By Arthur Miller
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Yes, you will be turning your notes in for my
review.
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I will return them on Thursday.
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Thank you for you kind
cooperation.
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Clean slate – 4th
marking period.
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Don’t accumulate 3
lates over the marking
period.
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Be on time and no one
gets a detention.
1692
1952
IRON CURTAIN
CHINA FALLS TO COMMUNISM
USSR GETS A-BOMB
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House Committee on
Un-American Activities
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Sen. Joseph McCarthy
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Goal: find communist
traitors here in USA
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“Since I was on my way up to Salem for research on a
play that I was still unsure I would write, I called at his
house, which was on my route. As he laid out his
dilemma and his decision to comply with the HUAC, it
was impossible not to feel his anguish, old friends that
we were. But the crunch came when I felt fear. For it
swept over me that, had I been one of his comrades,
he would have spent my name as part of the
guarantee of his reform. Even so, oddly enough, I was
not filling up with hatred or contempt for him; his
suffering was too palpable. The whole hateful
procedure had brought him to this, and I believe made
the writing of The Crucible all but inevitable.”
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Thank you for you kind
cooperation.
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Italics
Tituba
Sarah Good
Herrick
Cheever
Hale
Danforth
Hathorne
Parris
Elizabeth
Proctor
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Page 981
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Thank you for you kind
cooperation.
That confession surely
damns the others in
the public eye, and
none may doubt more
that they are linked to
Hell.
 This way, unconfessed
and claiming
innocence, doubts are
multiplied … and our
good purpose is lost.
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We need Rebecca
Nurse, John Proctor, or
Martha Corey to
confess.
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Otherwise, people
won’t believe that what
we are doing is right.
Twelve are already
executed; the names
of these seven are
given out, and the
village expects to see
them die this morning.
 Reprieve or pardon
must cast doubt upon
the guilt of them that
died till now.
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We’ve already killed 12
people.
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If we stop now, we are
admitting that we
killed those people in
error.
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Thank you for you kind
cooperation.
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Page 987
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Italics
Elizabeth
Danforth
Hale
Proctor
Parris
Rebecca Nurse
Herrick
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According to The Crucible, Act IV:
Elizabeth Proctor was a cold wife.
This drove John Proctor to have an affair with
Abigail, their servant.
 Goody Proctor fired Abby.
 Abby went to Tituba for a “charm” to kill
Proctor’s wife.
 Parris caught Abby & the girls with Tituba.
 Abby accused others to cover up what she was
doing.
 20 people killed as a result.
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Nothing’s spoiled by
giving them this lie
that were not rotten
long before.
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Refusing to confess
will not “keep my
children out of the
wind.”
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I’m already a sinner
because of the
adultery, I’m already
going to hell, so adding
another sin is no big
deal.
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I’m no good to my 4
kids if I’m dead. If I’m
alive I can support
them, care for them.
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They think to go like
saints. I like not to
spoil their names.
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I don’t want to ruin
anyone else’s
reputation.
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I have three children –
how may I teach them
to walk like men in the
world, and I sold my
friends.
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I might be a sinner
myself, but I want to
set an example for my
kids not to be a tattletale.
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Because it is my name!
Because I cannot have
another in my life!
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For now I do think I see
some shred of goodness
in John Proctor. Not
enough to weave a
banner with, but white
enough to keep it from
such dogs.
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“That John Proctor the
sinner might overturn
his paralyzing personal
guilt and become the
most forthright voice
against the madness
around him was a
reassurance to me,
and, I suppose, and
inspiration.”
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Thank you for you kind
cooperation.
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A clash between:
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Surprising at first blush
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Appearance & reality
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Expectation & result
But actually very fitting
when you think about
it.
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Intended meaning &
actual meaning
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Lennie Small
Hale attempts to persuade Elizabeth that John
should make a false confession.
1.
2.
Hale is a Puritan minister, so he should be on
the side of truth.
& when he arrived in Act I to investigate the
witchcraft, he told everyone to be “prepared
to believe me if I should find no” witchcraft.
He didn’t want anyone falsely jumping to
conclusions.
Rebecca Nurse dies and Sarah Good is saved.
