Act Three of The Crucible

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller many of the characters are given some of the worst traits that humans can have. In The Crucible, human nature like the envy of Abigail, the greed of Putnam, and selfishness of the girls are displayed by the actions of the characters and the events of the story.

One of the bad aspects of human nature that can be found in the personalities of the characters in The Crucible is envy. Envy is displayed mostly in the story by Abigail Williams. Abigail is a teenage girl that had an affair with a married farmer named John Proctor (Miller 110). Eventually John's wife, Elizabeth, found out about their relationship and fired Abigail from her job as a servant in the Proctor household (Miller 110). Abigail resents Elizabeth because she was fired (Miller 23). Abigail also believes that John is in love with her (Miller 24). This causes Abigail to begin to envy Elizabeth because she is John Proctor's wife and Abigail is not. This envy that Abigail feels begins to grow and gets out of control. Abigail begins to believe that if she gets rid of Elizabeth, that she and John can finally be together (Miller 110). It is due to envy that Abigail claims that Elizabeth is a witch that has been practicing dark magic (Miller 73). Abigail acting on her envy results in the wrong attempted persecution of Elizabeth.

Not only is envy one of the aspects of human nature shown in The Crucible, but also greed. Greed is shown by the townspeople that try to take advantage of the chaos of the Salem witch trials. One case of this is the Putnam family. They endorse the witch trials because they can declare the people who have land that they want witches (Miller 96). In the time period, when someone is hanged for witchcraft, they forfeit all of their land (Miller 96). This means that the land of the accused will go back on the market and can be purchased (Miller 96). Putnam declared his neighbor a witch in hopes that he would hang, and Putnam would be able to acquire his land (Miller 96). Putnam is driven by the greed for more farmable land, and this drive causes the suspicion of an innocent person.

Selfishness, in addition to envy and greed, is another part of human nature that is portrayed by the events in The Crucible. Many characters in the book are selfish, and can be seen lying to save themselves and persecuting others. An example of this in the story is when the group of girls claim that they were dancing in the woods naked was because they had been bewitched, when in reality they had been doing it for sport and rebellion (Miller 42). To avoid being punished for dancing, they blame their servant at first, but eventually they get caught up in the chaos and begin to declare people witches for sport or revenge (Miller 44-48). This plunges the whole town of Salem into witch hunt that imprisons many and even results in hangings (Miller 48). I think that this is the epitome of selfishness. To escape punishment they put the blame on others, and this leads to persecution and tarnished reputations for the people they declared witches.

In conclusion, The Crucible by Arthur Miller depicts many of the bad sides of human nature. Among these traits are envy, greed, and selfishness, which are represented by the different characters and events within the story.

Bibliography: Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.