Motivation?
Based upon your own understanding and any studied background information regarding The Crucible, what motivation exists for some of the characters and the drama's author, Arthur Miller? Please complete this blog response by 2:30p.m. on Wednesday, September 23rd.
posted by Greg T at Monday, September 21, 2009
29 Comments:
After reading Act I of The Crucible, I found that most of the motivation for the characters is fear. The characters think that anyone, and everyone, who does something out of the normal is a witch and has special powers that could eventually hurt them. They fear being found by a real witch and being hurt or having the witches "magic" used on them in a bad way. This creates a sense of paranoia and forces many people to believe that everyone is practicing witchcraft. The motivation for the author of this drama, Arthur Miller, is to portray to the reader the significance of fear in the time period in which witchcraft was at its peak. He wants to explain how many people jump to conclusions when they are in fear for their own lives or the lives of the ones closest to them.
The motivation here is fear because they just go through their life being concerned about everyone being a witch and that they are going to harm them. I think the author wants us to realize how those people lived in the time of witches. Now days we don't live in fear at all knowing that witches exist. We have many other things to worry about, and back then, the witches were the scariest thing to them.
I think the prevailing motivational theme for characters in this time period is fear. Fear of God, fear of death and fear of ostracism. In a nearly unanimously puritan community church would have played a large role in scaring the people into following the laws and social norms. For a god fearing community, whatever the church says might as well be law. Also, in a time where birth rates were low and the life expectancy similarly unimpressive, health was a big concern. Without modern technology some may have subscribed to sorts of witchcraft and sorcery in fear of losing their lives. More important than death, however, was ostracism. Ostracism would have nearly insured both humiliation and loss of life. To avoid ostracism, I think people would jump on the witch hunt bandwagon in order to keep them selves from being convicted.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Through out the first act of the Crucible, i realized that most of the motivation for the characters is evil. I believe that the motivation for the characters is evil because for everyone in Massachusetts at the time, it was custom to go to church and at church they taught the people that evil is a scary and unwanted thing in any society. So when people started to act abnormally they believed that they were committing acts of evil. This in return causes the people to become fearful of these people and they wanted them gone. When people read Arthur Miller's writing he wants them to see how people are scared of change and any act that was unusual they jumped to conclusions and believed that they were evil or as they thought "witches". The people of Massachusetts were in fear of these evil acts and didn't want anything to change their normal lives.
When we finished reading act 1 of The Crucible I noticed that biggest motivation of the characters was fear. I believe that the auther is trying to point out the lives that people lived back in the 1600's. I think everyone that lived in that time was in fear for themselves and there famlies that something bad was going to happen to them. The characters feel like something will happen to them if nothing is done to prevent witch craft or if the problem with witches isnt taken care of.
There is an obvisious motivation for the author, Arthur Miller, because he lived during a time of accusations regarding communism and it was very difficult to speak out against something he thought was barberck, especially since it probably meant he had something to hide. So this writing was a way to express feelings and doubts, without being obvious and scrutinized for it, thus it was mitigate, rather than making a public declaration.
The characters motivation was quite similar but in a way very different. Both Arthur Miller and his characters used this as a way to express contented emotions, but for different reasons. The characters wanted to confess their sins openly without being punished because what they did wouldn't be as bad as being a witch, thus any emotion of hatred or sorrow was emmitted, in a safe way.
The author's purpose of writing was to show the connection between the cold war and the Salem witch trials. He was trying to show that what senator McCarthy was doing to people was like what they did to people that were suspected to be witches. By reading the first act of the Crucible, I can tell that the characters are motivated by the fear of being caught and convicted as a witch. The people in the Crucible are willing to turn each other in just so they can stop being accused for being a witch. The same thing happened during the cold war. Senator McCarthy made lists of people he suspected as communists and they would turn others in just to get off the hook. Clearly, the author and characters had motivation for the way they felt.
