A "Crucible" Of 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 Friday, October 1st.
posted by Greg T at Wednesday, September 29, 2010
26 Comments:
I think that for Arthur Miller his motivation was in showing how unfair society can be to the individual. This was around the time the government persecuted some communist believers and Arthur Miller himself had been accused of it. He used the crucible as a way of showing how stupid society can be toward the individual and their actions. As far as the characters in the book i'm not sure yet as to why they are doing some of things that they are. Abigale has acted very different depending on who she is around causing suspicion of her intentions and the reverend is very concerned about his own reputation and seems to be more selfish then someone in his job should be. As for everyone else it is hard to say yet what their motivations are.
The individual characters’ motivation is to protect themselves against consequences for their actions. For example, Abigail is motivated to not entirely tell the truth to her uncle, Parris, because she did not want to be blamed for what happened to Betty. Abigail is also motivated to seduce Proctor because she is only thinking about what she wants for herself. The root of every action is selfish in these characters. Author Miller was motivated to show this type of society so that we can relate it to ourselves. Since he wrote this book around the time of the red scare, I think that he was also trying to show how gossip and “putting blush around someone’s name” is not beneficial because it leads to unfair perception that will eventually get out of control.
After reading only a small section of the Crucible so far, I feel that the motivation for the characters is that of a scape goat. Because there is not explanation for the illnesses of many young girls, people want to create an explanation to make themselves feel safe. By accusing others of witchcraft, those who accuse seem to be safe and "off the hook" as far as being witches. The characters of which we know some information about are mainly Parris and Abigal. It seems to me that Parris wants to just get to the bottom of the issue and find out what is really going on. This way the town will be safe and he will not look bad. Like Hunter mentioned Abigal is very two-faced and acts differently depending on who she is communicating with. She seems to be blaming everyone else for the mishaps. Could she by chance be the or one of the culprits behind what has been going on?
all the characters are watching out for themselfs no matter what extent they have to take to do so. It only makees it worse that the villagers have no other explanation for the girls actions other than that they are wither wiches or are under wichcraft.
After reading part of The Crucible I found that the motivation of the characters is to stay strong to what they believe. Each character displays their strong opinions. For example, Parris strongly believes that the devil is what causing Betty's sickness. While Abigal the girl that was with Betty the night before she got sick probably has a strong belief that she is sick from whatever happened that night. The other characters all seem to believe that it is the devil while a few think that it could be just a sickness that will pass.
From our reading in act one of the Crucible we are introduced to a problem that has sparked an uprising amongst the characters. We don’t know exactly what the motivations of the characters are yet, but we can infer from the reading, that they are very protective of their self-image and want to fit in to their society. Although it seems like some of the characters, like Abigail have split personalities and may have hidden motivations. I think that most of the characters introduces so far are simply over thinking the reasons for the problems effecting their society. Even though they want to make sense of it all, they create even more of a mess by becoming suspicious, to an extreme level. I think that Arthur Miller was motivated to show us how society can become extremely judgmental of issues and can easily misconstrue situations because of fear. He wants to demonstrate the unfortunate truth about the way human beings question the reason for situations they find unpleasant and fear in their day-to-day lives. Like the powerful fear of Communism in Millers life, he expresses this hidden truth of over judging situations because of fear, by paralleling theses views in the Crucible.
I believe many forms of motivation exists in the crucible. The ladys were motivated to let everyone know that they were not witches and that dancing in the woods was perfectly normal. While the doctors and males were motivated to find out what the source of the illnesses were and what the cause was. People were aslo motivated to find new ways of testing woman to see if they were witches or not. Over all the crucible exhibits many froms of motivation.
I think that some of the characters motivation are for attention and drama in the town. Back in the 1600s not a whole lot was going on, so even just a few young girls messing around in the woods could be seen as harmless, society turns it into something much more dramatic. I believe that Goody Proctors motive is to get revenge on Abigail for being such a terrible housekeeper. I believe that Abigail and some of the other girls could have been acting for attention.
I believe that Arthur Miller's motivation was mainly to create a story out of something that could have been innocent or something that could have been a major scandal. I think that he was trying to take something ordinary and turn it into something fascinating such as the Salem witch trials (they were not exactly an "ordinary" event but I believe he thought the causes behind it could have been).
Looking at motivations in the crucible, anyone can see the motivations of each character,
We can see it’s mostly just for them selves. We aren’t very far in the play and we can obviously see all of Abigail’s actions so far have been to either protect herself like lying to her uncle about what she was doing in the woods. Or, to fulfill her certain wants like wanting Proctor to have feelings for her. Or even the Proctor himself wanting Abigail to stop liking him, or defending himself/ his wife because it’s easier. Almost every act or saying in this play has bee dripping with selfishness. As for the author I believe Arthur Miller is trying to first show how selfishness can ruin not only all types of relationships but can turn the tables on beliefs and accusations. How one event can lead to a string of problems. Not so much necessarily about witches, but what they portrayed and subsequently did to communities and individual people.
In my opinion, I think that the characters motivation is to make sure they protect themselves. They really only care about themselve and want to make sure they wont get in trouble for their actions. For example, Abaigal was so determined to make sure she didnt get in trouble that she threatned her friends for her own purpose. Abagail has acted like a totally different person towards her friends and the reverend. She also wants to get together with Proctor for her enjoyment and is thinking of herself even thought Proctor wants nothing to do with her.
Arthur Miller has many motivations for writing this play. I think that a main reason was because he wanted people to be more aware of the witchcraft issue. He shows both sides demonstrating that he is not bias towards one side he just wants the issue to be well known so people can decide what side they support on the issue knowing a little background information. In the play its self the motivation of all the characters is to protect themselves. The girls don’t want anyone knowing that they were dancing in the forest to protect their own lives. The men want to be the hero’s in the society and figure out the root of the sickness that is in their community. As the story continues i believe that the motivations will change as the story progresses.
