Connelly
Junior English
The Crucible: Final Essay
**select one of the prompts below to use for your Crucible essay response.
“In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Miller offers a great perspective on how detrimental unbridled
fear can be to a community. His story about the witch hunts that occurred in Salem, MA shows
us how debilitating fear can be preventing us from acting in ways we know are right. Fear of the
unknown, fear of evil, and fear of those in power are just a few examples of the types of fear that
lead to the destruction of our communities. The tragedy that took place in Salem is not a
singular event; these tragedies have been repeated, like during the McCarthy period of the
1950’s. Unless we can learn to control the power fear has over us, we will never be able to feel
truly safe in our communities.”
~Adapted from Marshall Longfellow What We Can Learn From Arthur Miller
In a 700-750 word response, explain Longfellow’s argument and discuss the extent to which
you agree or disagree with her analysis. Support your position, providing specific reasons
and examples from The Crucible, your own experience, observations, and/or past reading.
“Salem village, that pious, devout settlement at the edge of white civilization, had displayed three centuries before the Russo-American rivalry and the issues it raised - what can only be
called a built-in pestilence in the human mind; a fatality forever awaiting the right conditions for
its always unique, forever unprecedented outbreak of distrust, alarm, suspicion and murder. And
for people wherever the play is performed on any of the five continents, there is always a certain
amazement that the same terror that is happening to them or that is threatening them, has
happened before to others. It is all very strange. But then, the Devil is known to lure people into
forgetting what it is vital for them to remember…”
~excerpt from Arthur Miller’s Why I Wrote the Crucible
In a 700-750 word response, explain Miller’s argument and discuss the extent to which you
agree or disagree with her analysis. Support your position, providing specific reasons and
examples from The Crucible, your own experience, observations, and/or past reading.
** Make sure your paper follows MLA format, including all of your quotes/evidence.