Q: Discuss the themes, Symbols and Motifs in The Crucible

Q: Discuss the themes, Symbols and Motifs in The Crucible

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Empowerment

The witch trials empower several characters in the play who are previously marginalized in Salem society. In general, women occupy the lowest rung of male-dominated Salem and have few options in life. They work as servants for townsmen until they are old enough to be married off and have children of their own. In addition to being thus restricted, Abigail is also slave to John Proctor’s sexual whims—he strips away her innocence when he commits adultery with her, and he arouses her spiteful jealousy when he terminates their affair. Because the Puritans’ greatest fear is the defiance of God, Abigail’s accusations of witchcraft and devil-worship immediately command the attention of the court. By aligning herself, in the eyes of others, with God’s will, she gains power over society, as do the other girls in her pack, and her word becomes virtually unassailable, as do theirs. Tituba, whose status is lower than that of anyone else in the play by virtue of the fact that she is black, manages similarly to deflect blame from herself by accusing others.

INTOLERANCE

The Crucible is set in a theocratic society, in which the church and the state are one, and the religion is a strict, austere form of Protestantism known as Puritanism. Because of the theocratic nature of the society, moral laws and state laws are one and the same: sin and the status of an individual’s soul are matters of public concern. There is no room for deviation from social norms, since any individual whose private life doesn’t conform to the established moral laws represents a threat not only to the public good but also to the rule of God and true religion. In Salem, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the Devil; dissent is not merely unlawful, it is associated with satanic activity. This dichotomy functions as the underlying logic behind the witch trials. As Danforth says in Act III, “a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it.” The witch trials are the ultimate expression of intolerance (and hanging witches is the ultimate means of restoring the community’s purity); the trials brand all social deviants with the taint of devil-worship and thus necessitate their elimination from the community.

GOOD VERSUS EVIL

The major theme in the play is that of good versus evil. Based on the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, The Crucible explores the fragility of a changing society and the difficulty of doing good in the face of evil and tremendous social pressures, both at the social and personal level. John Proctor, the protagonist of the play, is faced with the choice of accepting responsibility for his actions and doing the right thing. In a similar vein, society as a whole must deal with the challenge of doing good when threatened by evil, even when it comes with the stamp of law, authority, and social opinion.

The Importance of Reputation

In Salem, there is no such thing as a private act. Private sins are punished publicly. Church attendance is recorded publicly. Everything a citizen does is known by all. It is within this context that one's reputation becomes important. John Proctor recognizes this.

Proctor knows the girls are lying. He knows the trials are fraudulent, yet he withholds vital information in order to protect his reputation. In a town like Salem, an adulterous affair unleashes severe punishment and severe humiliation. Proctor's eventual confession is an integral part of his redemption. He realizes truth is more important than reputation.

He, of course, is not the only one worried about reputation. As Reverend Parris's daughter lies near death, he is concerned about how the girls dancing in the woods naked affects his reputation. He suspects Abigail's intentions, yet glosses over her faults because a relative of his having an affair with a married man would sully his reputation. In Act IV, Parris begs Danforth to suspend the trials, not because he wants justice, but he fears the townspeople.

Religion

Religion is woven into the everyday life of Salem inThe Crucible. The townsfolk practice a form of Christianity centered on a set of clearly defined rules: you go to church every Sunday, you don’t work on the Sabbath, you believe the Gospel, you respect the minister’s word like it is God’s, and so on.

For people accused of witchcraft, any deviation from these rules in the past can be used as evidence for much greater sins in the present. But ultimately, even good and respected and highly religious women like Rebecca Nurse are accused and put to death, so past respectability and religiosity doesn’t necessarily protect anyone.

Symbols

The Doll: The doll found on Elizabeth Proctor's shelf is a traditional symbol of voodoo and witchcraft. In The Crucible, the doll (as well as Rebecca Nurse) symbolizes the transformation of good to evil: dolls, in a normal society, represent childhood innocence and bring happiness. In Salem, dolls represent evil. This extends to the Puritan government and church, both being entrusted to protect its citizens, yet both doing the opposite.

