The Crucible by Arthur Miller: a critical lens essay about how the moral of one of William Saroyan's quotes is echoed throughout The Crucible.

Essay by NYSpinnerDanHigh School, 10th gradeA+, August 2008

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"Good people...are good because they've come to wisdom through failure." When William Saroyan spoke these immortal words, he meant that the path to human greatness lies in mistakes. In order for people to accomplish their goals, they must first pass through a series of hardships, in which they will make many errors. The mistakes help the people become righteous by teaching them what not to do, and what they must do to fix certain situations. The book The Crucible by Arthur Miller illustrates the meaning of this quote marvelously. Since it is obvious that Proctor turned out to be a wise and proud man at the end, we must ask ourselves what led to this. The answer is that John has made many mistakes, and learned from every one of them In the book, John Proctor goes through the aftermaths of an liaison in the middle of the Salem Witch Hunt.

Although in the beginning he seems to be a highly virtuous man, the affair stains his conscience as well as his relation with his wife, Abigail. To make his name once more righteous, John needs to learn from his mistake(and that's exactly what he does).

The setting contributes a great deal to John's predicament. It was his wife being sick for so long that caused John to be so sexually frustrated. Having Abigail, an attractive young woman, as a servant gave John somewhere to turn to with his sexual frustrations. The resulting affair was what the part of the phrase that mentioned failure was referring to. The worst part of John's setting was that the townspeople were all strict Puritans, meaning that infidelity was a much more serious crime than it is today. These intense pressures on John make his mistake profoundly more detrimental, so the pressure to mend...