The Crucible Worksheet

The Crucible Worksheet:

As you view this film, answer the following questions. You may want to return to the questions after viewing the film to shape complete sentences.

1. The tone in The Crucible is serious and somber, as is most of the film and literature associated with the Puritan times. Find three examples, whether through images shown or in some of the action or dialogue, that create this dismal tone.

1.______2.______3.______

2. What causes Tituba, the slave from Barbados, to change her mind and confess to being a witch?

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3. What motivates Abigail to perpetuate the problems with hysteria and witch hunting in the village?

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4. Why do the rest of the girls who had been at the nighttime romp in the woods go along with Abigail’s lies?

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5. Giles Cory tries to stop the hysteria and asserts that it has been made known to him that some of the townspeople stand to gain ownership of land from the witch trials that are being held. What happens to him because of this assertion and later what finally happens to him when he is being questioned?

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6. Mary Warren at first comes forward to reveal the truth and then changes her mind. What provokes this reversal? ______

7. How does the Reverend John Hale try to stop the madness even though he has, in the past, sent many people who have been accused of witchcraft to their deaths?

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8. What provokes John Proctor to confess that he has had sex with Abigail? ______

© TeachWithMovies.com For use by teachers in public or non-profit schools or for personal or family use. See to http://www.teachwithmovies.org/terms-of-use.html. 9. As it has been said that Elizabeth Proctor never lies, what irony can be seen in the fact that before the court she lied about the relationship between her husband and Abigail?

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10. John Proctor has decided to confess to the charges against him and then changes his mind. What principle does he hold that means he cannot make a false confession?

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Quick Write Questions:

1. How does the combination of fear, ignorance and deceit serve to work in favor of the hysteria that marks the Salem witch trials? Give examples of fear in specific persons, ignorance in the community at large, and deceit on the part of two important people in perpetrating the injustice.

2. Arthur Miller intended this play to expose the terrible injustices of not only the Salem witch trials, but their similarities to the hysteria that marked the McCarthy years and the treatment of the people brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Write an essay in which you show how the film can be seen as a metaphorical look at the injustices brought by McCarthy and his ilk during the 1950s.