The Crucible Essay: Example and Tips

The Crucible is one of the most popular books for literature analysis and evaluative essays among teachers and students. Students like it for small volume, interesting plot and fascinating topic. This book can’t leave the reader indifferent, it brings lots of emotions. The task of the reviewer is to express his emotions and views after reading this work.

How to write The Crucible essay

Getting down to work on writing an essay on The Crucible, the author needs to imagine and realize the work he is about to do. First of all, it is crucial to read the book and di it attentively. It is not enough to read a short version, if you want to read a good evaluative essay. Do not neglect this rule, otherwise the reader would feel that you are not fully aware of the topic you are writing about.

It may also be useful to read several literature reviews and analysis of this literature work. But try to form your personal attitude to the book, do not still ideas. If you are afraid to be influenced by others, be more independent and avoid even discussions of the play with others.

It might be a good idea to quote a phrase from the book The Crucible at the beginning. Choose the phrase that impressed you the most or the one, which characterizes the book the best way.

Evaluative essay on a book is very similar to literature review. Read the rules and tips for writing. Follow the rules but be creative. If you want to interest the reader and catch his attention, you need to write something new and unexpected.

Examples of topics for The Crucible essay

  1. Plot and protagonists of The Crucible
  2. Tragedy in The Crucible
  3. Literature tools of Arthur Miller in The Crucible
  4. Betrayal, fear and hope in The Crucible

The Crucible essay example

“Twelve people have already been executed, your Reverence. It would be unfair to them if I now forgive the rest.”

Intro

The glorious city of Salem in the late 17th century falls into the paws of mass insanity. Provincial passions become an event of almost a global scale. Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible presents his version of the events of the day. We talk, of course, about the hunt for witches. Jealousy starts a terrible process, quickly destroying the life of a small Puritan town. Write denunciations – for a sweet soul. Construct an interrogation so as to dislodge any confession? It’s easy, because you just do not admit it on pain of death. The principle of existence “you are not with us – you are against us” is thriving. And this is only a small part of the horrors described in the short play “The crucible”.

And now you are living in the 21st century and you think: there is progress in the development of mankind. We have left from “we will accuse the person of a crime without any proofs on hands”. Justice has become better seen. Pluralism of opinions, social movements of different directions and all that. Well, at least in the sometimes and in some places. And then you open the news. Some details have changed, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, but the general impression is that we have not progressed anywhere. Or, solving one problem, we get two new ones, and so on ad infinitum? Quite often the case is erroneous, and only analogies are generally risky. But the similarity to the then “witch-hunt” and today’s day can not fail to notice.

Body

I often write out quotes from books. Sometimes it’s a few words, sometimes quite impressive pieces of text. Reading The Crucible, I constantly caught myself thinking that I would like to write out almost every sentence. Just take and rewrite the whole play in a notebook. Author’s notes and explanations deserve a special ode. A pair of surgically accurate words or sentences, and from under the pen of Miller comes an absolutely living and tangible character.

Here is Mr. Parris or a couple of Pathnames. Greedy, unpleasant and fat creatures.

Here is Abigail Williams. Undoubtedly, a strong personality, capable and suppress, and persuade, and lead, and kneaded terrible dough on the lees of unhealthy teenage love and revenge.

The families of Ners and Corey. Mental, quarrelsome, funny, easily recognizable characters of the quiet life of any small provincial town.

Mr. Hale. He appeared in Salem with the firm intention of sowing the rational-good-eternal, and so vividly illustrated the proverb about good intentions and the road to hell.

John and Elizabeth Proctors. People who fully knew the hopelessness of perfect betrayal, when no remorse will return the former warmth and trust to the relationship.

No matter how you lock the dark past, it will always find out when and from what slot to jump out to again shake the steady balance. And the feeling of guilt that degenerates into pain and anger at the fact that she can not find the strength to forgive until the end. It is difficult, and at the same time you want to believe in the existence of such a conjugal love that was able to leave betrayal behind, and, according to certain wisdom, accept what can not already be changed and fight for what it is worth fighting for. For the soul. For an honest name, which you are proud to leave to your sons.

