They may have thought that they could confess to falsely confessing and be forgiven at some future point. Explore a character analysis of John Proctor, the plot summary, and important quotes. Religion was a powerful ethical force both in and. In his 1953 play The Crucible, playwright Arthur Miller employs a fictionalized account of Massachusetts Bay colonists accused of witchcraft in 1692 as a metaphor for government persecution of suspected communists during the mid-20th century. While our Constitution maintains the separation of church and state, the America of the seventeenth century was a theocracy, where the church dictated both moral and civil codes of conduct. For some, it was easier to lie and say they were witches so that they could return to their lives and families. In The Crucible, Miller puts the Puritan church and theocracy on trial for hypocrisy and abuse of power. At the same time, it’s not hard to understand why someone would sign a false confession. ![]() These people may have had strong religious beliefs and felt God would damn them for lying, and they may also have realized that their reputation would be restored after the witch trials were over, even if they had lost their lives. Like John Proctor, some people in Salem preferred to die rather than sign something that they knew was a lie. But many other people could not bear to falsely accuse their friends, neighbors, and families, especially since the only way those people could clear their names would be by implicating more members of the community. The antagonist in The Crucible is broadly the town of Salem, whose residents temporarily lose their sense of community. Plenty of people did sign false confessions, in which they were required to name others that they saw with the Devil. In telling the story of a New England so gripped by hysteria they killed many of their own residents, The Crucible explores the tension between the repressive forces of a social order and individual freedom. Why didn’t more people sign false confessions that they were witches to save their lives?
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