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Ms. Geller
American Literature -3rd
9 September 2015
Sociogram: The Crucible
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, uses fictionalized depictions of historical figures
from the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to shed critical light on social and political issues of his
own time period. I have created a Sociogram to visually represent the complex relationships
among these characters. I used an old sock to represent the play’s protagonist, John Proctor,
because he felt that he could not escape the stench of sin. I made the sock gray to emphasize
his moral ambiguity. I depicted his wife, Elizabeth, as a series of musical notes, as she is
“softly singing to the children” when she first appears in the play (Miller II.1). I connected
these two characters, as well as other married couples such as the Putnams and the Coreys,
with a solid green line. I crosshatched parts of the Proctors’ line, however, to show that there
has been friction in their marriage due to Proctor’s affair with Abigail. I drew Abigail as a
cancer cell, because the hysteria she causes spreads through Salem like a cancer. The cell’s
round shape is also reminiscent of Proctor’s reference to Abigail as a “lump of vanity”
(III.384). I drew Abigail’s relationship to Proctor as a series of arrows pointing toward him,
as her desire to be with him is her prime motivation. I showed Abigail’s relationship to
Samuel and Betty Parris, as well as other relationships between relatives, as a linked chain,
although Abigail’s chain has many broken links due to her troubled past. Samuel Parris, as
the leader of Salem’s church, is symbolized with a cross, while Reverend Hale is represented
by the stack of books that are supposedly “weighted with authority” (I.350). I depicted
Danforth as a stubborn brick wall with no lines to connect him to the community, and
physically distanced him from the protagonists to emphasize this lack of connection. I used
blue and white to symbolize the tranquility and moral purity of both Rebecca Nurse and
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Elizabeth. I showed Mary Warren, Betty Parris, and Ruth Putnam as lemmings blindly
following Abigail, and illustrated this relationship with a rope. Finally, I portrayed Tituba as a
palm tree from her native Barbados. Her love for Betty is indicated by a line made of hearts,
and the court’s persecution and scapegoating of Tituba is depicted as black lightning bolts.
The overall color scheme of my Sociogram—mostly black, white, and red—symbolizes the
struggle between good and evil as well as the passion and violence plaguing Salem by the end
of the play.