Much like Edwards writing, the motivation for some of the characters is fear. In Miller's piece, The Crucible, the fear of witch craft and magic is upon each character. It seems that in The Crucible, and other early American writings the fear of doing something wrong really motivated the characters. This could have been because back in the day most mistakes lead to death. The characters in The Crucible are afraid of having witches use magic on them. Many people back in the day would basically go with the flow of things so that there own self would not get accused of doing something wrong.
This comment has been removed by the author.
In the crucible there is lack of trust from person to person. No one can really trust the other person because they are consumed with fear that the other person might not be part of what they consider norm. Each person was so afraid of getting caught that they would try to act as normal as possible. They would do this in an attempt to try and not get caught. This fear was based on only what they heard from the other people in town. They also did not want to bet put to their death for something they didn't or, in the witches case, something they did do. The authors motivation was to show and tell the readers about the connection between the cold war and the Salem Witch Trials.
Based on the Crucible's Act I, the motivation for characters is to live in fear and blame others of being a witch for out of the ordinary actions. I think that so far they show that they blame anyone and everyone for anything so they don't look like the bad guy. As far as the author Arther Miller, I believe he is trying to send the message that that time period was purely based on the word of the church. People were so imposed by fear of being exiled that they felt they needed to follow the church's law and what it believed which was witches. This ties back to the point that people blamed others as soon as any suspicion of witchery was exposed so they could be clear of exile.
In concluding the first Act of The Crucible, I noticed that the main fears for most of the characters is fear, not ruining their reputation, and not going against the cultural norm of the time and the church. It seems as if in many cases in this story, people are very fearful of their reputation being ruined and how people look at them. The pastor of that church is expected to set an example and have a good reputation in the town, but by him being associated with a witch, his main fear is not the safety of his family, but rather his reputation. Also, this setting of people seem to live in a world of fear. They are afraid of something going wrong and so they come up with explanations like calling people witches to make themselves feel better.
This is jordan lawler
So far the crucible act 1 dances around the theme of fear. Some historians believe that to bring in more money to the church, the church would intensify the image of hell and warn about witches to instill fear, and draw bigger crowds to the church. Everyone has the attitude that it is better to look after yourself and survive, than to stick your neck out for someone and risk being executed. In fact, they took it a step further and blame other people of witchcraft, to further protect themselves.
Arthur Miller's purpose of writing The Crucible was to show the similarities between the Cold War and the Salem Witch Trials. Senator McCarthy acted like the characters by falsely accusing suspected Communists. From Act 1 of The Crucible , we can tell that the motivation of the characters is fear and lack of trust. The characters fear that they will be accused of being a witch or getting caught so their trust of others becomes minimal because they can't decipher who is practicing witchcraft and who isn't. They even go as far as turning each other in so they will not be accused of practicing witchcraft anymore. The characters also fear of not being considered "normal" so by acting in a way that they think is acceptable, they think they can influence the way they are judged. The characters were willing to do anything to have their name cleared just like the accused during the Cold War.
Based on my own knowledge about The Crucible, I think the motivation for the characters is fear and darkness in a literal and figurative way. I know that The Crucible is about witchcraft and dark times, therefor the main motivation for most characters would indeed be fear. After reading most of Act 1, my views changed and stayed the same in some ways. One thing I noticed was that the characters were worried about witchcraft but also tried to hide their fear by changing the subject. My observation on this is that the people's motivation is being able to hide true inner-feelings and some have an urge to hide this emotion because they feel guilty. I think the author's motivation is his passion and his knowledge of the subject, it is almost like he is eager and feels like he has to share this story to everyone, he is proud. Truly, I believe the motivation for the characters is fear.
