Examine the changes Proctor and Hale go through as the play progresses and decide how you think Miller wants the audience to react to them at the end of the play

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Examine the changes Proctor and Hale go through as the play progresses and decide how you think Miller wants the audience to react to them at the end of the play

In this play I will be analysing the changes that Proctor and Reverend Hale go through.

 ‘The Crucible’ is a tragic play that reflects the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials which contemplates the key figures caught up in the persecution. It powerfully portrays people and principles under pressure.

“The Crucible” is a cross between a parable and an allegory. Miller wrote the Crucible in 1953 during the McCarthy period when Americans were accusing each other of pro-communist beliefs. Many of Millers friends were being attacked as communists, and in 1956, Miller himself was brought before the house of Un–American Activities committee where he was found guilty of beliefs in communism. The play reflects on the events of the McCarthy era in USA of the 1950s whilst explaining the Salem witch trials, educating us about ‘human society’.

The play starts with a group of girls dancing in the forest; they are caught, and are accused of practising witchcraft. In order to save themselves they accuse other people for ‘bewitching them’ or for ‘bidding them to do the devils work’. The main girl Abigail accuses many people as they are making it hard for her to lie. One of the few that gets accused is John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth. She accuses Elizabeth because she is in love with Proctor and cannot accept that he does not love her, but loves his ‘sickly wife’.

Proctor is a farmer in his mid thirties with a wife and three sons. He is the main character and is well developed during the course of the play. His function in the play is to be an example of a sinner who is able to accept and confess to witchcraft when doing so would have saved his life. Towards the end of the play Proctors character becomes clearer to the readers. At the beginning of the play, he was a respectable man in the village who had a reputation of being strong and powerful. As the play progresses, his name is lost in the village but his faith is gained. Proctors first stage of development is after he left Abigail, where he becomes more loyal and considerate towards his wife Elizabeth. This begins when Abigail insults his wife by saying: 

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‘A sickly wife…’

He does not accept her criticism so he calls her a ‘child’ which upsets her. He defends his wife and makes it clear to Abigail that he does not want her, this shows that he has become more loyal.

After this he returned to his wife and tried to make conversation, but when he realised that his wife still does not trust him, even after he told Abigail he did not want anything from her he became angry and hurt:

‘’spare me! You forget nothin’ and forgive nothin’ ‘’

‘’no more I should of roared ...

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