Write about an idea that you took away from our Crucible discussion today. You could write about a new insight that you gained or something that the group discussed that you were interested in. Pick something that you can discuss with some depth and that you can develop through textual references. This blog will be longer and more developed that previous ones that you have written.
Write your blog entry on a word document and then copy/paste it into the comment section of this blog (no worries about lost writing that way)!
Be sure to...
1. Discuss your own thinking about the topic as well as what your classmates said. It's okay to still have questions--but take the time to explore possible answers to those questions.
2. Discuss and ANALYZE specific scenes and lines of dialogue from the play and/or the article. Talk about how certain details and words lead to your interpretations.
3. Develop your ideas with depth (about 300 words).
4. Break up ideas into logical paragraphs (no one big block of print).
5. Check to make sure your sentences are clearly written and that you used correct punctuation and spelling.
6. Give your blog entry a fitting title.
I think that we had a good class discussion, but there was one thing that stuck out to me particularly. It was the last 5 minutes of class and a student asked the question, “What do you think if Abigail were to stick around and be there at the hanging?”
ReplyDeleteThat question really stuck into my head and I wanted to explore it more. I think as the story went on Abigail definitely changed. She was this crazy girl who didn’t know how to handle life because of where she lives and the people around her. Her parents died at a young age so she basically had no one. When she met John Proctor, her mind suddenly changed and she wanted to get to him the best way possible, and she tried everything. She accused people of lying and stabbing, telling lies about people seeing the devil, and much more. When John Proctor finally confessed about everything, Abigail was shocked and didn’t know what to do. She knew that eventually the lies would get caught and she would eventually get in trouble somehow. Her big idea was to run away, so she tried to take John with her to protect him, but he couldn’t keep lying anymore. The way Abigail felt about John was too emotional, so her seeing him die would have been very tragic. I think at that moment, she would have ran away because she wouldn’t have been able to handle such a horrific scene. Knowing the man you have loved for a long time, is going to die is something I don’t think anyone would ever want to see. So in Abigail’s defense, when she ran away was probably the appropriate timing. She knew that people were going to question her, so if she wanted to save herself that was the best bet.
I never thought of it outside of the box and that was an interesting twist to ask. I wonder if the author ever began thinking like that, or what would have actually happened if Abigail ever stayed.
I typed it into the word document, but when I pasted it, it didn't let me make changes so I could have multiple paragraphs
DeleteA main theme in the Crucible, is peer pressure and how it can change people’s morals. This was a big topic in the class discussion and it seemed that every question we looked at, linked back to this theme.
ReplyDeleteBy personal opinion is that being under pressure can definitely change a person’s morals, however it depends on the person. Some people are strong enough to deal with the pressure and say no, however some can not. For example, in real life some people can say no to drugs if their friends offer them some, but some will give in because they are afraid to say no. They go against what they know is the right thing to do because they are weak and scared of the consequences if they say no. In the Crucible there are several characters that give in to peer pressure and a handful of people that do not.
Tituba is one of the first people to be accused of being a witch. Abigail finds her an easy target for she is a slave and people will easily believe that she could be one. When Tituba is accused, they go to her and beat her. To end this brutality, she admits that she has seen the devil, she says, “No, no, don’t hang Tituba! I tell him I don’t desire to work for him (meaning the devil), sir”(Miller 44). She gives in to the pressure, to stop the beating. She knew she had never seen the devil, but she lied and went against her morals, to give Parris and others what they wanted to hear. This was the start of many accusations and surrenders.
Mary Warren was another person in the book that went against what she knew was the right thing to do and gave into peer pressure. She helped Proctor try to save his wife by testifying that there are no witches and that the girls, and her at one point, were lying. However, Abigail and the other girls turned against her and she could not take it anymore. They kept repeating what Mary was saying, as if the devil was telling them to say that. Abigail has claimed that Mary was a bird and coming to hurt them all. Mary could not take this insanity anymore, she was worried they would kill her. Eventually Mary turned against Proctor and said, “You are the devil’s man… “I’ll murder you,” he says, “If my wife hangs,” ...I love God. Abby, Abby I’ll never hurt you more!”(Miller 118-119). Mary turns against what she knows is the truth, and accuses Proctor to save her life.