The frost rips through the skin, when you realize that the madness that happened more than three hundred years ago is not the fruit of the author’s imagination (although the result of literary processing), but the reality that has struck ordinary people from flesh and blood. Even in these not very stable and good times, it is difficult to believe in the possibility of such events. Probably, the unfortunate inhabitants of Salem also could not believe until the very end.

The Crucible is a heavy work for reading. It’s not just the topic of the so-called “witch hunt” that is touched upon in it. And not only in its correspondence to the real events that took place in Salem in 1692. The fact is that it is written in such a way that it strikes the consciousness by the prevailing / established ideas about what true faith and disbelief are, how to act by faith. Miller’s play simply turns these ideas upside down, turns inside out, and finally just turns them to dust.

The consequences of human acts can be very tragic. So can we say that this color (black, white or white) is unquestionably authentic? No. Hence, it is not important at all. And the truth is not in color. The truth, therefore, is somewhere in the middle – just where there is something that is more important than all colors and shades: human life. Life is God’s most precious gift; no matter how glorious it is, nothing can justify taking it. And for some, this truth is an honor and unspotted by false confessions (in not performed by them deeds) the name preserved in a pure, primordial form for themselves, first of all honor and name is not something that colors and shades, but even the very life is more valuable. For John Proctor, for example. For Rebecca. They did not stand by the price. And they received a reward for eternity. And, of course, a sense of fulfilled Christian duty. Before the conscience. And, of course, before the Supreme Court, but not before the human, which does not distinguish colors and shades, but punishes and brandes indiscriminately.

Conclusion

A multifaceted and complex work The Crucible based on historical events is striking in its frankness. Human vices are exposed, the person is depicted as he really is, without masks. Miller raised important and eternal questions of trust, lies, betrayal, selfishness. Dark hopelessness and injustice pervades the whole work, it is impossible to remain indifferent. Hundreds of prisoners, dozens of executions through hanging. What is it, obsession? Insanity of the judges?

The terrible times were when the truth was on the side of those who shouted more convincingly and loudly, and justice was reduced to the formula “confess or be executed”, “name names or you will be hanged”, “you are either for this court or against it, the third is not given.” The choice among the people was small – to save their lives by ruining others, and sometimes they did it deliberately for the sake of profit. Indeed, the possessed were in the role of judges.

Even for a moment, I do not doubt that at that time the courts passed exactly as Miller described. Fantasy is not able to draw something more inadequate, and if the courts are not so, then there would be no horror like that.

In Salem, it all began with the strange behavior of a teenage girl, which is why they suspected that she was possessed by an evil spirit. The plot line of the play shows that the revenge of a rejected woman can be truly insane. Abigail Williams accused half the city of worshiping the evil forces, well aware of the consequences for everyone, and only to return the man, John Proctor, who once was seduced by her betraying his wife, which he later regretted. In the center of the book, there are two strong female images: one woman at the cost of dozens of other people’s lives wants to return the man, the other – at the cost of her life trying to save a man. The central male image – John Proctor – is complex and can be the subject of a long discussion.

These events would be a theater of the absurd, if meaningless executions did not occur in reality. What is happening is so terrible that it is impossible even to imagine that this was actually happening, that people could do that. And this happened not only in the Salem, it was not the only court, but church apologized not for every court. And no matter how much time has passed, what level of education or faith we have reached, centuries, fashion and customs change, but does the person really change?

How to finish work on writing The Crucible essay

Here comes the stage of checking and editing The Crucible paper. If you have several extra days, leave this work for later and come back to it with a fresh head.

If you do not have time at all and you are not sure in your own knowledge, you might want to use online service for correcting mistakes. Such a service will allow to check the literacy of the text. Checking for errors online will help to find mistakes and typos in the text. It is useful when analyzing any text, if you want to check its quality and find any errors. If you have problems with punctuation, rather than spelling, evaluate the possibility of checking for commas. The service will point to problematic areas where unnecessary or missing punctuation marks have been found, for example, several consecutive commas or unpaired parentheses.

Another possibility for a check is to ask someone to read your paper about The Crucible. This choice has both advantages and disadvantages. The person might miss mistakes because of lack of knowledge. But on the other hand, he or she will also check the text for logics and sense.