Nurse is nice, devout, pure, & religious. Sarah
sleeps in ditches, doesn’t go to church. You
would think Nurse is the one that the
Puritan ministers would want to “save,” but
instead they hang her.
Abigail has stolen Rev. Parris’s money & run
away.
The girl that all the Puritan ministers believed
to be holy & true turns out a liar & a thief.
(But even after she runs away, they are still
willing to hang Rebecca Nurse & John
Proctor.)
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Elizabeth is saved because of her pregnancy.
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She was condemned as a witch & sentenced to
die, but because her hanging gets postponed
until after all the hysteria has died down, she
gets set free. (This is the true fate of the real life
Elizabeth Proctor.)
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(unintentional?) She’s supposed to be a cold wife
who drove her husband to adultery, but if she’s
pregnant she couldn’t have been that cold.
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Danforth refuses to accept John’s confession
if it is a lie.
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This Puritan has executed 12 people based on
Abby’s lies, & he now knows Abby has run
off, but he still insists that he is seeking out
truth.
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Has an internal conflict. He feels guilty for
committing adultery. He wants to take a
stand against all of the nonsense and hysteria
around him. He’s trying to decide what’s
better – lie about witchcraft & live, or refuse
to lie & die. He chooses to live & Miller
presents this as the correct choice in these
circumstances.
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She also feels guilty the breakdown of her
marriage. She doesn’t know how to advise
her husband about the choice he needs to
make at the end. She approves of John’s
choice at the end to go to his death.
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Is a dynamic character who changes from Act
I to Act IV. By the end, he realizes that the
Witch Trials are bogus, and he feels
responsible for causing these hangings – he
started the witchcraft investigations. He is
just trying to save lives however he can. He’s
decided that lies are better than more death
(he’s a contrast to John Proctor).
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By the end, the play suggests that he is the
worst character on stage. He refuses to
acknowledge the truth that is plainly before
him – that the witch trials are bogus, that
Proctor & Nurse are innocent, and that they
should not be executed. He continues
because he does not want to admit to himself
that he has already executed 12 people in
error.
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During Act III, Mary Warren is shown to be a
very weak person. Proctor tries to get her to
tell the truth, but in the end, she can’t oppose
Abigail & the society around her. She caves in
& starts pretending that she is bewitched.
Extreme religious fanaticism (like Puritanism) leads to
ignoring the facts, hysteria, death.
2. Salem witch trials lead to “innocent until proven guilty” –
we have a trial by jury system to avoid trial by hysteria.
3. It’s easy to accuse, it’s difficult to defend.
4. There are times when the group, the majority, the
society gets hysterical & gets it wrong, and then it’s hard
for one individual to stand up against the group.
5. Americans like to present themselves as moral, pure,
holy, correct; but the “ministers” are no more holy than
the rest of us.
6. We’re all hypocrites, we’re all a mix of good & bad, how
will you reconcile that within yourself?
1.
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Should Dzhokar Tzarnaev be prosecuted by a
military tribunal as an “enemy combatant,” or
should he get all of the protecttions that
criminals get in a normal US federal court
trial? Make an argument either way, and
support your argument by making an analogy
to The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
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The Crucible by Arthur Miller shows that extreme
religious fanaticism leads to a disregard for
human life. In the play, an extreme version of
Christianity (Puritanism) leads Judge Danforth to
execute John Proctor & Rebecca Nurse. In
Boston, we saw how an extreme version of Islam
lead the Tsarnaev brothers explode two bombs
in a crowd, killing three people and wounding
hundreds. Dzhokahar Tsarnaev saw this as an
act of jihad, or holy war. Under his own
interpretation, Tsarnaev sees himself as an
enemy combatant, and should be tried as such.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller shows the dangers of
allowing fear to overcome common sense in a rush to
judgment. In the play, the fear of witchcraft lead the
courts to admit “spectral evidence” and twenty innocent
people were executed as a result. Miller was using the
situation in Salem as an allegory for the Red Scare of the
1950s, when fear of communism lead the HUAC to make
wild accusations ruining the lives and careers of innocent
Americans.
 While the Boston bombings were certainly frightening,
there is no need to rush to judgment. Dzhokhar Tzarnaev
is a US citizen, even if the evidence against him is
overwhelming. Our federal courts have the ability to sort
through the evidence carefully and determine his guilt.
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