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Analysis of Good and Evil in "The Crucible"
It was a play with tremendous feelings with many inside twists hidd en in
the archives of the true story. It was a play with emotional feelings;
feelings of anger , hate, and evil, yet feelings of manipulation, good, and
pureness. It was the Crucible. A fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled
into one magnification. The Crucible: Good versus Evil.
The play contained many scenarios of good versus evil, and the characters
who generally possessed these feelings and intentions. But it must be
understood t hat there were the intentions, the incentives, and then the
actions taken out on a person or a group of people. Every character could
either be placed in the intentions under good or bad intentions. Aft er
that, almost every character has mixed feelings of evil or good actions.
The fight between the centre of evil and the centre of good is the
foremost important of the points. Abigail Williams is the nucleus of all
evil in the story. Sh e is the one who triggers off this sense of hate in
the play. She tempts Proctor into lechery, and comm its unlawful acts which
all are against the Puritan religion. To escape punishment for dancing, she
deflects the actions and blames them on someone else, and does not care how
many lives she ruins. La ter when she grows into power and influence, she
seems to enjoy sending these innocent peopl e their deaths. She takes
pleasure in her lies, and thrives on the attention and power that th ey
bring her. All these are the aspects of being the evil character. Power,
attention, and acts of w rongful doing. Therefore she can be labelled with
being the evil character in the novel. She uses evi l actions disguised as
good by admitting who was with the devil. Of course the people she accuses
a re actually innocent, but she has the ability to manipulate people into
believing that she is doin g good. This again is evil.
The centre of good can be labelled as John Proctor. He is considere d the
'hero' of the story, because he fits into the points that make up the hero
of a story. Pr octor is a heroic martyr at the end of the play, when he
falsely admits that he was with Satan all a long. He then refuses to tell
the judge and accuse anyone of being with Satan too like Abigail did. Th
erefore he may be considered a martyr, for dying for a cause of saving the
lives of other innocen t people. John Proctor also tries to defend his wife,
and attempts to make the judge realize how Abiga il is manipulating him.
This is where the conflict arises between good and evil. It is survival o f
the fittest. Who will survive at the end? Abigail Williams or John Proctor?
This is the main battle o f the story.
John Proctor is not a saint in this story either. He does possess s ome
fragments of evil in his soul. His intentions are to do good and that
justice is served, but he wants this so badly, that he also turns to evil
incentives to kill Abigail (subliminally for w hat she is doing). At the
latter part of the play, he tries to use evil to counter evil by saying he
was w ith the devil. His intentions are to do good, but that is really
against the Puritan Code, and hence i s considered evil. One more fault
that Proctor has was for committing lechery with Abigail. This is ev il,
because it is against the Puritan rules. Abigail and Proctor are both at
fault.
Ann Putnam was greatly influenced by Abigail's doings, that she beg an to
follow the same strategy. She then accuses Rebecca Nurse of witchery to
escape her a ccusation. This deflection is just used to keep herself out of
trouble. Consequently, Ann Putnam i s then considered evil, for using
deflection.
Marry Warren's intentions at the beginning of the story were to do good
and justice. But she sees that when she is in trouble, she also needs
someone to defl ect the punishment on. This greed results in her saying
that Proctor was associated with Satan, and that he possessed her and made
her do all of her wrong actions. Her intentions were first good , but then
her actions turned into pure evil, just like Abigail had done. Reverend
Hale also is deceived into the traps of Abigail, and accid entally goes
along with her plans. He thought he was doing good, but his actions turned
out to be evil and wrong. He later realizes that he was being manipulated
by Abigail, and decides to ma ke up for his actions, so he can be good.
Hale begins by visiting the accused in jail and telling them to confess to
being with the Devil, so they may get out alive. This action is wrong
against t he Puritan code, but his incentives are to do good, so the people
will not be executed for no reason. He can therefore be considered good at
the end of the story.
One very important battle that is not very obvious in the story is with
God and the Devil, being good and evil. The question is will the accused
people be sent to heaven with the good God, or will they burn in hell with
the evil Satan? This is mainly what t he whole play is based on. The
Puritan religion is the reason for why the people are being executed . In
conclusion, there is a substantial difference between the forces of good
and evil in the play. The forces of good always tried to do what was best
for everyb ody, even if it meant breaking some Puritan laws. The evil group
did whatever was best for themselv es. They were greedy, and had no
consideration for others. But one thing that must be remember ed is usually,
the good always prevails over the forces of evil. It was not the same in
The Crucibl e. In the end, Abigail had succeeded in her wrong doing, and
had killed Proctor. For once, evil emerged victorious...
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