Themes of The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

GROUP 2: Elizabeth, Neil, Cindy, Shannon, Oswald

Ms. Scragg's Class

Murry Bergtraum High School

New York, New York

1) It's better to fail with honor than succeed as a fraud.
John Proctor died knowing the truth while Abigail ran away for her life of lies.

2) Lies may be truth, and truth may be lies
John Proctor and every innocent person knew the truth while Abigail insisted that they were working with the devil. So who is going to believe who?

3) When good men do nothing, evil can triumph.
If people in Salem said that Abigail and the other girls were lying, there could have been a chance for the innocent to live. But only one person stood up for himself (Proctor) and he got hanged.

4) One error can lead up to many errors.
It was because of Abigail and John's relationship that the witch trials and hangings occurred. All of this could have been avoided if John had not had his affair and gave her hope that they would one day be together.

5) The truth shall set you free.
If Elizabeth told the truth, she could have stopped the witchcraft trials, and John, Rebecca, and Martha, and maybe more, could have went home.

6) A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
Abigail and all the other girls said the same thing over and over again, so it soon became the truth to the court. Whoever was accused was going to get hanged.

7) Saving your image is not worth the lives of innocent people.
Danforth didn't want to postpone the hangings because he didn't want to look weak before the village. So to show that he was powerful, he was hard on everyone. Parris was most concerned about his reputation, so he didn't tell the truth that there was no real witchcraft in Salem.

8) Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The powerful people in Salem were often the ones who were the most corrupt, like Danforth and Parris.

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