Monthly Archives: March 2019

Foils… in The Crucible

Grade 10, Language and Literature G10

In the literature world, the word “foil” is commonly used on a character that demonstrates its performance that has completely contrast with another character in the story. Generally speaking, foils can also be referring to the protagonist and antagonist, which the protagonist will mainly behave in a heroic appearance as the antagonist contrast with it and act in opposite behaviors aim to negatively influence the actions of the protagonist.

In the play The Crucible, foils can be applied to the character’s relationship between Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor while both of them fall deeply into John Proctor’s heart. Abigail Williams is one of the significant characters that largely impacts the story trend from the beginning to the end. She is a servant served in John Proctor’s house, nevertheless, gains some impractical authority from the witchcraft event and starting to use it as a power to tell lies and influence lots of people just by her untruthful saying. On the other hand, Elizabeth Proctor behaves as a moral and known for being an honest woman in the story. She was the wife of John Proctor but was being accused of witchcraft. She was afraid to lose him due to different kinds of suspicions of having an affair beyond her.

Abigail has been jealous of the love between Elizabeth and John Proctor for time to tome and was caught having an affair with John Proctor. She desires to initiate revenge on Elizabeth once she was being fired and was driven away from John Proctor’s house by Elizabeth. They are contradicting since Act 1 of the play when Abigail complained about Elizabeth to John Proctor as she said:

“She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! “(Miller, 22)

Moreover, the conflict between Abigail and Elizabeth can be seen in Act 2 when Elizabeth realize the power of Abigail can possibly take over her place from John which she carefully clarifies to John:

“It is her dearest hope, John, I know it…There be a certain danger in calling such a name — I am no Goody Good… She’d dare not call out such a farmer’s wife but there be monstrous profit… She thinks to take my place, John.”(Miller 58)

       

Abigail Williams by Weebly via CC BY-SA 2.0 // ‘Crucible’ Character Study: Elizabeth Proctor by ThoughtCo. via CC BY-SA 2.0

In addition, I came up with a movie that has also related to the term”foils” and the movie is named “Black Panther”. In the movie, T’Challa is acting as the protagonist, he is the main character which ruled the nation called Wakanda after his father died in the incident in a United Nation building. On the other hand, the antagonist of the movie named Erik Kilmonger decided to return to Wakanda and overthrow the power of T’Challa. Foils can be seen between these two characters since they both contrast with each other just to win the throne of the country no matter the consequences are.

‘Black Panther’ by New Times via  CC BY-SA 2.0

Citation:

  • Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Play In Four Acts. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
  • “SparkNotes: The Crucible .” SparkNotes, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/crucible/quotes/character/elizabeth-proctor/.

Hypocrites (The Crucible)

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In the book The Crucible, many scenes have shown that multiple characters have a sense of being hypocritical as they become gossip on things. They are eager to achieve their goals no matter how the consequences will damage others in various ways. Their actions drag lots of innocent people into things that they should not have been.  These hypocritical done by these characters could be extremely harmful and could eventually affect the situation in the story completely.

One of the characters I believe that has been an evident hypocrite in The Crucible is Abigail Williams. She is the key person that in some way manipulating the witchcraft event into a suspicious and complicated incident that drag innocent people in it.  She pretends to be innocent and trustworthy to make her false accusations seem real and logical. Moreover, she pretends to worship God so the crowd would more possibly support her accusations on people. As a result, she sent 19 innocent people to their deaths just by her false accusation on witchcraft.

Abigail Williams  by Weebly via CC BY-SA 2.0

“I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus…” (49, Miller) 

“I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil! I saw Goody Booth with the Devil!” (49, Miller) 

In addition, She is also being a hypocrite in her affair with John Proctor while she accused Elizabeth, John Proctor’s wife, of witchcraft. Her intention of doing it can be based on John Proctor’s motive of trying to clear out the relationship between Abigail and himself, and her jealousy between John and Elizabeth which by accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft, Abigail could possibly get Elizabeth hanged on the court so she could win back John Proctor as her dearly lover. Nonetheless, Abigail’s value should not take her this far to be able to manipulate the overall situation in the story and should not have made this significant impact on condemning the innocent people.

“She is blackening my name in the village!… She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a..” (22, Miller) 

 

 

Thinking of hypocrite, I have come up with a movie that has somehow related to this topic. Recently, I have watched a movie named How to Train Your Dragon 2″. It is a movie based on the story of the Viking village of Berk. In the movie, the Vikings have been conflicting with the dragons for several generations, however, Hiccup decided to overturn this situation while he has been developing feeling between a dragon and it went completely fine. He advocates that there should be no killing of dragons in the future and maintain peace with the dragons. In spite of that, Hiccup and the Vikings still killed a number of dragons that went against them which it included the dragon king in the first movie. I believed that it is considered hypocritical since their aim was to avoid dragon killing but the Viking decided to maintain peace whether the consequences will disobey their own oath.

How the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy wound up with the most thrilling music since Star Wars by Matt Patches via CC BY-SA 2.0