William Lewis Herndon

sometimes within just one character. John Proctor is one of the few main characters introduced in the play. In the beginning, you learn that Proctor’s moral standing had been somewhat compromised when he began to have an adulterous affair with Abigail Williams, a young girl of seventeen who had been…

Puritans were people with a strong religious belief they always try to follow their religion and stay away as far as possible from the devil. The Crucible is a book written by Arthur Miller, it helps people understand things about the puritans in the city of Salem 1692. Like how they lived and some beliefs that they believed in. It talks a lot about witchcraft. Witchcraft is the practice of magic, especially black magic which is practiced by witches. If a witch was caught practicing witchcraft,…

“ Miller was liberal in his fictionalization of those events. For example...; however, in real life Williams was probably about eleven at the time of the accusations and Proctor was over sixty,which makes is more unlikely that there was ever any such relationship....what I was doing was writing a fictional story about an important theme.” As everyone knows…

Cruelty in Perspective Contrary to popular belief, I would like to argue that John Proctor is the root of all cruelty in the play The Crucible. His actions towards Elizabeth, Abigail, and even himself reflect how cruelty affects not only the victim but also the perpetrator. Elizabeth Proctor, the wife of John Proctor, was subject to cruelty in several emotional ways. John had committed the crime of lechery, a sin of ultimate betrayal. Doing so brought out cold emotion and heartache towards…

Abigail Williams is probably the least complex character in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Once desired but now spurned by John Proctor, the object of her lust, she uses the community’s fear of witchcraft to tear through every obstacle, including Proctor’s wife, in order to get him to love her again. Although Abigail's actions in the play are definitely understandable, as her motive and background are not complex, they are certainly not excusable. Abigail’s motivation for everything that she does…

Imagery, poetic language, and the use of personification and other devices all serve one common purpose; to make the reader truly believe that they are living in what they are reading. Authors attempt to create portal doors in their writing for a sense of escape to an alternate world. Arthur Miller, an American playwright, essayist, and prominent twentieth century figure, devised one of the most infamous philosophical and allegorical “portal door” through the power of words and his direct use of…

impact each of these three characters all had on the mass hysteria occurring in Salem, Massachusetts, at the time. The centrality of the play follows John Proctor, a generally well respected local farmer, and how the guilt of his affair with Abigail Williams affect both the personal and social aspects of his life. After committing adultery with Abigail, his home life and relationship with his wife changed tremendously. Proctor became more distant and untrustworthy to his…

In Act III of the play, John Proctor decides to tell the court about his past affair with Abigail Williams. He does this because he tries to convince the Judges that Abigail in fact not to be trusted as a source of accusation. He enlightens the judges of this newfound info in hopes that they will free his wife from imprisonment. Proctor willingly risks…

The representation of the tension between people and the political sphere, and the vulnerability of the individual against societal pressure to conform, is inevitably influenced by the composer’s moral and social agendas. Through the manipulation of emotions composers represent governments and political figures according to their own political and social agenda, thus altering public perceptions. Arthur Miller’s allegorical play The Crucible challenges the communist fears by paralleling Cold War…

In The Crucible, the girls are accusing other people to put the blame on someone else because of what the girls did in the forest. There are three responsible for the Salem witch trials in The Crucible. They are Abigail Williams, Reverend John Hale, and Mary Warren. Abigail Williams is the main cause of the Salem witch trials.in The Crucible. First, Abigail has an affair with John Proctor. She wants Elizabeth to die so that she can have John Proctor for herself. This leads Abigail to drink…