The Battle Within

Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, is a great portrayal of humans and their inner struggles. This play takes place in the 1690's in a small Puritan community based on a ridged social system. An outbreak of rumors claiming witchcraft contaminated this small village. This caused conflict among the people of the community and ultimately resulted in absolute chaos. Miller uses three characters to show this internal battle ever so clearly. Such as Mary Warren, who turns her whole personality upside down, John Proctor who ponders between the importance of his family and his own name and Reverend Hale who battles with himself whether to carry out his job requirements or do what he knows is right.

Mary Warren is a girl who is faced with this inner confusion throughout this play. At the outset of the play, she is noticed to be a very shy girl who will never speak her mind, as shown when Proctor finds her where she was not supposed to be and wants her home, she immediately replies with, "I'm just going home" (1098). As the play continues, and as she is influenced by Abigail, Mary begins to break this self induced mold and does what she wants. Mary Warren, along with many other girls, gets caught up in the excitement of getting all the attention and by exercising power, continues these "witch trials". Finally, John Proctor shows that when people like Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth Proctor, who are the saintliest of people, are accused of being witches, something must be wrong. Mary Warren has a difficult decision to make. She has realized that her way of life has been based on injustice. However, how can she free herself from Abigail and her friends, not to mention her new feelings of confidence? Mary decides to speak out against Abigail and the others for their false accusations and said that she "tried to kill me many times" (1118). Yet as she does this heroic act of overcoming her old reality, Abigail pretends that Mary is also a witch using the poppets against her (1141). Mary is now faced with yet another severe internal conflict; to do what she knows is right and probably die for it, or to return to her old ways. Mary gives way to Abigail's "hypnosis" and accuses John Proctor of forcing her to lie. Clearly the battle which Mary faced from the beginning was enormous.

John Proctor, a farmer and village commoner, similarly is faced with an inner confusion. He has committed adultery and had absolutely no intentions of joining in the witch trials unless his pregnant wife was to also get involved. After his wife got involved and eventually was set free due to the fact that she was pregnant, feels that he can't accept this. Proctor is a good and noble man and because of this he believes at first he can't be hanged and die a martyr when he has this sin blooming over him every waking moment. John later says to Elizabeth that, "My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before" (1162) and rather confess then die for something he flat out didn't do. However, as John confesses, he can not