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The Crucible - Emnity And Distrust

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.

John Proctor is very rarely involved in village affairs, preferring to spend time on his farm than getting involved in politics. He does however still have conflicts with others in the village, especially Parris, whom he mistrusts greatly. Proctor genuinely dislikes Parris and disagrees with all that he does. Proctor’s hatred of Parris causes him to rarely attend church services on Sabbath Day and instead spends the day on his farm. The reason Proctor does not attend is that he disagrees with Paris’ morals and motivations and cannot bare to listen to the “hellfire and damnation” that he preaches during his services. Proctor also refuses to have his youngest child baptised because he dreads the thought of Parris touching his baby, believing that there is no “light of god in that man”, even though he is a minister. Parris has glorious hopes for his church and his own future. Proctor believes that Parris is obsessed with material goods and “dreams cathedrals not clapboard meatin’ houses”, as shown by his replacement of the pewter candlesticks with gold ones. The pewter candlesticks were hand made by Francis Nurse, and therefore had great sentimental value, but Parris preached “nothing but golden candlesticks” until he had them replaced. Proctor is outraged that his hard work goes to waste on materialistic items such as new candlesticks that serve no other purpose but to look good. Parris has a great influence on the witch-hunt and is often expressing his opinion about Proctor in an attempt to have him arrested. He contradicts many of Proctor’s words in the courtroom...

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