Why Arthur Miller Wrote the Crucible

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Arthur Miller is an American playwright who wrote the Crucible in 1952. The magnificent play was written for many reasons. In particular, one of those reasons was to give previous American history an honor to shine some light towards the modern day problems of that time. “I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history,” said Arthur Miller in his article, “Why I wrote the Crucible.” Miller gives us insiders on the concept of scapegoats and people’s hidden motives. Although the play was also written for personal reasons, one of it’s main purposes was to make a connection between the Salem trials and the Red Scare. Arthur Miller has achieved his goal in educating the population about social responsibility, conflict and injustice, which can be seen through the importance and value that his piece holds. One of Miller’s main reasons for writing the Crucible was to reveal people’s hidden motives. In the Crucible, the personalities and motives of the characters were crafted .Arthur Miller wanted to make it clear that he wasn't trying to write (or rewrite) history. This would have been impossible for him, given the lack of documentation about some of the key players of the Salem Witch Trial. Instead, Miller developed his characters to fit the play. For example, an entire scenario of the relationship between Abigail Williams and John Proctor were created to drive the story’s plot forward. This allows the reader to understand one of the different motivations we can relate to (love) for crying ‘witch’ on a fellow settler. Abigail Williams cried witch on Elizabeth Proctor (John Proctor’s wife) to eliminate Elizabeth. Other characters began to seek their own revenge and called witch on each other. The drives the characters have definitely move the plot forward, but also give us an insight to why

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