Reflection Blog: Act One of the Crucible

The first act of The Crucible by Arthur Miller gives the reader an insight into his version of the Puritans. From The Crucible the reader can see the qualities of the Puritans and the breakdown of their beliefs.

From reading The Crucible, I could see many qualities of the Puritans. One of these qualities is the zealously with which they regard God. It seems that God is very important to the Puritans, and their whole life revolves around God. The importance of God to the Puritans can be seen through the many references of God in the dialogue between all of the characters. An example of this in the story is when Reverend Hale yells, "Glory to God! It is broken, they are free!" (Miller 48). In this line of dialogue Hale is praising God for Betty, Abigail, and Tituba's confession of being in league with the devil and then renouncing the Devil for God (Miller 48). I think this ironic that Reverend Hale is praising God for releasing the girls out of a fake cooperation with the Devil. It is clear that the girls were never involved with Satan or ill, but gets caught in the panic and wants to use their neighbors as scapegoats. They women also may be enjoying the attention they are getting from the spectacle. This can be seen at the end of act one when Betty, Abigail, and Tituba just began yelling out random names of women that are supposedly cooperating with the Devil (Miller 48). The irony is increased by the fact that this whole scenario was born out of religious zealous of the Puritans and their strong fear of the Devil and going to Hell.

While the Puritans in The Crucible all may share a common zealous of God, it is clear that not all of the Puritans agree with what is going on both at church and with the girls. One of these Puritans is a farmer named John Proctor. Proctor seems to be the voice of reason amid all of the panic and chaos over Betty's mysterious "illness". He can even be seen criticizing Parris often (Miller 28). One example of this is when Parris is talking about how he called the Reverend Hale to come out and look at Betty in hopes of finding out what is wrong with her (Miller 27). He questions Parris about whether he went through the appropriate channels like calling a meeting together before calling out Hale to come look for witches (Miller 27). Parris did not and Proctor seems to disapprove of this (Miller 28). After this the reader can also see John Proctor, publicly disagreeing with the way Parris does his sermons (Miller 29). Proctor says to Parris, "I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God anymore." (Miller 29). This shows that there is a split in the church, and that different Puritans may differ on how things should be done in the church. I also foresee something bad happening to Proctor because of his views about the sermons in a church that is notoriously intolerant.

In conclusion, The Crucible by Arthur Miller gives the reader insight into his version of the Puritans, including what they believed in and how some views between Puritans differed.

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