The Crucible Flashcards

Flashcards based on lecture notes about Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

In The Crucible, the witch trials are the ultimate expression of __.

intolerance

In Salem, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the devil; __ is not merely unlawful, it is associated with satanic activity.

dissent

__ supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors are committing absurd and unbelievable crimes.

Hysteria

In The Crucible, the townsfolk accept and become active in the hysterical climate not only out of genuine religious piety but also because it gives them a chance to express __ and to act on long-held grudges.

repressed sentiments

__ is tremendously important in theocratic Salem, where public and private moralities are one and the same.

Reputation

The protagonist, __, seeks to keep his good name from being tarnished.

John Proctor

In The Crucible, almost every character is concerned with the concept of __ because their religion teaches them that the most important thing in life is how they will be judged by God after they die.

goodness

Several characters’ concern over goodness goes beyond how they are seen and requires that they actually examine what it means to be __. We see this struggle in the Rev. Hale, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor.

good

__ mistakenly believes that a reliable judge never reconsiders his stance.

Danforth

By the end of the play, __ no longer cares about the official judgments of the court of the land, only about saving peoples’ lives.

Hale

The first character to confess to witchcraft is __, the only person of color in the play.

Tituba

In The Crucible, concerns over and affect many of the decisions characters make.

property, ownership

Giles Corey dies rather than falsely confess so that his children can __ his land.

inherit

Many characters struggle with choices they made before and during the events of the play, trying to understand if the results of their actions are __ or not.

just

Because __ doesn’t believe that John no longer is interested in her, she seizes upon accusations of witchcraft as a way to get rid of Elizabeth.

Abby

Another example of the unexpected __ of one’s actions can be seen in Tituba’s false confession.

consequences

In its entirety, the play can be seen as symbolic of the paranoia about __ that pervaded America in the 1950s.

communism

In light of McCarthyist excesses, which wronged many innocents, this parallel was felt strongly in __ own time.

Miller’s

In __ written documentation is crucial both to uphold policy and to convey sources of truth.

The Crucible

Rather than mere conjecture echoing amidst further court squabbles, A __ defending Rebecca Nurse, for instance, bolsters more credibility when it appears as a signed, written document.

petition

__ is the protagonist of the play.

John Proctor

Without John, the play would be a historical retelling of a __ time in American history.

terrible

His flaw of lust led him to commit the __ that makes him vulnerable to Abigail’s manipulations.

adultery

__ is the antagonist of the play.

Abigail

The tone of The Crucible is __ and largely unsympathetic, suggesting that the characters actively created the disastrous events of the play, rather being victimized by them.

cautionary

After Act I, the narrator departs and the play’s tone becomes increasingly __. Without the narrator’s commentary, readers also lose historical distance from the story.

pessimistic

The concluding tone is __ and unforgiving.

remorseful

In this exchange, Parris and Abigail use a __ to discuss Abigail’s reputation (name) in town.

metaphor

In this metaphor, Elizabeth compares Proctor’s guilty __ to a judge who condemns him for his affair with Abigail.

conscience