Reflection: How does The Crucible display the qualities of Puritans – And what is the breakdown of Puritan beliefs as well.

There were definitely a lot of Puritan qualities in The Crucible.  I saw many of the usual characteristcs, like mentioning God frequently, discussion of sin, and centering God in ones life.  I also noticed the superstitions that went along with the Puritan lifestyle.   The other two stories, the poem by Bradstreet and the other by Rowlandson, were very reflective of the good qualities of the Puritans and focused mainly on the act of using God to cope with hard situations, and being accepting of hard times and relying on God. The Crucible, on the other hand,  discusses more of the darker side to the religion, and how corruption  and superstition can leak into any system despite efforts to suppress it.                                                             

   The opening pages describe the Puritan society setting. They describe the Puritan breakdown of morals and spell out plainly what the Puritans beliefs are.  Belief number one: God should be the center of one’s life. It says that the Puritans established a theocracy for their government. “For good purposes, even higher purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies” (Miller 7).  This is very reflective of the Puritan lifestyle. So, pretty much, the Puritans want God to be the center of everything, even the way they run their community. They are very religious people, and it makes since that they chose this type of government. In the same token, their choosing of this particular government also reveals the fact that they believe every Puritan should put God in the center of their own life.                

 Belief number two: Life should be devoted to God and prayer.  Belief number three: No one should be part of anything resembling “Vain enjoyment” (An example would be dancing) (Miller 4). It plainly states these rules in the beginning pages, saying, “Their creed forbade anything resembling a theater or ‘vain enjoyment.’ They did not celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer” (Miller 4).Clearly their belief system disagrees with anything that might separate them from the Lord. Vain enjoyment could lead to a sinful obsession, and holidays could lead to sins too. To them, prayer was the only thing to be done outside of work and church. Their  lifestyle demanded that they refrain from sin.                          

 Besides those three major beliefs and qualities of Puritan writing, I stumbled over a lot more. First of all, this novel highly reflects the characteristics of Puritans because of the way the characters act. When sickness struck, and no one had any reliable medical reason for it, they immediately turned to the enemy of God, Satan. I noticed throughout the story that they believed prayer was directly linked to God, and being unable to pray was linked to Satan. An example of this was when Gile claimed his wife was reading strange books, and in her presence, he couldn’t pray. He then claimed that this meant she might, in some way, be touched by the devil (Miller 40). Anything that was related in some way to something deemed ‘ungodly’ or anything that went against their belifs was concluded to be Satanic. Abigail’s dancing was thought to be Satanic, and Betty’s medical mystery, and Mrs. Putnam’s loss of her children. If anything went wrong, they automatically thought it was the devil, when in truth, it might not have been at all. It might have just happened.                                                                                                                 

   The Puritans in The Crucible  follow the typical Puritan beliefs, and the writing reveals alot of it. They put God in the center of their government, they believe God should be the center of everyone's personal life, they believe all should refrain from sin, and they pray to God. God is a good thing, but the people of The Crucible are clearly superstitious. The way that they act and their strict beliefs show that they are really a very frightened group of people that are terrified of offending God. God should be feared, as the bible says, but the people of The Crucible are letting their fear control their actions. They fear sin and they accuse others of witch craft. The Salem witch trials were a time where innocent people were brutally murdered over superstitions, lies, and fears. Instead of letting God help them, the Puritans in this story are trying to play God, and our accusing people too fast, in my opinion.

                                                                                                                            

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.