John Proctor's Leaving the Courtroom: This occurs in the movie. After Proctor is accused of witchcraft, he runs into a small pond and with arms spread shouts, "God is dead." Proctor is in water, symbolic of baptism, and his arms are spread, symbolic of the Biblical Christ on the cross. Proctor sacrifices himself for the good of Salem and to honor those saints (Rebecca and Martha) who refuse to lie.

The Witch Trials: In addition to the similarities between McCarthyism and The Crucible already discussed, the trials symbolize the effect of intolerance, extremism, and hatred.

The Forest: Puritans believed that the forest was the devil's dominion. They failed to recognize, however, that Salem's evil and destruction came from within. The forest, therefore symbolizes the evil present in all humans.

The Stones: Giles Corey refuses to make an official plea in court. In order to persuade him to make a plea, officials of the court stack concrete stones on him and eventually crush him. The stones symbolize the weight of Salem's sins that are crushing the good in its society.

THE CRUCIBLE BY ARTHER MILLER

The Superiority of Women By John Ruskin

The Superiority of Women
By John Ruskin

According to John Ruskin, the place of women in society is much more dignified than even that of men. Ruskin hates the idea of treating women as mere shadow and attendant image of their lord.i.e. men.

Really there is no difference between man and women. According to him, a woman is a dignified creature. He corroborates his opinion with the testimony of the great authors regarding the true dignity of women.

In his lecture Of Queens’ Garden she first takes Shakespeare, “Shakespeare has no heroes; he has only heroine”.

Ruskin says, there is no one entirely heroic figure in all his plays, except the slight sketch of Henry the 5th. In his laboured and perfect plays, there is virtually no hero. All the heroes of these plays are glomourless before the shining characters of the heroines. But Othello is the only example approximation to the heroic type. On the other hand, there is hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it.

Farther Ruskin argues that the catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man. The redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and failing that, there is none.

The Queens’ Gardens represents Ruskin’s view of the true function and sphere of women. His aim is to demonstrate from the teachings of the world’s sage minds that such function is a guiding and not determining one, and that the domain of women is within her ambit of argument where she is the centre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty. Women’s power is for rule , not for battle; and her intellect is not for invention but for sweet order, arrangement and decision. And whenever the true wife comes, the home is always round her. The stars only may be over the head , the glowworm in the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is ; and for a noble woman it stretches f , queen Catharine, Sylvia, Viola,Rosalind,Helena and last, perhaps the loveliest, Virgilia are faultless, effortless and conceived in the highest heroic type of humanity.

However, it may be noticed that in Shakespeare’s plays there is only one weak woman: Ophelia; and it is because she fails hamlet to study at a critical moment. Finally though there are three wicked women among the principal figures: Lady Macbeth, Regan and Goneril. They are felt at once to be frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of life; fatal in their influence also, in proportion to the power for good which they have abandoned.

Hence, Ruskin testifies the superiority of women over men. So far their virtues are concerned, represents them as infallibly faithful and wise counselor, incorruptibly just and pure examples.

Ruskin also draws from other poets to justify his views. Chaucer has depicted the marvelous character of a good woman in the poem, The Legend of Good Woman.

Similarly Spenser draws the character of his women figures in noble and dignified terms. Even in ancient literature, the best virtues are seen to have personified as women. In Egypt, people gave to wisdom the form of a woman.

The Queens’ Gardens represents Ruskin’s view of the true function and sphere of women. His aim is to demonstrate from the teachings of the world’s sage minds that such function is a guiding and not determining one, and that the domain of women is within her ambit of argument where she is the centre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty. Women’s power is for rule , not for battle; and her intellect is not for invention but for sweet order, arrangement and decision. And whenever the true wife comes, the home is always round her.

Discuss #The_Crown_of_Wild_Olive as a criticism of contemporary socio-economic life.

Discuss #The_Crown_of_Wild_Olive
as a criticism of contemporary
socio-economic life.

