Confusions seemed to have a running theme of adultery in every play it was touched upon or even made the main issue, it was also noticeable that a lot of the time, the characters in Confusions seemed to be put in the position to make a choice, to take the easy way out of the dilemmas that they faced or not too. These elements are both present in The Crucible, mainly involving John Proctor and Abigail. Abigail is the source of the John Proctor story which gave this play depth and excitement. Other characters that seem to make choices where Reverend Hale, Paris and all the young girls who followed Abigail, Hale made a choice to believe in the witchcraft in the first place but then took the choice to back out when he realised that innocent people were being hanged, Paris chose to ignore the fact that he saw girls chanting and running naked thorough the forest as not to bring shame upon his family name, the young girls of Salem chose to let Abigail bully them in to believing in witchcraft, Mary Warren one of those girls made another choice to tell the truth and fight against Abigail’s bad ways.
The play in confusions which I found most like my scene in the Crucible was Drinking Companion, although set in a different time and place, in the present day or 16 century, with a completely different story line, normal everyday life or life in an extremely religious village, where people are hung for witchcraft, there are many hidden elements that link The Crucible to this play.
The links between Drinking Companion and The Crucible are hidden between the lines, not obvious themes and intentions. A main theme in both plays is persuation. In The Crucible, Paris and Danforth are tying to persuade Proctor to give an untrue confession and sign it. This would be wrong and an easy way out of death. In confusions we see a lonely man, Harry, trying to get a girl, Paula, to come to his room, he talks of sex in a open way and tries to make her feel comfortable with her sexuality, he continuously buys her drinks in an attempt to persuade her to return to his room. Both Paula and Proctor turn down the offer of the easy way out, this leads to very different endings but both giving the same moral, not to take the easy way out you might end up regretting it. In both these stories the characters escape regret when even ending in death.
The play writers both seem to have the same intentions, to teach the audience, they teach the difference between right and wrong and the importance of following your personal morals.
The genre and style of the two plays are similar but seem to drift apart, they both tell real life but The Crucible tells a naturalistic story and is performed as dramatic realism, Confusions is a comedy among sorts and would also be acted in a naturalistic way.
The two plays although distant have many underlying similarities, when seen the plays seem to have more meaning and context, they are both showing us life of its time and educating us in their ways, the plays were set in the times that they were written in.