Rhetorical Analysis Essay On The Crucible

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Crucible and Puritanism Essay Prompt #6 Just like any author, Arthur Miller has his own style and rhetoric use of diction in order to convey a message relating the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the communist trials during the Red Scare in the 1950’s. Miller uses multiple quotes from his play, The Crucible, and his own experience with dealing with communism to portray how he finds the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare are related. First of all, Miller uses the ideology for The Crucible to convey communism as well. Towards the end of act III, Proctor has just failed trying to prove him and his wife’s innocence and after Abigail has faked being cursed by Mary, Mary throws the blame onto Proctor which drives him mad. Proctor laughs insanely and then says, “A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face!” (Miller 64). Proctor alludes the fire to the burning depths of hell and the color usage of red through the fire and some previous events the story also suggests evil, hell, and the devil. In addition, this motif of…show more content…
In act I, Tituba has been accused of witchcraft and Hale, Putnam, and Parris are condemning her to death. They try to liken unto her in order to get on her side and then use the threat of hanging her to get an accusation out of her. Hale starts by saying, “You would be a good Christian woman, would you not, Tituba?” (Miller 25). And then later in the text Hale tries to get names from Tituba in order to “redeem” herself when he asks, “When the Devil comes to you does he ever come--with another person?” (Miller 25). Questionings during the Salem witch trials commonly portrayed events like this where freedom was only found by admitting and condemning others. Miller writes these in regard to the Red Scare being the exact same way, whereas the authorities question people until they admit to being communist and accuse others or they are

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