John Proctor is one the only people that stick to their morals and do not give into the pressure. He admit he is a witch, however when they ask him if he has seen anyone with the devil he says no. He signs that paper saying he has confessed then rips it up. “I have confessed myself! Is there no good penitence but it be public? God does not need my name nailed upon the church! God sees my name; God knows how black my sins are!It is enough!” (Miller 142). Danforth and Parris keep trying to have him sign his name as evidence to show the public, but he refuses. He does not give in to this pressure. He keeps his morals, which are that no one is a devil. He leaves them with no respect or power, which they wanted. If he had signed that and given it to them they would have gained the respect and power that they wanted but did not deserve.
Everyone in this book was affected one way or another by other people’s changing of their morals. If people did not give into the peer pressure of this event, the results would have been completely different.
Zeynep Balto,
ReplyDeleteInside Of The Book
In The Crucible the author was talking about the reputation which means that a specific characteristic or traits that cause of a public situation or a person. John Proctor said "I have given you my soul, leave me my name!" to Danforth in Act four he refused to give up on his name he make up himself to a failure and die with the goodness of him. This part of the book is best describes this theme.
In the play the John Proctor's change the dynamic character part is his confession is succeed. They offered the opportunity to make a public confession of his guilt and life but he almost succumbs even signing a written confession. He wants to save his name for personal and religion rather than a public reasons but than he changed his mind he chose to die as testimony to the truth. Elizabeth think that whatever he did is his goodness "its not my soul its his soul that why I won't tell him what to do". she leaves the choice to him she was pushing him to good side she was pushing him to tell the what he wants to tell.
For these two paragraphs there is an effect of the morality. Maybe being under pressure changed the John Proctor's idea because people who are in pressure can't think properly they can't choose which one is true or what if people judge for the wrong decision. Also I think the morality is relative because everyone has their own set of moral values. Morality mostly depends on your own individual experiences. Because if it was a universal than everyone would believe what is right or wrong exactly the same.
If I identify one line from the play it would be: "because it is my name! Because I can not have another exactly in my life!" by John Proctor. I chose this line because Proctor's desire to preserve his good name keeps him testify against Abigail. But than finally at the end he came to the true understanding of what a good reputation means and what cause of action.
Abigail Williams is the one of the character that effects the all village because she lies every time and manipulates her all friends and the other people in the village her motivation is more complex than a simple jealousy (she is jealous of john Proctor every time). They can't find the Abigail's guilt and this is makes Abigail more action and understandable of her traits.
Sahar Shakeel
ReplyDeleteJohn Proctor’s Final Decision
When I first read the part where John Proctor signs the confession, but then ripping it up afterwards, I was very confused what his reasons was to do such a thing. Earlier when he was talking to Elizabeth, John was confused on what he should do and desperately asking Elizabeth for an answer. But Elizabeth doesn’t give him an answer right away, saying “Do what you will. But let none be your judge.” (Miller 137). I believe she said this because Elizabeth believes that no matter what, John Proctor has his good in him. This is very ironic because in the beginning of the play, the relationship of John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor was complicated. Elizabeth had a hard time trusting Proctor after she found out about her husband’s affair. So it seems odd to me that Elizabeth would believe that Proctor will make the right decision.
But in the end of their discussion, Proctor decided it would be for the best to confess. If he confessed to witchcraft, he would be able to live with Elizabeth and his family but the others who were accused of being witches, would look terrible when they really are innocent. When he realized he was supposed to sign a contract to prove he is a witch, he hesitated to sign it, but then ripped it up after.
I now believe he did this because if he confessed, he would live because of lying, and he would be back to the old John Proctor again, the John Proctor who stays in the shadows, procrastinate to do the right thing and living under a lie. I realized this after he had said, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (Miller 143). John Proctor wishes to not live under an another huge lie for the rest of his life, because his life was difficult when he he tried to keep his affair a secret. If he signed the paper, it would be as if the name he signs meant his “good” side, one who is courageous and tells the truth. If he gets rid of his “good” side, he would be back to his old self.
Proctor’s actions throughout the play made me realize that people can still change and have a chance to redeem or rebirth themselves. Meaning, people can look back at the past and see the mistakes they did, and won’t do the same mistake again. John Proctor procastinated to tell everyone the truth behind his affair, and because he did, Abigail gained control and was able to overpower the village with false assumptions. This mistake made by Proctor made him realize that lying isn’t the right thing to do. When Proctor said, “... I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your back hearts that this is a fraud - God damns our kind especially, and we will burn together!” (Miller 120), the line captures Arthur Miller’s main message, which is, if one knows something is wrong, and has the power to stop it but chose not to, one is just as guilty to blame for the incident, as much as anyone else involved.
