now! # 8221 ; ( Miller 20 ) Elizabeth, Proctor # 8217 ; s married woman, had fired Abigail as their retainer because she suspected the matter. Clearly, Abigail despises her. She tells Proctor, # 8220 ; She is melanizing my name in the small town! She is stating prevarications about me! She is a cold, whining adult female, and you bend to her! # 8221 ; ( Miller 21 ) Abigail is evidently ferocious with Elizabeth because she feels Elizabeth has cut off her relationship with John and soiled her repute in the small town. Abigail uses the witchery muss to acquire back at Elizabeth. Of class, Elizabeth Proctor is charged with witchery. In 1692, the existent historical Abigail Williams was about 11 old ages old. Why, so, does Arthur Miller decide to do her a immature adult female of 18 or 19 for this drama? He does this in order to contrive an extramarital relationship between Abigail and John Proctor. This relationship motivates her denouncement of John and Elizabeth Proctor. This offers an easy theatrical motivation for one of his characters. ( Warshow 114 ) It besides makes Abigail look like a cold, deliberate grownup. This is more like an component of twentieth century amusement than of a theocracy in 1692, but Miller has to appeal to his audience to do the drama popular in 1953. The remainder of the misss in the drama, including Susanna Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren, and Betty Parris, are all covering up for their ain actions. Abigail herself admits that they were dancing in the forests, and Parris says they were naked. The misss had been inquiring the slave, Tituba, to raise enchantments, and Parris finds out about it. He says, # 8220 ; And what shall I say to them? That my girl and my niece I discovered dancing like pagan in the wood? # 8221 ; ( Miller 7 ) And so, # 8220 ; My ain family is discovered to be the really centre of some obscene pattern. Abominations are done in the forest # 8211 ; # 8221 ; ( Miller 8 ) The kids know that they are traveling to be punished for their behaviour, and they do up the narratives that they were bewitched to put the incrimination elsewhere. When avaricious people like the Putnams start promoting them, it becomes easier to lie and they begin to bask all the attending and power they hold. They are likely besides afraid of Abigail. After a piece, she makes it impossible for the other misss to abjure their accusals. When Mary Warren tries to state the truth, Abigail accuses her of witchery, excessively. The misss find themselves stuck in a trap of their ain devising, and in the witchery game until the terminal. ( Rovere 2632 ) Reverend Samuel Parris allows the witchery craze to travel on because it helps him. At the beginning of the drama he asks Abigail, # 8220 ; Do you understand that I have many enemies? There is a cabal that is sworn to drive me from my dais. Make you understand that? # 8221 ; Everyone in the town did non have Parris good, and he feels like he has # 8220 ; fought here three long old ages to flex these stiff-necked people # 8221 ; to him. ( Miller 9 ) The witchery parody unites the people of the town to him. In this clip of religious crisis, they look to their curate for counsel and support. Parris is now acquiring the following he neer had before. It is for this selfish ground that he allows the enchantress Hunt to continue, even though he knows it is non valid. ( Warshow 117 ) The characters in The Crucible are interesting and easy to read. The victims of the enchantress trails are guiltless, religious people who are wronged because of their accusers # 8217 ; greed, vindictiveness, and need to cover up for their ain actions. The deep engagement of the accusers, particularly Abigail, and the lengths they will travel to in order to go on their parody make the drama absorbing and haunting. Plants Cited Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Toronto: Bantam, 1959. Rovere, Richard. # 8220 ; Arthur Miller # 8217 ; s Conscience. # 8221 ; 1957. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Warshow, Robert. # 8220 ; The Liberal Conscience in # 8220 ; The Crucible. # 8221 ; 1962. Ed. Robert W. Corrigan. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969. 336