The Crucible Essay
For centuries, humans have utilized defense mechanisms to explain the unfortunate occurrences of humanity that we are incapable of conceiving through our narrow, defensive minds. Humans most commonly scapegoat their enemies, or the entirely innocent, for their internal issues as a means of coping for their insecurities or explaining the irrational or biased situations they find themselves in. Similarly, others cope just as easily by lying to themselves, which can establish a false reality in the mind of the self-deceiver and, ultimately, leads to fallacies in logic. Coherently, Arthur Miller utilizes his diverse cast of characters in his play write “The Crucible” to demonstrate the ease at which lying to one’s self can create false realities and fallacious logic without our knowing. Arthur Miller’s play write of “The Crucible” demonstrates mankind’s inherited hypocrisy and inability to recognize our self-deception through Proctor’s repression, Elizabeth’s passive aggression, and Danforth’s denial. “The Crucible” demonstrates mankind’s natural hypocrisy and our inability to recognize our self-deception because of Proctor’s evident repression. Midway through the Crucible, John Proctor finds himself still struggling to cope with his guilt after an affair, which he has continued to not confess his sins to his wife. Proctor, being a lecher unable to confess his disloyalty, eventually made his wife, Elizabeth, suspicious of his disclosure and solitary nature. When Reverend Hale asks Proctor to list the Ten Commandments, he says, “Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods, nor make unto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain; thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother. Thou shalt not bear false witness…Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” (Miller 67). Proctor’s intentional omission of “thou shalt not commit