The Crucible Struggles

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The Crucible Essay In 1953, Arthur Miller debuted his now world renowned play, The Crucible. Largely inspired by the McCarthy trials of the time, his play depicts the small town of Salem being overcome by a frenzy of witch accusations, and later trials. Miller wrote with a purpose; to undercut the McCarthy trials for what they were, a scam. Characters conflicts caused by varying desires in The Crucible, such as those of Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Parris, shows how one's inner weakness can destroy the morality of many through hysteria. The Salem witch trials bend, break, and show the darkness in many townies, but in particular, Abigail Williams. After a brief, but intense affair with John Proctor, Abigail, being all of seventeen, …show more content…
When his daughter becomes ill after partaking in what is understood to be a satanic ritual with his niece, he starts grasping at straws for who to scapegoat to save his image. He picks on his slave, Tituba. After beating her with other town officials, she confesses. Parris’s vanity becomes increasingly ugly because of his unwillingness to admit that those who have been named by Tituba, are not witches. The town trusts him as a minister, and so his own desire to preserve his reputation creates mass frenzy. Later, when doubt clouds the town, Parris insists that they continue the trials; he worries that if the trials discontinued his word will no longer mean anything. His desire to hold power over the town continues the trials, and ends many more lives. The town is thrown into chaos, simply because Parris can’t stand to have his reputation dirtied. The Crucible remains a powerful allegory for the McCarthy trials of the 60s, when one man’s desire for power became the whole country’s hysteria. No doubt, the struggles that comes from each character’s own desires, whether righteous or not, is what overthrows Salem. Miller provides a painful example of how we destroy ourselves, and
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