Also, Abby accuses Mrs. Proctor of witchcraft for her own self-interest. She wanted Mrs. Proctor to be killed so she could have Mr. Proctor to herself. Lastly, Arthur Miller underscores the magnitude of personal indiscretion in influencing social upheaval. During the witch trials, people were afraid of their own sins being exposed and they tried anything they could to keep it a secret. John Proctor tried to keep his affair with Abigail from the court as long as possible until he pretty much had to break down and confess it.
Dimmesdale is the town’s minister and is also the man Hester committed adultery with. It is ironic in the fact that he preaches to the town about confessing their sins, yet he has a sin that he has not confessed. Hawthorne uses satire to poke fun at the Puritans’ view of sin. The man who is supposed to be free of sin, has actually sinned the worst. Before Dimmesdale kills himself, he admits his sin to the whole town.
The narrator tries to prove how sane he really is before the reader has read enough to make any kind of judgment about him. The narrator is so scared of the old man's evil eye that he has decided to kill him just to get rid of the evil eye. The narrator admits to committing a senseless crime. The old man was never mean to him or treated him wrong. The old man had nothing of value that the narrator wanted.
The children know they are different, and they fear their elders and their parents. These children possess powers of telepathy, which would be known as, a deviation in Waknuk. Their fear is that their powers will somehow be revealed and they will therefore be captured, killed or cast away to The Fringes. The children’s fear of their telepathy being exposed has motivated them to run away. “Katherine has admitted it, confessed.” Katherine’s fear of losing her life motivated her to confess that her and a few others were telepathic.
Because of these fears, Macbeth became agitated and decided to hold back on his previous thought of assassinating Duncan. Shakespeare portrayed his first fear as something that “plagues the inventor.” Like the saying what goes around comes around, Macbeth greatly feared that if he performed the “bloody instructions”, and his dreams of having his ever-lasting power would cease. He did not want to risk his chance of death, and he wanted to escape from his original proposition of assassinating Duncan. His secret fears were made clear in this section of the soliloquy and he was in the end afraid of killing the king. Macbeth’s fear dramatically increased when he avowed, ‘So clear in his great office, his virtues/ Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against/ The deep damnation of his take off.’ (1.7.
He does not know her lover is Dimmesdale at this point so he can only go to Hester and hold the letter above her head, taunting her in a sense, in the hope that she will give in and say the name. When Hester perseveres and does not say the name he threatens her lover by saying, "My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, —thence, peradventure, to the gallows!"(208). Chillingworth swears that if he finds out who Hester’s lover is he will surely throw her lover into a dungeon to
After Oedipus accused Teiresias of being a liar, but then he accused Creon, his brother- in- law, of bribing Teiresias into lying to him and making him think that he was the murder. He believed Creon was after his position as king. Human beings are also quick to say something without thinking about it and end up saying something wrong or offensive to others. But Oedipus remain stubborn and didn’t believe Creon either when he trie to tell Oedipus that he doesn’t want to be king, just like humans would if they really wanted to believe that they were right. Our conscience is developed in a complicated way that can only know and hold certain knowledge.
Fear is defined as a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, or pain. In the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, which depicts a time of panic, false accusation, and wrongful executions , all caused by one thing fear is present in everyone’s life at some time or another in the story. The feeling of fear overall plays a very important role in everyone’s life in the play. In a puritan society, in which reputation plays such an important role, the fear of guilt by affiliation becomes decidedly harmful. Knowing this townsfolk of Salem must fear that the sins of their friends will stain their names.
The reason for their illogical thinking occurs due to the fear instilled on them by the brutal death of the man. Moreover, as the myth is being passed along, it creates a frightening situation for the coming generations of the family. The descendants of the man, “moved like careful haemophiliacs, fearing they carried unwanted possibilities deep within them” (228). The descendants believe the myth so strongly that they convince themselves into thinking they have a disorder within them. They are so sceptical because they are afraid of death.
One particularly dangerous exercise of power is the enforcement of cruel and unusual punishments towards supposed criminals. Winston explained one such punishment, saying, “When once you had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would be dead” (130). Winston was absolutely sure of this, because he was taught this all throughout his life – that you will be eliminated if your thoughts didn’t align with the Party’s. He understood that once you began freely thinking, you were destined to be caught thinking thoughts that did not align with the state. If a Party member began to understand that the state is not actually working for good of the people, he/she would be in a never-ending struggle to avoid getting caught by