Preview

The Importance Of Reputation In The Crucible

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
961 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Importance Of Reputation In The Crucible
“The reputation of a man is like his shadow; it sometimes follows and sometimes precedes him, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter than his natural size.”(French proverb) Reputation is actions that follow you to whom you're known to be. Reputation can be viewed as the way you dress,the people you are associated with and sometimes people are given a reputation by the acts of the people in their family. In The crucible, reputation is an important theme because it determines one's ability to follow religious rules.
The Characters in the play The Crucible have a tremendous amount of pride. They are known as good citizens in the town, for one reason or another and they would like to uphold their good name. Reputation Is extremely important, where public and private moralities are one and are the same. In Salem, there is no such thing as a private act. Private sins are punished publicly. A person's name is equivalent to one's reputation and how they were known in the town. Having a good reputation is very important throughout the play due to witchcraft trials, where untrue accusations made in court could ends somebody's life. When Reverend Parris found out about the witchcraft he starts to panic. Abigail tries to defend her acting by saying it
…show more content…
A person’s reputation is important in a town where accusations of witchcraft and other finger pointing determines one’s ability to follow religious rules. “The reputation of a man is like his shadow; it sometimes follows and sometimes precedes him, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter than his natural size.”(French proverb) Reputation is actions that follow you to whom you're known to be whether it's good or bad. In a town where reputation plays an important role, many characters in The Crucible fear that the sins of other characters will taunt their name. Accusations of witchcraft leads to show what each character values the most which is their

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is a story that takes place around the Salem witch trials in 1692. The play mainly focuses around the Proctor family, John and Elizabeth Proctor are wrongfully accused of witchcraft just like the rest of the town. Giles Corey is a local senior citizen and well known throughout the town, he mentions that his wife reads strange books and his wife gets accused even though she just reads. Giles Corey starts to realise the reasons for some of the accusations and starts to accuse the accusers and inform the judges thats its all a lie to try to preserve peoples honor and integrity. Giles character reflects a major question raised in the play: What does it take to be a truly honorable person? As Giles efforts to stay an honorable person and help keep other peoples honor, he is willing to go to great lengths to keep his honor.…

    • 617 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the characters are concerned with their own positive reputations which causes them to be deceptive, hang at the gallows, and act smarter than they were. In The Crucible the characters are very concerned about their reputation, because of this it caused some characters to lie about who they really are. This comes out in the story when characters are being accused of being witches, giving them the choice to either lie to save their lives or tell the truth and be killed. John Proctor keeps his affair with Abigail a secret from the town to protect his reputation: “He fights to defend the wife he has wronged and whose life he has placed in jeopardy because of his affair with Abigail” (Bigsby 147-171).…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reputation is the source of motivation. It motivates a person to adjust their way of thinking. Everyone has some type of reputation that describes how they are as a person. People judge and view others based on a person’s name and how they see that person. The Crucible is a play that was a masterpiece, written by Arthur Miller during 1953. It centralizes on the witchcraft trails that occurred during the 1600’s, in Salem, Massachusetts. It all started out when a vengeful girl named, Abigail Williams, tried to falsely accuse Elizabeth Proctor for doing witchcraft. This vengeance came from the girl’s jealousness and from when she was kicked out of the Proctor house for having an affair with Elizabeth’s husband, John Proctor. The accusations later…

    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Concern over ones own reputation was also a demonic force in play in Salem. Peoples concern for how others will think of them, that people are thinking of them differently, or their concern for having their name stay in just a perfect place because they have everything riding on it is a precarious place to be. If anything bad were to happen you might not able to bear showing your face around even if others didn’t know, because your afraid they would know and judge you based on it, which is why it you do everything in your powers to keep you reputation under control. One of the main concerns and examples of reputation in the story…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the crucible there are many themes involved but the one that sticks out the most is reputation. Reputation’s characteristics could be a strong leader. Another characteristic is having a bad reputation by being accused of being a fraud. Your reputation is the key to your life, if you have a bad reputation it would be tough to get around anywhere that you are known in, If you have a good reputation you are seen as a good person to be around. Reputation could be used against other people as an advantage because people might believe you more than a person who has a bad reputation. Reputation could corrupt someone's mind because someone's reputation can be manipulated. Reputation could be negative or positive depending how you are view…