Carissa Jesmain
ReplyDeleteIs preserving our character and our morals, a big part of the essence of who we are, worth our lives? That is the question John Proctor had to answer to himself in the Crucible. It is obvious he struggles with this on and off, because, as we discussed, there is no absolute right answer for John Proctor. If he presents a false confession he will live and continue to have his life with Elizabeth, but very likely doom so many others. He would legitimize Abigail’s false claims and, because of his influence and standing in the community, make everyone believers of the lies.
If he doesn’t confess, he does have the truth on his side, but will die. John feels deserving of death; not for what he is accused, but for his other sins. In a way, this makes him feel justified in his false confession. This is a large part of what influences him to consider the false confession in the first place.
One of the ideas I have been thinking through since our discussion is how John Proctor’s difficult decision is so similar to some of our own. The type of pressure from others is a lot like the type of peer pressure we all feel in high school. Everyday there is an opportunity to follow the pack, compromise what you know is right, or go against the group and risk social repercussions. Thankfully, these situations aren’t life or death, but it does give us some real-life understanding of how a character like John Proctor can get into a situation where there seems only to be wrong answers or wrong decisions. One of the most important scenes, from my perspective, was when after John Proctor made his final decision not to follow through with his confession. He gave the reason “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” p.143. As he says this, he isn’t literally saying that his name is all he has, but that the important parts of who he is like his character and his soul are all he has as a person and, ultimately, he can’t compromise those things about himself even if it means he will die.
Brenna Remillard
ReplyDeleteI felt that the class discussion we had help me understand The Crucible a little more and opened my mind to some new ideas. One new idea I heard, came up when we talked about Elizabeth not telling John what to do. In act four John is accused of being a witch and the only way to save himself would be to sign a false confession, but before he makes that decision he asks Elizabeth what he should do. She doesn’t give him an answer except for “As you will, I would have it.” (136). An idea that was brought up that Elizabeth trust John to make the right decisions. I believe this trust comes from him confessing the affair with Abigail. He signs the confession, but rips it up. When I read this part I didn’t really understand why he would do this. He signed it, he gets to live now, but by ripping it up he hangs. What confused me even more about this scene is that even with everyone telling Elizabeth to run after her husband and try to save him, she does nothing. “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!” (145). I believe Elizabeth does not try to save John because she feels that he has saved himself. Throughout the play John has matured and started telling the truth. First he told the truth about the girls’ lies, then about the affair and now telling the truth that no one condemned to hang is a witch. John has redeemed himself and Elizabeth does not want to take that away from him, even if it means he dies. There was a question I asked that I feel didn’t get talked enough about. Do you think John ripped up the confession and wanted to hang? I believe that John realizes there is no getting through to these people and with all the lies and stress he and the town have gone through he knows that, even after all of this is over, nothing in Salem will be the same. Maybe John has had enough.
Angelo Cavallaro
ReplyDeleteInside Abigails Brain
Throughout the book and during our discussion people have seemed, in my view of the opinion, to view Abigail as a truly bad person. Now I’m not saying that she is an angel or that what she has done is justified in any way but it seems to me like one of the simpler answers wasn’t brought up in discussions or thought of. Abigail is a girl who has witnessed the murder of both of her parents. This is something that would cause severe traumatic mental scarring, yet no one has brought up the possibility of a legitimate mental illness. In her situation it would be very easy to contract something along the line of post traumatic stress disorder, and have it only get worse over time due to a lack of help from a community where women are repressed and any strange behavior could be strewn as evil and of malicious intent. That alone or even combined with even a minor underlying disorder could cause psychotic behavior which I believe was brought out when Abigail was turned down by Proctor.
This behavior succeeds in intimidating the other girls such as on page 20 “... And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word,about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it…” This induced fear into the other girls which they didn’t have much choice other than to succumb to since in this community spoken word is believed almost as much as written contract which is really what is most frustrating me the most about this whole event. Everyone believes whatever the child says because what reason could they possibly have to lie.
