The Crucible Character Analysis

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Miller introduces characterization by foreshadowing actions and their implications, but it is divided between the women and men of the play. The female characters in The Crucible foreshadow future events in their actions outlined in the text in a passive, yet subtle way. As they debate the matters of Betty Parris’s strange behaviors, Mrs. Putnam mentions the horrors of Tituba, a girl “who murdered her sisters,” (28). The wickedness of this mere mention causes withdrawals in the actions of others, most visibly seen in Rebecca Nurse. Tituba, who was spontaneously remembered in this scene, is most inferrably another girl accused of witchcraft for the death of those around her. The quick and indirect connection between Betty and this outside…show more content…
Hale begins his introduction on the apparent exorcism with a book of superstitions; tales decorate its bindings in colorful characters of devils, demons, and witches that aid to define this era and its several of its beliefs (43-51). Hale’s unfiltered and open manners display his directness in society: an absolute contrast from the women’s indirectness previously mentioned. Unlike Mrs. Putman or Rebecca Nurse, Hale makes his point clear and known to his audience there with no hesitation. A man’s directiveness in society isn’t the only trait revealed in this passage, but the directiveness of ideologies as well. Once something has been said and the people agree to it, the change to undo its effects will be with little success. In the inevitability of a future trial in which Betty Parris is judged for witchcraft, it is practically set in stone the absence of her innocence the moment a member should rumor her guilty. Another occurrence of the same manner is in Hale’s comment to Parris stating, “What victory would the Devil have to win a soul already bad? It is the best the Devil wants, and who is better than the minister?” (95-97). The starkness of reason that Hale speaks is like the blast of a cannon in the audience’s eyes. The absolute transparency in Hale’s words would practically give anyone pause in knowledge of the situation. The implications made by the manners of
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