The Crucible
The CrucibleThe Crucible written by Arthur Miller is a play that takes place in the sixteen nineties during the famous but tragic witch trials. The
entire community is in pandemonium yet certain characters are also
fighting internal conflicts of their own. Miller uses three characters
who manifest this internal battle ever so clearly. Such as Mary Warren
who whole personality turns upside down, John Proctor who contemplates
between the importance of his family and his own name and Reverend
Hale who battles with himself wether to carry out his job requirements
or do what he knows is right.
Mary Warren is a girl who is forced with this inner turmoil
throughout this play. At the outset of the play she is perceived to be
a very shy girl who will never speak her mind as shown when Proctor
sends her home and she responds with " I'm just going home" (21). As
the play continues and as she is influenced by Abigail, Mary begins to
break this self induced mold and does what she wants. Mary Warren,
along with many other girls gets caught up in the hype of getting all
the attention and exercising power via initiating and adamantly
continuing these "witch trials". Finally John Proctor, the
rationalist, shows that when people like Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth
Proctor who are the saintliest of people are accused of being witches,
something must be wrong. Mary Warren has a difficult decision to make.
She has realized that her whole way of life has been based on
injustice. However, how can she extricate herself from Abigail and her
friends, not to mention her new feelings of confidence. Mary
decides to speak out against Abigail and the others for their false
accusations and said that she " tried to kill me numerous times"(57).
Yet as she does this heroic act of overcoming her old reality, Abigail
pretends that Mary is also a witch using the poppets against her(73).
Mary is now faced with yet another grueling internal conflict: to do
what she knows is right and probably die for it, or to return to her
old ways. Mary succumbs to Abigails "hypnosis " and accuses John
Proctor of forcing her to lie. Clearly the battle which Mary faced
from the very beginning was enormous.
John Proctor a farmer and village commoner similarly is faced
with an inner turmoil. He has committed adultery and had absolutely no
intentions of joining in the witch trials unless hi pregnant wife were
to also get involved. After his wife got involved and eventually was
set free due to the fact that she was pregnant feels that he can't
accept this. Proctor is a good and noble man and because of this he
believes at first he can't be hanged and die...
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