The Crucible
“There be no mark of blame upon my life, Mr. Hale. I am a covenanted Christian woman” (Miller 63), says Elizabeth. When trying to claim her innocence from witchery in front of Mr. Hale, Elizabeth Procter declares that honesty and loyalty are the values that she believes in deeply. She defends herself that she is a religious and upright woman who follows the commandments, and there are absolutely no ways that she would insult or betray God, nor compact with the Devil.
Later, when Procter brought Mary Warren to the court to charge Abigail fraud, declare the pretense of spirits, and essentially confessing the underground relationship with Abigail if necessary, Elizabeth was brought to the court to testify Procter’s word. However, wanting to secure her husband’s clean reputation, Elizabeth lied to the court.
DANFORTH, reaches out and holds her face, then: Look at me! To your own knowledge, has John Procter ever committed the crime of lechery? In a crisis of indecision, she cannot speak. Answer my question! Is your husband a lecher!
ELIZABETH, faintly: No, sir (Miller 105).
Valuing Mr. Procter’s reputation over her own, Elizabeth denied the relationship between Procter and Abigail. The power of love has made Elizabeth disobey her principles and values in order to secure her husband. In this situation, Elizabeth has shown herself to be a hypocrite who is inconsistent with her actions and beliefs.
“In the Name of Love”
The Crucible: Miller’s timeless witch-hunt tale is spellbinding from Paul Taylor via independent.co
Historical Connection
In the 19th century, the United States officially abolished slavery and granted every citizen freedom, right, equality, and opportunity regardless of his / her gender, sex, race, and ethnicity (Wu). However, under this golden cover, African Americans still occupied an inferior status in society, even until today. Schools and bathrooms used to be segregated on the basis of race. African Americans could only attend certain schools and use certain bathrooms assigned to blacks. Their basic rights were deprived, they are not included in the society, and the American ideals that the country claimed to grant to every citizen apparently don’t seem to apply to them.
Not only in The Crucible, but the United States has also been hypocritical towards the treatment of blacks. Although they claimed that everyone regardless of race and ethnicity has the right to expression and freedom, they were neglectful towards the unequal treatment of the African Americans.
“‘Liberty'”
Concluding Remarks
Though we often times associate a negative meaning to the word “hypocrite”, lying can be justifiable sometimes. In fact, everyone has been a hypocrite at some point in their life in some form of fashion somehow, whether it’s for a good cause or bad one, for a significant matter or not. Elizabeth’s situation where she lied out of love can be a debatable case because her good intention to protect her husband may be inappropriate to conduct before law and cause unwanted consequences. However, on the other hand, hypocrisy on the basis of intentionally excluding or harming other people is definitely unjustifiable and should be corrected.
Bibliography
Wu, Emily. Chiang, Albert. Williamson, Claire. Chen, Linda. Chiou, Curie. American Values. 2018. Kaohsiung American School, Kaohsiung. Unpublished paper.
March 12, 2019 at 12:23 am
Hello Curie,
I found your writing very powerful but I do not agree with your interpretation of Elizabeth. I personally believe that she was under extreme pressure and was forced in a way to deny her own principles. Her loyalty was another strong principle of herself and I think that could have driven her to deny Proctors infidelity. I do understand what you are saying though.
I completely agree with your statement that the USA’s treatment of black men and women is hypocritical. The amount of violence, lack of protective laws, and racism is far too much but it is still not talked about. I really liked how you described the situation within the USA.
Have a good day, Claire.
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March 12, 2019 at 1:20 pm
Hi Curie!
One of my favourite things about this post was your structure. It makes it so easy to see the different sections of your post and how it all relates to each other. One thing I noticed is that you started off with the evidence, which I found very interesting. I think that this really catches the attention of the readers and pull them into reading more. The picture you used also fits the topic really well! Your explicit connection to outside of the play is very historically accurate and a good choice because it deals with what our grade is learning right now. Do you think that racism and discrimination still happens today? In conclusion, your post is very strong overall, with a visually pleasing look, making it very easy to understand!
Annie
March 29, 2019 at 5:11 am
Hi Curie!
After reading your blog, I am very impressed by how you hooked the audience with your interesting blog post title. It really got me thinking, what is this post really about? Who’s being hypocritical? and what happens next? Your title really lured me into reading your blog post.
I also really like how you contrasted a supposedly nice character with her actions in court to show how she is hypocritical. Sometimes people with justice will disobey his/her own believes to protect the things that they love, would you agree with such a point?
Overall it is really nice reading your blog post and I began to interpret the actions of the different characters a bit more. Great job!
Have a nice day,
Sandy.