Arthur Miller based his motivation around trying to prove to society that living a life around yourself is not always best. In the Crusible the characters all live their lives around themselves and are extremely selfish. For example, Abigale does not want to tell the truth to her uncle just so that SHE does not get blamed for what happened to Betty. However then she turns around and says the exact oppostie when Parris is not there. This shows the selfishness of Abigale, and Arthur Miller, I think was trying to prove to our society that this was wrong, and not the way life should be lived
I think that Arthur Miller's motivations for the drama, was that society always searches for a scapegoat. Miller read about the Salem witch trails right around the time that Communism was growing in the world and America was looking for reds. Miller thought that the comparison between the witch trails and the search for reds was so strong he decided to write this drama. He focused on how the town was trying to blame these happenings on witches and the work of the devil, just like America was blaming things on the reds. He also focused on the motivations of all the specific characters, each character had there own personal motivation, whether it be for political, theological (Parris), sexual (Abigail), financial (Putman), psychological, or attention reasons.
i think that many of the characters in the crucible have motivations beyond there experiences. many of them have past judgments based on there religion and the puritanical thinking. plus the feeling of them having troubles in there little city, and they need a way to get out of it and try to do so by blaming there troubles on witchcraft. i think the fact that the people putting the blame of witchcraft on the girls are doing nothing to prevent it or help the girls cause.
After reading, it seems as though the charecters motivation is to hold their own and get away with their lies. They must lie to stay alive in this trife life. The motivation of Arthur Miller was to show how unfair society is to the individual, just like how Hunter stated it.
Although no one really knows what exactly happened during this time, it is thought that some of the character's motivation were based on attention. For example, Abigail and even some of the other girls could have been possibly over exaggerating and/or just trying to get attention. I am not saying that is my personal opinion but it is definitely a possibility of what could have been going on. One of the characters was saying how it is just a childhood "stage." She has raised kids and they all go through this "stage" in their life of trying to get attention. The author might also be portraying the motivation of selflessness. During the play, the characters have been acting very selfish; for example Abigail. She does not want to tell the truth to her uncle because she does not what to be blamed for what happened to Betty. The characters are trying to protect themselves and the I think that the motivations will continue to change throughout the play.
I believe that Arthur Miller's motivation for writing The Crucible was inspired by the time period because when it was written was during the Cold War. I think that The Crucible was a way of ridiculing McCarthyism. He compares the red scare to a witch hunt. By writing it he wanted to show Americans the hypocrisy of it all. In a time of panic and fear, people feel the need to find someone at fault, while forgetting all reason, to feel safe again. This is what happened in both the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare. In the Salem Witch Trials the people blame witch craft for the unexplainable disease that many were ill with. Many innocent people were persecuted because of false accusations people would make, for their own benefit. This was the same during the Cold War because people were panicked, so they blamed people who may have a different opinion than the government so they were automatically found guilty of being communists.
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To be blunt, and probably repetitive, there are quite a lot of motivations between the characters, and their intents are crisp and incisive (yes, i just used a vocab word), so palpable in fact, i dont believe i have to list them.
In my opinion, the intent of Arthur Miller in writing the Crucible is to show how easily society can be scared into believing something as far fetched as witchcraft to make themselves feel safer and able to explain every day events that may seem to be in-explainable, at the time.
In the Crucible many of the people have been motivated by the invisible/whitchcraft, so far i think that the girls have alterior motivations that have not been clarifyed yet. The reverend has been notified that his motivations have changed in his sermons, by the fact that he only talks about the evil and being damned for sinning, as opposed to his past motivations of speaking about God. The motivations are what make you strive to complete a task or become someone else. Motivation can be a very powerful thing if used wisley.
In the Crucible the characters had many motivations for creating the drama that happened. One motivation was attention. In Salem it was hard to get atttention and the characters lived a boring life, and so once in a while they would want something new or different. In addition, there was no way to forgive sins in Salem's society, so one way to get rid of the sins was to blame it on magic or another person. By using a scapegoat, the people could feel better about their selves, and also get someone they didn't like in trouble.
After reading about the motivation behind the crucible I think there were many factors leading to it. In the play all the people seemed to be nervous. There was a division happening in the town and it seems like they are all trying to blame eachother. The main people that are being called witches are the people with lower status in town. In a specific case I think Abigael’s motivation is that she menipulates people so she wants to appear clean and “pure” but we know she really is a manipulative person. She likes the attention from all the drama unfolding I think it is kinda like a game to her.
I agree with my colleague Aaron in that motivation for the characters is a scapegoat. They are all looking for someone to blame for the sickness of the young girls. They feel if the blame someone else then they won't be looked at as a witch.
I think the motivation behind people accusing other people of being witches was simply to have an explanation of why they all of a sudden were acting “strange”. It was embarrassing for a family to have a member behaving oddly/inappropriately, so they wanted an excuse as to why they were acting this way, that something happened to them to make them suddenly become behave like this, that they were bewitched and basically have no responsibility for the way they had been.
I think that the characters in the Crucible are all motivated above all to defend themselves. Every small wrong that a person committed in that area and time period could be twisted into witchcraft. Nobody in this story can trust their friends and everybody is motivated to protect themselves against these accusations. In the Crucible, Abigail is first motivated by her love for John Proctor, but this motivation is quickly turned into a motivation to protect herself against accusations of witchcraft. All of the girls in the woods are motivated to by the possibility of being hanged due to witchcraft, and the accused witches are motivated just to live, which is why many of the non-witches admit to witchcraft to avoid being hanged.
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