#Ruskin’s Crown of Wild Olive consists of
lectures which were meant for workers,
traders and soldiers. Ruskin asks each
one of them about the real nature of his
calling. He takes up various
contemporary social and economic
problems and offers his own view-point
about their solution. In fact, Ruskin was
a social reformer possessing all
qualifications of a social reformer. J. A.
Hobson, in his study of Ruskin as a social
reformer, points out that Ruskin
possessed “special qualifications is for
social and economic criticism; for he was
a skilled specialist in the finer qualities
of work which men put into the raw
material supplied by Nature in order to
furnish the necessaries of human
consumption.”
In his first lecture on work in The Crown
of Wild Olive, Ruskin takes up some
glaring problems of the poor. He does
not like that society in which the poor
become poorer and the rich richer. The
upper classes enjoy themselves by
compelling the poor labourers to work
for them and to provide for them. There
is no difference between the modern
capitalists and the barons in the Middle
Ages so far as the poor are concerned :
“And I can tell you, the poor vagrants by
the road-side suffer now quite as much
from the bag baron as ever they did from
the crag-baron. Bags and Crags have just
the same result on rags.”
In the same lecture, Ruskin clarified the
false notions about the rich and the poor.
There are two bases of distinction
between the two—the lawful and the
unlawful. The lawful basis of wealth is
that a man who works should be paid
the fair value of his work and that if he
does not like it spend it today, he should
have freedom to keep it for tomorrow.
Thus an industrious man working daily
will save something in the end. On the
other hand, there is the idle person who
does not work and the wasteful person
who lays nothing by will be doubly poor
in possession and dissolute in moral
habit. A law should be enacted in society
that only he who earns justly should
keep money. This is the proper basis of
distinction between the rich and the
poor. But there is also a false basis. There
are people who inherit money and make
more money by the power to use it. They
set themselves to the accumulation of
money as the sole object of their lives.
Ruskin feels that such people are an
uneducated class because an educated or
brave man cannot make money-earning
the chief object of his thoughts. With
them work is first and money second.
They are God’s servants. The former are
slaves of money, they are satans.
In his lecture on Traffic in The Crown of
Wild Olive, Ruskin exhorts people to give
up Mammon-worship because it is
detrimental to man’s moral, social and
spiritual development. He says, “Continue
to make that forbidden duty your
principal one and soon no more art, no
more science, no more pleasure will be
possible. Catastrophe will come or worse
than catastrophe, slow mouldering and
withering into Hades. But if you can fix
some conception of a true human state
of life to be striven for—life for all men
as for yourselves—if you can determine
some honest and simple order of
existence ; following these trodden ways
of wisdom which are pleasantness and
seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths,
which are peace; then, and so sanctifying
wealth into ‘common wealth’ all your
art, your literature, your daily labours,
your domestic affection and citizen’s
duty, will join and increase into one
magnificent harmony.”
Ruskin was aware of the ills of growing
industrialization. The industrial urge of
his times led to unhealthy competitions
and intolerance. It made people greedy
and selfish. The money-making tendency
made the privileged class exploit the poor
workers. Ruskin satirizes such people in
his lecture on work : “However, in every
nation, there are and must always be a
certain number of these Friend’s servants
who have it principally for the object of
their lives to make money. They are
always, as I said more or less stupid and
cannot conceive of anything else so nice
as money. Stupidity is always the basis of
Judas bargain.”
Thus Ruskin told the people of his age
that all was not well with the prosperous
classes. They were being deadened in
soul by the wealth they possessed. They
were wholly blind to the fearful cost at
which it was being won to the
destruction of the beauty and the country
which was gradually but surely removing
some of the most purifying and uplifting
influences that can work upon the hearts
of men and to the self-destroying
drudgery and monotony of the
mechanical toil to which the boasted
inventions of the century were
condemning the vast majority of the
population.
The Crown of Wild Olive is, therefore, a
commentary on the contemporary social
and economic life. In it Ruskin appears
not merely as a satirist, but he changes
himself into a preacher and a prophet.
The satirist being changed into a
preacher, exhorts work-men to be loyal
and to love their work and their
employers; asks the traders not to be
money-minded and advises the soldier to
be loyal to his calling.

History of English Literature