FREE ESSAY ON THE CRUCIBLE

THE CRUCIBLE

The Crucible
The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is a play that takes place in the sixteen nineties
during the famous but tragic witch trials. The entire community is in pandemonium yet
certain characters are
also fighting internal conflicts of their own. Miller uses three characters who manifest
this internal battle ever so clearly. Such as Mary Warren who whole personality turns
upside down, John Proctor who contemplates between the importance of his family and his
own name and Reverend
Hale who battles with himself wether to carry out his job requirements or do what he
knows is right. Mary Warren is a girl who is forced with this inner turmoil throughout
this play. At the outset of the play she is perceived to be a very shy girl who will
never speak her mind as shown when Proctor
sends her home and she responds with  I'm just going home. As the play continues and as
she is influenced by Abigail, Mary begins to break this self induced mold and does what
she wants. Mary Warren, along with many other girls gets caught up in the hype of getting
all the attention and
exercising power via initiating and adamantly continuing these witch trials. Finally John
Proctor, the rationalist, shows that when people like Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth Proctor
who are the saintliest of people are accused of being witches, something must be wrong.
Mary Warren has a
difficult decision to make. She has realized that her whole way of life has been based on
injustice. However, how can she extricate herself from Abigail and her friends, not to
mention her new feelings of confidence. Mary decides to speak out against Abigail and the
others for their false
accusations and said that she  tried to kill me numerous times. Yet as she does this
heroic act of overcoming her old reality, Abigail pretends that Mary is also a witch
using the poppets against her. Mary is now faced with yet another grueling internal
conflict: to do what she knows is right
and probably die for it, or to return to her old ways. Mary succumbs to Abigails hypnosis
 and accuses John Proctor of forcing her to lie. Clearly the battle which Mary faced from
the very beginning was enormous. John Proctor a farmer and village commoner similarly is
faced with an
inner turmoil. He has committed adultery and had absolutely no intentions of joining in
the witch trials unless his pregnant wife were to also get involved. After his wife got
involved and eventually was set free due to the fact that she was pregnant feels that he
can't accept this. Proctor is a good
and noble man and because of this he believes at first he can't be hanged and die a
martyr when he has this sin blooming over him every waking moment . John later says to
Elizabeth that  My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by
giving them this lie that were
not rotten long before and rather confess then die for something he flat out didn't do.
However, as John confesses, he can not allow Danforth to make it officially documented.
As Danforth asks him why John answers with a cry  because it is my name. Because I cannot
have another in my life . . . How may I live without my name? Have given you my soul;
leave me my name(. John feels strongly about having a good name and not dying with a bad
one. Proctor weighs both sides of his internal conflict and realizes that he must not
make another mistake. He therefore, prescribes himself to death, not for his own sake,
but rather for the sake of the others. As John dies Liz weeps saying  He have his
goodness now. God forbid I take it away. Another internal conflict is evident in Reverend
Hale who initiates these problems. At first Reverend Hale is sure about his belief that
there are witches and feels that he is carrying out the desires of God
himself. Yet as the play moves on and Hale sees all these honest and good people being
sentenced and executed he too sees an inner conflict. He contemplates whether to do what
he is sent to do, listen to Danforth, or does he listen to his own conscience and
denounce these proceedings as unjust
and wrong. Hale decides to help out all the people wrongly accused by encouraging them to
confess and save themselves from these false proceedings. Hale attempting to repent his
own sins by tying to make people confess states I come to do the devils work. I come to
counsel Christians they should belie themselves . . . can you not see the blood on mt
head. Hale overcomes his turmoil by following the truth he knew in his heart of hearts.
Yet he is counseling people to  prevail upon your husband and confess  and says  God
damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride  and convinces people to
lie which is against his religion and considered a moral sin. But he decides that earthly
life is a greater gift than eternal life. Everybody throughout their lives are faced with
inner conflicts. One must make a decision based on what they think is right and true.
These
three characters probably just faced the most important decision of their lives. Whether
right or wrong their went with what they thought was the right decision within their
heart of hearts.