The Crucible

Out of pride or out of guilt all people hold back certain truths about themselves from the public, and even from those closest to them. Arthur Miller’s drama The Crucible demonstrates this as an underlying factor. The reader is first exposed to some seemingly small happenings in a seemingly innocent and far-from-peculiar Puritan town. They, as true Puritans, are merely concerned with the strange and unfortunate juvenile misbehavior of several girls in their community. …

…and private truths play a major conflicting role in Miller’s play. From beginning to end, they are in constant struggle. Because private truths are dismissed by the townspeople in general, true justice is forfeited to please the public opinion of the people. It is the private truth of innocence, again dismissed by the court that sends Proctor and his colleagues and the other wrongly accused witches and wizards to their death by the noose.