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The Crucible
Arthur Miller
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Literary Devices
Themes

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.  

Intolerance

The Crucible is set in a theocratic society, in which the church and the state are one, and the
religion is a strict, austere form of Protestantism known as Puritanism. Because of the
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theocratic nature of the society, moral laws and state laws are one and the same: sin and the
status of an individual’s soul are matters of public concern. There is no room for deviation from
social norms, since any individual whose private life doesn’t conform to the established moral
laws represents a threat not only to the public good but also to the rule of God and true
religion. In Salem, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the devil; dissent is not
merely unlawful, it is associated with satanic activity. This dichotomy functions as the
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underlying logic behind the witch trials. As Danforth says in Act III, “a person is either with this
court or he must be counted against it.” The witch trials are the ultimate expression of
intolerance (and hanging witches is the ultimate means of restoring the community’s purity); Add Note with SparkNotes PLUS

the trials brand all social deviants with the taint of devil-worship and thus necessitate their
elimination from the community. The Crucible

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Full Book Analysis

SUMMARY

Character List
CHARACTERS

Hysteria John Proctor

CHARACTERS

Another critical theme in The Crucible is the role that hysteria can play in tearing apart a
community. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, Themes
whom they have always considered upstanding people, are committing absurd and LITERARY DEVICES

unbelievable crimes—communing with the devil, killing babies, and so on. In The Crucible, the
Ownership and Property
townsfolk accept and become active in the hysterical climate not only out of genuine religious
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piety but also because it gives them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to act on
long-held grudges. The most obvious case is Abigail, who uses the situation to accuse
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Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft and have her sent to jail. But others thrive on the hysteria as QUICK QUIZZES
well: Reverend Parris strengthens his position within the village, albeit temporarily, by making
scapegoats of people like Proctor who question his authority. The wealthy, ambitious Thomas
Putnam gains revenge on Francis Nurse by getting Rebecca, Francis’s virtuous wife, convicted
of the supernatural murders of Ann Putnam’s babies. In the end, hysteria can thrive only Take a Study Break

because people benefit from it. It suspends the rules of daily life and allows the acting out of
every dark desire and hateful urge under the cover of righteousness. Every Shakespeare Play Summed Up
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Reputation

Reputation is tremendously important in theocratic Salem, where public and private moralities
are one and the same. In an environment where reputation plays such an important role, the
fear of guilt by association becomes particularly pernicious. Focused on maintaining public
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reputation, the townsfolk of Salem must fear that the sins of their friends and associates will
taint their names. Various characters base their actions on the desire to protect their
respective reputations. As the play begins, Parris fears that Abigail’s increasingly questionable
actions, and the hints of witchcraft surrounding his daughter’s coma, will threaten his
reputation and force him from the pulpit. Meanwhile, the protagonist, John Proctor, also seeks
to keep his good name from being tarnished. Early in the play, he has a chance to put a stop to
the girls’ accusations, but his desire to preserve his reputation keeps him from testifying
against Abigail. At the end of the play, however, Proctor’s desire to keep his good name leads
him to make the heroic choice not to make a false confession and to go to his death without
signing his name to an untrue statement. “I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” he
cries to Danforth in Act IV. By refusing to relinquish his name, he redeems himself for his
earlier failure and dies with integrity.

Goodness

In The Crucible, the idea of goodness is a major theme. Almost every character is concerned
with the concept of goodness because their religion teaches them that the most important
thing in life is how they will be judged by God after they die. They want to be found good,
because being good will make them right with God. Their neighbors’ opinion guides them, too.
The characters want to be seen as good by the whole village. From the opening of the play,
when the Rev. Parris is far more concerned with what his parishioners will think of him than his
daughter’s illness, this theme is clear. Parris bullies his niece and slave to get them to reveal
what they’ve done to tarnish his reputation. When Abigail follows Tituba’s example by falsely
confessing to witchcraft, she does so because she sees an opportunity to convince the
residents of Salem that she is a good person. Other characters, such as Mary Warren, confess
because being seen as good is more important to them than telling the truth.

Several characters’ concern over goodness goes beyond how they are seen and requires that
they actually examine what it means to be good. We see this struggle in the Rev. Hale,
Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor. Hale enters the play convinced he’s a good man who can
spot a witch easily. By the end of the play, he has examined his conscience and realized that if
he wants to be at peace with himself, he has to encourage the prisoners to falsely confess.
Elizabeth is also convinced of herself as a good woman, but by the end of the play, she has
reconsidered her treatment of her husband after he confessed to an a"air, and realizes that
she was unforgiving. John struggles the most with goodness: it takes signing a false
confession, then ripping it up, for him to recognize that the only way he can be good is by
being honest and true to himself.

