The crucible

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   Arthur Miller has based the crucible play on a true story in a small town called Salem. Many people believe he wrote the play as a response to his own experiences in the anti-capitalism trials. The crucible is set in 1692 where some young girls led by Abigail Williams (used to be the maid of the Proctor family) were acting as being witched, so eventually cells got filled with people accused of witchcraft and many men and women were hanged.  The play is set in a very theocratic society, in which the religion and the law are one, people then believed the bible told them that witches should be hanged. Since Salem community was very religious, sexual prostitution was considered one of the biggest sins a human can commit.

   John Proctor is the most complex, and one of the most important characters in the play. Described as a farmer in his thirties He has a very pure, religious wife, who cares about her husband’s name a lot called Elizabeth Proctor. We know that John has a ‘’weighty name’’ in the village. John is first introduced to us in act one; we get informed that John had an adulterous affair with his ex-servant Abigail.

   Abigail Williams is a young orphan girl, who lives with her uncle Reverend Parris. She is described as a ‘’strikingly beautiful girl’’. Her parents were killed in front of her by the Indians. Throughout the play she has been a liar, smart actor and seductive with Proctor and also she manipulates her friends and all the key people in Salem.

   In the first meeting between Abigail and John, Miller sets them alone so they can talk to each other confidentially and about the relationship between them. The audience would be silent to hear what they are saying in order to understand how the relationship between the two characters is like in this scene.

   Seven months have passed since the affair and Abigail’s feelings are not vanished from her heart towards Proctor, she wants to strengthen her relationship with John by saying ‘’give me a word, a soft word John’’.  But John refuses ‘’ No, no, Abby. That’s done with’’. John obviously still has feelings towards Abigail even though he doesn’t want to show it, his heart is not completely free of his love to her, we know, since he says ‘’ I may have looked up’’. We can see how complex their relationship is, Abigail loves John and doesn’t want him to leave her, John on the other side still loves her but he clearly doesn’t want to show his love towards Abigail and he also wants to cut off the relationship between them.

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   At the end of the scene we see a very high tempered relationship between the two characters, Abigail is jealous of Elizabeth and John defends his wife. This can be seen when Abigail replies ‘’with a bit anger - I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be’’. John defends his wife‘’angered - at himself as well -You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth!’’ Abigail thinks John doesn’t want her anymore because he loves his wife, Elizabeth more, so she is jealous of Elizabeth. John seems to be caring for Elizabeth a lot, as he is not allowing ...

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