In act 1 of The Crucible, the motivation for some of the characters was based out fear from being thought of as a bad Christian or person. The fear the resonates throughout act 1 reveals that even a person such as Reverend Parris, is scared of what others may think of him if he is dealing with some kind of evil even though he is just trying to help. The evil seems to be present all through act 1 because not only is dancing seen a witchcraft but the forest they were dancing in is thought to be a source of evil as well. Arthur Miller's motivation in writing this story came out of the tensions in the cold war between Russia and the U.S. do to communism expansion.
Afrer reading parts of Act 1 of The Crucible, I noticed that motivation from the characters is anxiety, and panic. All of the characters are just afraid of being a witch, the witches around them, and how they are going to be harmed by the witch. I Aruthur Miller just wanted to show us truly how the time of Salem was back then with all the witches and the theriors of the witches. I think its portals the way of their life compared to ours today, where we have no fear of witches. If people today have the fear of being a witch or thinks someone is a witch, we would see them as just crazy induvuials.
Based off what we have read in Act I in The Crucible, I have determined that the motivation for most of the characters is Fear. Whether the fear is of god or of the unknown. When many people can't find an answer or a reason for instances such as the illness the people of Salem, they become scared because they feel that they have no control over the situation. So fear motivates these people to search for answers, whether they are completely outrageous or not. I think that by saying witchcraft was the cause of the illness, the people of Salem were looking for the fastest way to rid their fear.
The Crucible clearly reveals that every character's motivation is self centered and all about self preservation. The characters are always jumping to conclusions of witchcraft to make it seem less likely for other people they are a witch, this turns out to be a never ending circle. Characters show very little trust in each other, which really ends with them blaming innocent people of unheard of crimes. The author was making connections from his current time, the Cold War, and the times of Salem. He was showing that innocent people were being labeled as communists. That is clearly the author's motivation.
The motivation for the characters is acceptance. The characters think that if something is wrong out of the ordinary they think that they will not be accepted. Just after reading act one is is apparent to me that reverend Parris fears that he will not be accepted if there is witchcraft in his town. he fear that his towns people will reject him and outcast him if they hear that witchcraft is in the town. I have a feeling that more people will eventually find out that there is witchcraft in his home and then Parris will start accusing other people of bringing witchcraft into the town that will bring wide spread panic throughout the town.
The motivation in Act 1 of the Crucible would be fear. Everyone is concerned and worried about some people being witches. And the lack of trust with each other. Afraid of telling the truth or just telling some part of the truth and leaving out some parts.The Author showed that peolple were scared of stuff tht was not natural. They wanted to prevent witch craft. Everyone was trying to be good so they dont get on the bad side of the witches.
The characters show that they are all self centered. All the characters just want whats best for themslefs, like the pastor who only wanted to worry about his reputation. The authors motivation is the cold war, for instance, the people that were being blamed for being communist. The Salem witch trials also motivated this story because its what it is based off of.
Reading act one of the Crucible i thought a lot of the motivation from the characters are from the fear they all have developed. It seems like everyone in the play is all about the fear. Trying to fix the problem and trying to fix the people. In this play the people fear about witchcraft. although this is one thing to fear it seems like it has been taken way to far with what the people have thought about.
Fear and reputation. These people are afraid of being accused and will do anything to keep their reputations. Abigail wants something we can see that much, but what she wants we don't really know. So she uses the town's fear of her to get what she wants and scheme her way to her goals. I think if we look at what situations these people were in at the time we can find out what drove these people to their actions.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
After reading Act one of the Crucible , the motivation of the characters in the play are fear of losing reputation, fear to be find out that you are one that actually is a witch, because the only thing in the town in Salem are the trials so that they can get rid of the people that have something to do with the devil. But the girls are the most important piece in this part because they are the ones that star the bad things at this town.
The motivation of Arthur Miller's characters is fear. They are all afraid they will be acused of witch craft or being cursed. The girls involved in the with trials are worried the other girls will 'rat' eachother out and get them in trouble. Out of fear they all copy one another when they start yelling out random names. Having the fear of each character builds suspense in the play.
Post a Comment
<< Home