English 11 AP
The Crucible Literary Analysis The Crucible, a novel by Arthur Miller is a historical fiction novel that takes place during the year 1692. The novel is written in the format of a play and takes place in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. The town consists of a tight knit highly religious society. The situation and circumstances that the community is in encourages the development of several different themes in the story. Religion, integrity, and respect and reputation are all important themes in the novel. Religion is one of the main reasons that the novel its self is able to play out and develop. The main plot of the story revolves around religion and the actions that the characters take out either for or against the things that they are taught and that they are expected to follow. The community is a group of extremely religious Puritans; in their minds and opinions there is only one thing that is important: God. To the community the only thing that should matter to people is being on God’s good side and being the best Christians they can be. The only things that have an important value are upholding religious beliefs and developing the best relations they can with God and the church. If the people of Salem hadn’t been so religiously uptight then the Salem witch trials probably wouldn’t have even occurred. Also, during the witch trails the only thing that people had as proof of innocence or guilt was religion without religion their points would have been without meaning. Every time someone was accused of performing witch craft someone would always put in question their commitment religion. During the time that Elizabeth Proctor had been accused of witch craft Mr. Hale went to the Proctor home and “put some questions as to the Christian character of this house” (page 64). Both with the Proctors and every other accused person the question of