It was a play with tremendous feelings with many inside twists hidd en in

the archives of the true story. It was a play with emotional feelings;

feelings of anger , hate, and evil, yet feelings of manipulation, good, and

pureness. It was the Crucible. A fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled

into one magnification. The Crucible: Good versus Evil.

The play contained many scenarios of good versus evil, and the characters

who generally possessed these feelings and intentions. But it must be

understood t hat there were the intentions, the incentives, and then the

actions taken out on a person or a group of people. Every character could

either be placed in the intentions under good or bad intentions. Aft er

that, almost every character has mixed feelings of evil or good actions.

The fight between the centre of evil and the centre of good is the

foremost important of the points. Abigail Williams is the nucleus of all

evil in the story. Sh e is the one who triggers off this sense of hate in

the play. She tempts Proctor into lechery, and comm its unlawful acts which

all are against the Puritan religion. To escape punishment for dancing, she

deflects the actions and blames them on someone else, and does not care how

many lives she ruins. La ter when she grows into power and influence, she

seems to enjoy sending these innocent peopl e their deaths. She takes

pleasure in her lies, and thrives on the attention and power that th ey

bring her. All these are the aspects of being the evil character. Power,

attention, and acts of w rongful doing. Therefore she can be labelled with

being the evil character in the novel. She uses evi l actions disguised as

good by admitting who was with the devil. Of course the people she accuses

a re actually innocent, but she has the ability to manipulate people into

believing that she is doin g good. This again is evil.

The centre of good can be labelled as John Proctor. He is considere d the

'hero' of the story, because he fits into the points that make up the hero

of a story. Pr octor is a heroic martyr at the end of the play, when he

falsely admits that he was with Satan all a long. He then refuses to tell

the judge and accuse anyone of being with Satan too like Abigail did. Th

erefore he may be considered a martyr, for dying for a cause of saving the

lives of other innocen t people. John Proctor also tries to defend his

wife, and attempts to make the judge realize how Abiga il is manipulating

him. This is where the conflict arises between good and evil. It is

survival o f the fittest. Who will survive at the end? Abigail Williams or

John Proctor? This is the main battle o f the story.

John Proctor is not a saint in this story either. He does possess s ome

fragments of evil in his soul. His intentions are to do good and that

justice is served, but he wants this so badly, that he also turns to evil

incentives to kill Abigail (subliminally for w hat she is doing). At the

latter part of the play, he tries to use evil to counter evil by saying he

was w ith the devil. His intentions are to do good, but that is really

against the Puritan Code, and hence i s considered evil. One more fault

that Proctor has was for committing lechery with Abigail. This is ev il,

because it is against the Puritan rules. Abigail and Proctor are both at

fault.

Ann Putnam was greatly influenced by Abigail's doings, that she beg an to

follow the same strategy. She then accuses Rebecca Nurse of witchery to

escape her a ccusation. This deflection is just used to keep herself out of

trouble. Consequently, Ann Putnam i s then considered evil, for using

deflection.

Marry Warren's intentions at the beginning of the story were to do good

and justice. But she sees that when she is in trouble, she also needs

someone to defl ect the punishment on. This greed results in her saying

that Proctor was associated with Satan, and that he possessed her and made

her do all of her wrong actions. Her intentions were first good , but then

her actions turned into pure evil, just like Abigail had done. Reverend

Hale also is deceived into the traps of Abigail, and accid entally goes

along with her plans. He thought he was doing good, but his actions turned

out to be evil and wrong. He later realizes that he was being manipulated

by Abigail, and decides to ma ke up for his actions, so he can be good.

Hale begins by visiting the accused in jail and telling them to confess to

being with the Devil, so they may get out alive. This action is wrong

against t he Puritan code, but his incentives are to do good, so the people

will not be executed for no reason. He can therefore be considered good at

the end of the story.

One very important battle that is not very obvious in the story is with

God and the Devil, being good and evil. The question is will the accused

people be sent to heaven with the good God, or will they burn in hell with

the evil Satan? This is mainly what t he whole play is based on. The

Puritan religion is the reason for why the people are being executed . In

conclusion, there is a substantial difference between the forces of good

and evil in the play. The forces of good always tried to do what was best

for everyb ody, even if it meant breaking some Puritan laws. The evil group

did whatever was best for themselv es. They were greedy, and had no

consideration for others. But one thing that must be remember ed is

usually, the good always prevails over the forces of evil. It was not the

same in The Crucibl e. In the end, Abigail had succeeded in her wrong

doing, and had killed Proctor. For once, evil emerged victorious