That’s what I think about Abigail Williams.
Ayia Abdelmagid
ReplyDeleteThe discussion that we had in class I really enjoyed. What stuck out to me most in the discussion that we had in class was, how hale changed through out the book.
What I thought was interesting was that some one in class said Hale is a weak character. I personally think that Hale was a weak character because, In the beginning of the play when he arrived at salam town he seemed like he was an expert on witchcraft and that he knows what he's doing. At the beginning of the play Hale was so convinced that what the girls did was indeed involved witchcraft and they taked to the devil. Hale was so convinced that he even went to everyone's house to ask them questions to see Maybe if they seemed likee they are with the devil.
Towards the middle of the play hale started to have second thoughts about witchcraft in the town because he was signing all these death warrants, and he didnt want to have innocent people getting hung because it was all a fraud. As we get towards the end of the play hale knows for sure that this was all a fraud and that Abigail was lyingg to the whole town. When Danfourth was telling john to confess about being a witch at the end of the play, hale jumped in and told john that he had to lie to save his life, but then danfourth said it isnt a lie and hale responded its all a lie. I definitely see Hale being a weak character because at the beginning of the play he walks into the town "thinks" he knows what hes doing, but when we got towards the end of the play yu see that strong character at the beginning of the play start to break down and have hes doubts .
Taylor Nielsen
ReplyDeleteMorals can tell a lot about a person
Our discussion on The Crucible helped me understand the book a little bit better, it brought all the details together and answered all my questions I had. During our discussion a big topic that we talked about was morals and morals under peer pressure. Some said that your morals don’t change under peer pressure. Others disagreed and said that your morals do change under peer pressure. Peer pressure is a big factor and theme throughout the entire play.
I think that morals are important in everyones life. Morals are important when you are making decisions. In my opinion being under peer pressure definitely causes your morals to change. Also, your morals reflect your personality and show who you are as a person. Many characters were affected by peer pressure causing some of their morals to change.
One character that really stood out to me was Mary Warren, she had to deal with a lot of peer pressure from many people. Mary Warren had good morals. She wanted to testify that there were no witches to help save Elizabeth Proctor. Mary Warren went into court scared and nervous about what may happen to her. Since Mary Warren turned on Abigail and all the other girls, they all turned on her. The girls made Mary Warren look like a liar. They repeated everything Mary Warren was saying, as if she was the devil. The girls acted scared. The girls came up with a lie saying that Mary was a bird trying to kill the girls. The judges in the court were not believing Mary’s confession about there being no witches. Mary Warren eventually broke down and went against John Proctor. Mary went back to siding with the girls. She said, “...I love God. Abby, Abby I’ll never hurt you more!”(Miller 118-119). She couldn’t take the peer pressure from the girls anymore so she went against her morals to save herself.
Mary Warren is just one character that was influenced by peer pressure. Everyone is different. Some are strong enough to stand by their morals no matter what, but others are too weak to stand up for themselves.
From Love to Murder
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed The Crucible. I believe my favorite character in the play was Abigail, and I was upset she wasn’t brought up at all really during our discussion. You just watch her evolve during the play and her slowly unleashing her true dark colors. I know I had brought up during the discussion a possibility as to why Proctor didn’t end up saying he did witchcraft was because of Abigail. I thought that he did it as a way to get back at her because she did all this madness in an attempt to get John, by saying his wife was a witch so she would be killed or taken away so she could have him. She didn’t plan on him being the one to die, and I almost see it as him doing it so that way she couldn’t get what she wanted and what all the madness and lies were for. That’s obviously my opinion, it might now be right, but I remember bringing that up in the discussion.
Back to Abigail, the first time you really get a taste for just how dark she is page 20; she says “I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring you a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. An you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!” This is clearly a threat to the other girls in the forest telling them to keep their mouths shut or she will hurt them, up until this point Abigail didn’t seem innocent, but she did not seem to have this much danger to her. This clearly helps to prove my point of her really opening up about how dark and cruel she can be.
When Abigail starts to blame people of witchcraft, you can really tell she just has no real care for anyone. Blaming innocent people that have never done anything wrong, just because she’s power thirsty and in the case of Mrs. Proctor, wanting John to herself. She in plain words just gets worse and worse as the play goes on. And it's quite shocking to see such cruelty, despair and lies from someone so young.