Elizabeth Proctor The Crucible Essay

An emphasis on religion and its significance regarding town politics led to a theocratic Salem. Theocracy, meant to “keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity” (7) from occurring, highlights Salem and its priority placed on conformity. Therefore, Elizabeth Proctor and her internal conflict regarding morality contrasts starkly with the unquestioning society around her. In Miller’s play The Crucible, Arthur Miller utilizes Elizabeth Proctor’s evolving sense of justice and integrity to delineate that in a given world that values the dogmatic adherence to ideas or customs, a person who rejects that world often represses their own internal ethical beliefs in favor of conforming to the majority. In the short term, a person
Proctor’s long term response to external influences to her ethical character. This exemplifies the certainty that once faced with the true significance of fitting in by means of blind devotion, and discovering individualistic expression, one will eventually shed the extraneous inclinations to integrate to a majority and therefore, find their way as an individual. Once Elizabeth is brought to testify to her husband’s confession, However, the falter in her voice is unmistakeable, representing the part of her that is reluctant still, to relinquish the hold that the Puritan community has on her views surrounding popular opinion. During the interrogation, Elizabeth is frozen; and “in a crisis of indecision she cannot speak”(113). The word “indecision” demonstrates an inability to make a decision, in this case reflecting a concealed incapacity to tell the truth. Elizabeth cannot yet bring herself to fully dislodge the pressures of the Salem society’s need for a perfect illusion. Subsequently she continues to struggle to masquerade as a obedient member of the masses, one without individual