The Crucible

One of the most significant and interesting facts about the Crucible is the way that the hangings and confessions are carried out and how the different people react to being threatened with death. Arthur Miller creates a distinction between the characters who face their death in order to protect their name, and those who admit to witchcraft in order to save their own life. Characters like Goody Proctor and the Corey’s who refuse to confess to witchcraft are presented as strong characters who have a deep seated moral compass. Characters like Tituba, who confess are presented as weak and self-serving, choosing to protect their own life at the expense of others. John Proctor has a revelation of his own, choosing to confess, until he realizes that doing so would ruin his name and force others to go through the same ordeal as he did. Arthur Miller uses this as an allegory to McCarthyism and about those who were blacklisted for refusing to testify or give other names. In this sense, those who refuse to testify in the witch hunt are meant to be seen as stronger characters. However, when compared to The Wall and how the prisoners threatened with death lost all attachment to their world, it would not be much of a stretch, in that context, to argue that the characters in The Crucible who accept their death were susceptible to the mental torture of being threatened with death, and through that lost their attachment to the world, which would go against the theme Arthur Miller attempts to portray.