Puritan Women’s Value of Piety Contradictory in the Crucible

The Crucible presents women on a narrow spectrum reflecting the culture of the puritan New England and the cult of true charwomanhood. Many of the plays fundamental conflicts exist because of limitations on the rights of women, and their low term in society. The status of the puritan white male onlyows the infringement of womens fundamental human rights to be overlooked by the public. The role of women and the theme of misogyny or suspect of women is an undercurrent theme in The Crucible.According to the holy persons of the cult of true womanhood, women were suppositional to embody perfect virtue in four cardinal aspects piety, purity, submission, and domesticity. worship maintained that a woman is more religious and spiritual than a man. Yet, in Millers play women were more susceptible to ill-doing. evens corruption, in prude eyes, extended to all women, and justified marginalisation them within social avenues. In The Crucible, the ideal of femininity is presented with in the tralatitious role of subservience, lack of voice, and suffering.The two female characters, Elizabeth Proctor and Tituba, both(prenominal) quash to their keep ups and master, respectively, and in the religious invigoration of both home and church. The fate of both characters Elizabeth Proctors loss of her husband, and Titubas execution as a witch, provides a standing critique of the puritan ideal of women cosmos higher-ranking in embodying the Puritan religiosity juxtaposing the subordination of their gender. The virtue of piety affirms that a woman is naturally religious. Consequently, it is a womans job to energise her children to be good Christians and keep her husband on a whirl and narrow path.Wives ar fully responsible if their husbands disobey the commandments, especially adultery. In The Crucible, this idea is reaffirmed with the character Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth is the ideal Puritan woman as she exemplified the principles of the piety, submissiveness, and purity. end-to-end the play, she proves to be moral, cold, and determined. As commode states in Act 2, Oh, Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer (Miller 53) Yet, the cult of true womanhood requires her to be predisposed to conceal the gentler emotions, period her manners are calm and cold, rather than free and impulsive.Abigail, the mistress, represents the opposite. She is young, attractive and brings love out a zest of life. A zest that Elizabeth lacks. trick Proctor conveys this when he seasons the pot of stew Elizabeth is cooking. Within Act II, characterisation one opens with John Proctor walking into the kitchen. His wife is absent but there is stew cooking. He lifts the ladle from the pot, tastes it, and adds a pinch of salt. The signifi digestce of this short scene may justify his affair with Abigail and a contradiction of Puritan society. Elizabeth embodies the ideal of a Puritan woman, but her Puritan husband does not disposition it.After she has spent a few months alone in prison, Elizabeth comes to this realization she was a cold wife, and it was because she did not show love to her husband that her marriage suffered. She comes to cogitate that it is her coldness that led to his affair with Abigail. Additionally, it is with this situation that builds up to her telling a lie to save her husbands reputation. In her life, sir, she stand neer lied. There are them that cannot sing, and them that cannot weep my wife cannot lie. I have paid much to look into it (Miller 103). John Proctor states that his wife, Elizabeth wont tell a lie.However, she lies in an guarantee to save his life. And as such, lie to save a family members life or reputation is justified. Throughout the play, Elizabeth is depicted as being one without sin. It is a scene in Act 3 she lies in court, saying that John and Abigails affair never happened. This is supposedly the only conviction she has ever lied in her life. Though she lies in an attempt to enter tain her husband, it actually results in his death. She is accosted in Act 4 to persuade her husband in giving the false confession of being a witch. scarce she refuses. mash disagrees with this.He says It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is Gods most precious em superpower no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it . . . it may comfortably be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride (Miller 122). Hale implies that Johns death is a bodge of life and Gods most precious gift. Thus Hales reasoning with Elizabeth is to let her come to terms with her responsibility with her husbands sin and let her be accountable for the affects of her decision in not lying again to protect him from the gallows.Besides gender inequality, racism was extremely prevalent in Puritan society. As such, the character Tituba is not only limited by her race, but also by her gender. She was the first person to be criminate and confess to witchery in the village. At first she denied that she had any affaire with witchcraft, but was then quickly coerced into confessing to having spoken with the Devil. Tituba provides the following confession He say Mr. Parris must be kill Mr. Parris no goodly man, Mr. Parris believe man and no gentle man, and he bid me rise out of my bed and cut your throat They gasp. notwithstanding I tell him No I dont hate that man. I dont want kill that man. But he say, You work for me, Tituba, and I make you free I knock over you pretty dress to wear, and put you way up in the air, and you gone(a) fly back to Barbados And I say, You lie, Devil, you lie And then he come one stormy night to me and he say, Look I have white people belong to me. And I look and there was daintiness Good (Miller 44). In the selected quote she lies and provides a false confession of witchcraft as well as the name of another witch in town to hopefully save herself from being subjected to the gallows.Though Tituba admits her supposed sin, she is not granted a free pass like the others who confessed. Instead, she is condemned to death. The fact that she was convicted at all shows that the Puritan society is inherently prejudice. In The Crucible, Titibua is depicted as an indirect object within an elite discourse of religious freedom and slavery. The Puritan society was obsessed with keeping up a veneer of religious piety and proper moral conduct. The plays setting of the timber in the opening scene represents the epitome of an un program linelable wildness.It is there where she held power and peril while she engages in incantations in the woods. Being an outsider makes her more probable to be in cohorts with the Christian Devil. Before being brought to Massachusetts, Tituba never considered her singing, dancing, and spell casting as evil. Such practices were spiritual and descended from her African roots. Her spiritualism had no connections to ideals of absolute good or evil. This is shown in Act Four, when Tituba tells to her ass mockingly Oh, it be no Hell in Barbados.Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados, him be singin and dancin in Barbados. Its you folks you riles him up round here it be withal cold round here for that Old Boy. He freeze his brain in Massachusetts, but in Barbados he just as tonic (Miller 113). The irony of the ill treatment of Titubas religious outsider status is the fact Puritans migrated to the New World to flee religious persecution. They sought to excerpt their faith freely, yet equally boasted great suspicion to others who were different.And as such, it can be inferred that Millers belief is that despite the Puritans self-proclamation of individualism, they exude as much intolerance as the European powers that set out to control them. The Puritans failed to learn from the persecution of their ancestors. The persecution of Tituba and her heathen religious practices reflect this conflict. In The Crucible, it was viewed that women were more likely to enlist in the Devils service than was a man, and women were considered lustful by nature as seen with the character Abigail. Ironically, Puritan women are prized for having a higher experience of religiosity.Almost all the accused who were imprisoned and executed for the crime of witchcraft were women who were social outcasts or predominant in the community. Tituba was a social outcast as she was a slave and Black woman. Elizabeth Proctor was a virtuous woman but was marred by her husbands affair with their stomach servant. The villages problem with Titubas different religious beliefs and expressions reflects the hypocrisy of Puritan intolerance, and John Proctors engagement in adultery highlights an inconsistency with the Puritan ideal of its women.