    • 130 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The citizens of Salem spread many preposterous lies and rumors out of fear and even for their own personal gain. Naturally, blaming someone else for wrongdoing is an immediate and instinctive reaction. For example, the fear of getting in trouble can drive one to put the blame on someone else in order to avoid the consequences. The characters in The Crucible rely on blame to get out of hard situations, motivated by this aspect of fear. Towards the very beginning of the novel, Betty and Abigail have many suspicions surrounding them, and they need to direct the townspeople’s wrath away from themselves. Abigail claims that “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil” (Miller 48)! Abigail and Betty therefore avoid their initial fate. As the book progressed, the lies piled on top of each other, and soon everyone wanted in on the action. Blame turned into a use of getting back at one another. For instance, Ann Putnam claims Rebecca Nurse “murdered seven babies by sending out her spirit on them” (Miller 56). Rebecca Nurse is falsely accused, arrested and later executed. In turn, the natural inclination to blame other leads to false accusations and overall mass hysteria.…

    • 1139 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In The Crucible, reputation is an important aspect to each character because it shows one's ability to follow their religion. Reverend Parris, Judge Danforth, and John Proctor demonstrate the nature of Puritan Idealism and how it affects the decisions they make about their religion, family and self.…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible, tells the story of the Salem witch trials that took place in…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It all seems like nobody wants to take the blame in Salem. What is everyone’s deal? Could it perhaps be that they don’t want their reputation to be ruined or their lives to be endangered due to witchcraft? The people of Salem are making up excuses to make themselves seem pleasing and innocent to others. They are putting the blame on everyone else but themselves. These statements have been carried on until this day. The ways of the puritans have transformed a lot but some of the “techniques” back then still remain.…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Crucible there are consistent themes of the importance of reputation in society during the Salem Witch Trials. Within the town of Salem women specifically were expected to keep and maintain a good image by their actions, words, etc. Due to the witch trials, women were robbed of their good woman title, and their honor.…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the bible verse Proverbs 10:7 it states that “The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.” In Arthur Miller 's The Crucible having a good name and reputation is very important, especially when you live in a christian society.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reputation In The Crucible

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Reputations are an enormous factor of one’s life in today’s society. They can affect one’s future, past, and present. In the novel, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the characters John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and Reverend John Hale are the characters most concerned about their reputations. Because they are attempting to protect their prominence, each of them tend to act abnormally in the Puritan society. All of the characters tend to continuously lie about their sins. However, they do contrast when it comes to the reasoning for each of them "protecting" their reputation. In a Puritan society during the witch hunting era, protecting one's name was more important than telling the truth. If one were to confess to a witch related crime, they…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The hatred amongst others can truly reflect your honesty. The grudges in the crucible is what truly caused the trials to continue and was the driving force of hysteria. Without it, Salem witch trial may have never happened, because there would have been no one to…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Abigail Williams Lies

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When reading “The Crucible” one may ask themselves, why are all of the highest authority characters so adamant to believe that Abigail Williams and the other girls are lying? The author Arthur Miller depicts what it was like to live in 1600 Salem during the witch trials. Abigail Williams is desperately in love with John Proctor; who committed the sin of lechery with her. Abigail then uses her uncle, Reverend Parris’ servant, Tituba to perform the crime of witchcraft so she can fulfil her lustful dream of having John Proctor to herself. Parris catches Abby, Mary Warren; who is the servant to John Proctor, Tituba, and many of the other teenage girls in the village dancing naked in the woods. He ultimately catches them in the act of witchcraft. In fear of losing his position of the Preacher, he seeks the help of Reverend Hale to drive the devil out of Salem. Throughout the play the girls realize that they have this power over all of the townspeople when they begin to accuse people of witchcraft and fall into “fits” to make their accusations more believable. The judge, Danforth, sentences people to be hanged all based off of these juvenile girls.…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Truth In The Crucible

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Learning and speaking the truth are not always the easiest things to accept. In The Crucible accepting the truth is one of the main issues that occur throughout the play. Though everybody now knows that most or all depending on what the reader wants to believe were not witches, and consequently died for something they never did. Many characters lie throughout the play for their own reasons some to due with land while the others for more personal reasons. The death of many were caused by the others failing to accept the truth.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays