How are the characters in "The Crucible" influenced by the need to conform?

How are the characters in “The Crucible” influenced by the need to conform?

In “The Crucible” many of the character’s actions are strongly influenced by their environment’s constant pressure to conform (keep to rules or general custom). The three reasons I will discuss in this essay that make the characters conform in their society are: maintaining the importance of one’s name and reputation, fear of death or unreasonable punishment and the fear of going to hell as a result of defying the Lord’s wishes etc.

As the Crucible is set in a theocratic society, God plays an important part in the lives of the characters in the play. Many of the characters are forced to conform as the highly Christian-based society plays on the fear of being outcast from Heaven by God. As the government is run by the church, this structure supplies the perfect opportunity for the people’s fears to used to its advantage as many of Salem’s people’s lives are based around Christian religion. By using the Churches as a means of propaganda for the government, they can prevent any uprising from the people. Evidence of this takes place in Act One where John Proctor gives reason why he does not attend Church any more. “I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation.” This shows that indeed the Church is keeping the people conforming to its laws by preaching about what could happen if they defy. I believe that by doing this, the Churches believed they could prevent people from rising up to overthrow the government if they disliked the way the town was being run.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Many of the characters in the play, such as John Proctor held much of their pride in their name. Many of his actions are based on protecting his good reputation, for example, John Proctor could have put a stop to the girls’ false accusations early on in the play, but his desire to preserve his reputation kept him from testifying against Abigail. Also in the play, many people who do not wish to be caught up in the accusations and such, cut ties with those involved, to prevent the fear of being guilty by association becoming reality. This was a sort of involuntary influence on the characters as it could not be controlled by a higher power, it mainly consisted of a basic human need; the need for acceptance and respect, and it was many of the main character’s last purpose to maintain that.

Another way in which the characters are forced to conform in their society is with the fear of death. There are many laws in Salem, and there is punishment for anything considered to be against the will of God and so on. People conform in fear that, if they were to cause trouble or state an opinion, that might be slightly different from the opinion of the Church or the “norm” they would be hanged. The churches preached about hell to keep people from uprising. But although it made most conform there were exceptions such as John Proctor, who could see wrong in what the government was doing and who stood against it.

In conclusion, I believe that the characters in “The Crucible” were mainly forced to conform in negative ways, (rather than using an incentive method or similar) and this caused a negative outcome with the townspeople. I think, not only in the play, but in general life, by using negative means such as force and terror, to force people to conform will always have a negative outcome eventually, as people will band together to rise up and take back their rights and make their lives better. For example, in history, the French Revolution took place when people felt they had had enough of the harsh rule of the French King. I also think it would be interesting to see what the outcome of the play would have been if it had a different government system.

Note: I found this a very very hard essay topic so it may not be exactly what was asked…☹