Judgment

Another major theme in The Crucible is that of judgment, especially seen in the characters of
Danforth and Rev. Hale. In the third act of the play, Deputy Governor Danforth sits in judgment
over the accused and imprisoned residents of Salem. Danforth’s judgments, which he is
always firm and resolute about, are clearly wrong: Elizabeth, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse,
and many others are not witches at all. Danforth is unable to change his mind, even when all
evidence and logic points him towards concluding he is incorrect. Danforth mistakenly
believes that a reliable judge never reconsiders his stance. Hale, on the other hand, Hale
learns the foolishness of sitting in judgment over his fellow humans. By the end of the play, he
no longer cares about the o#cial judgments of the court of the land, only about saving
peoples’ lives. Danforth has not learned the danger of judging others, while Hale has.

Social Status

The world of Salem in the 1600s contained many class divisions. Men were considered much
more important than women. White people were considered more valuable than people of
color. And wealthy people had more status than the poor. The Crucible reflects these divisions,
and the way they privilege certain characters over others. The first character to confess to
witchcraft is Tituba, the only person of color in the play. She knows that her status is too low to
withstand the accusations of being a witch and the only way she’ll survive is to confess. The
girls are quick to accuse the poorest and weakest members of their society (like Goody Good
and Goody Osburn), correctly sensing that no one will bother to protect those women. When
Elizabeth learns that Abigail has accused her, she immediately tells John that Abigail is taking
a big risk in accusing her, since Elizabeth is a farmer’s wife and has some status in the town.
Her quick realization shows that Abigail is risking it all to go after John.

Ownership And Property

In The Crucible, concerns over property and ownership a"ect many of the decisions characters
make. John Proctor reveals to Reverend Hale that he doesn’t go to church because he doesn’t
like Reverend Parris’s obsession with money. Tituba falsely confesses to witchcraft because
she knows, as a slave, she is the legal property of Parris, who can beat her if she doesn’t
confess. Mr. Putnam, who has a long history of false accusations, encourages his daughter to
falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft so he can claim their property after the neighbors
are jailed or executed. Giles Corey dies rather than falsely confess so that his children can
inherit his land. In the new world of America, owning property was one of the few ways people
could feel secure. The relentless ambition to own more and more land created an
environment that encouraged falsehoods and deception among neighbors. The extreme
lengths characters go to to protect what they own leads to the witch trials.

Justice

Many characters struggle with choices they made before and during the events of the play,
trying to understand if the results of their actions are just or not. Elizabeth Proctor has a
di#cult time forgiving John for his a"air with Abby, but by the end of the play, Elizabeth has
come to feel that she is at least partly to blame for her husband’s adultery. Elizabeth accepts
her imprisonment and John’s decision to die as justice being served. Reverend Hale also
changes his understanding of justice: at the beginning of the play, he believes himself adept at
finding and combating witchcraft. By the end, he is encouraging residents of Salem to falsely
confess to save themselves. While he would have once found false confessions a perversion
of justice, he now sees false confession as a necessary act of self-preservation. Elizabeth
doesn’t agree with Hale, and their di"erent definitions of justice end the play on an ambiguous
note.

Consequences

John’s a"air with Abby has ended by the time the events of the play begin, but the
consequences of that a"air have just begun. Because Abby doesn’t believe that John no
longer is interested in her, she seizes upon accusations of witchcraft as a way to get rid of
Elizabeth. Because John allowed Abby to believe that he loved her, she thinks she can take
Elizabeth’s place as his wife. She’s wrong, but she doesn’t realize her error until both John and
Elizabeth have been accused of witchcraft. Another example of the unexpected
consequences of one’s actions can be seen in Tituba’s false confession. She says she
performed witchcraft in hopes of ending her master’s beating, but soon the girls of Salem
realize that they can punish many of their neighbors by accusing them. The girls fail to
anticipate the consequences of their lies. Giles Corey also brings about unintended
consequences when he tells Reverend Hale that his wife sometimes hides books she was
reading from him. The result of this revelation is that Corey’s wife is imprisoned and Giles
himself is accused of, and killed, for witchcraft.

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