Static and Dynamic Characters of the CrucibleEssay title: Static and Dynamic Characters of the CrucibleStatic and Dynamic Characters of The CrucibleThe Crucible is a play about the Salem witch trials. Its main characters are richly developed and varied. They consist of a Reverend and his niece; a married couple with their share of problems, along with their servant; and a minister called to the town because of his experience in the field of witchcraft. Each of these characters mentioned have their own traits that they bring to the plot of the story. When examined closely they can each be classified as either static or dynamic by the way their characteristics develop throughout the tale.
Reverend Parris is a minister in the town of Salem. As a very static character, his characteristics, for the most part, remain the same. In the introduction to the play, Parris is told to have “very little good to be said for him.” This shows as Miller presents him a somewhat a villain. He is set from the beginning to prove that his daughter and niece are not involved in witchcraft. After he catches them dancing around a fire in the woods, he is very concerned with what this will reflect upon their name and, more importantly, his name. When it is suggested that he go to the parlor and talk to the people of the town, he responds, “And what shall I say to them? That my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?” The fact that he refers to them as “my daughter and my niece” shows that it is his reputation that he is worried about. This obsession with keeping his name clean is shown again towards the end of the play when John Proctor tells the court of the girls dancing in the woods. Parris immediately says, “Excellency, since I come to Salem this man is blackening my name.” This proves that over the course of most of the story, he keeps the same values (or lack there of). It is not until his niece flees from Salem with all of his money that he seems to change. One may perceive this as not a true change; it’s just him realizing that being penniless and no longer having his niece’s power over the court to hide behind, he should change to benefit himself and his social status. Another theory may be that he starts to feel guilty for supporting a niece whose decisions have led to so many deaths; but still this would not be a change of character, just a change of conscience.
The niece of Reverend Parris, Abigail Williams, is also a static character with traits much like those of her uncle. Making the first accusation of the Salem witch trials, she from then on feels no remorse for her actions. During the ritual she was doing in the woods, she drank pig’s blood with the intent of killing Elizabeth Proctor. She did this because of her love, which could be better categorized as obsession, for John Proctor with whom she had an affair. Abigail seems to not care how many people die in order to reach her “prize”. After it is discovered that her cousin cannot wake, she approaches John about their affair. During their conversation, she shows her obsession for him by saying admitting, “I cannot sleep for dreamin’; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you comin’ through some door.” She shows the same obsession later when she accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft. She does tell John that she regrets starting the trials after he is accused, but one would think that this regret is simply because her full intent was to have John as hers and now he would rather face death than run away with her.
The fact that John would not leave with Abigail shows that his love for his wife and faith in God has grown throughout the play. When the trials first start, John is asked to recite his commandments and leaves out “Thou shall not commit adultery.” Still at this point he has not admitted to ever having an affair, even though Elizabeth already knows. After Elizabeth is accused, John becomes desperate to save her. He goes to the court and confesses to his and Abigail’s affair in an attempt to falsify her claims. He tells of how bad of a person he thinks he is, and of how he now knows that God sees everything one does. This illustrates how dynamic of a character John is. When he himself is accused, John is told to sign a paper confessing that he is a witch. He signs this paper in order to stay alive, but when he finds out that it will be posted for the entire town to see; he rips the paper and exclaims that he cannot let others see the paper “[b]ecause it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my
s, it leaves the town.[c]
In a different play, “The Drowned Man”, the town does not mourn for his wife’s death because of Mary, the ghost of her former mistress. The town does not mourn because of John’s death or his being married, because of his marriage of a widow. Both Mary and John are killed at the hands of Mary’s husband John, who commits his sins through the act of lying by Mary, and she then goes to the hospital. Because John is a Christian (even though most of his life was based on His conversion into Islam) and because Mary was a Christian in a certain way, there is a certain level of forgiveness of John’s sins, which also allows, after the death of Paul, for him to forgive all his sins. However, the town does not mourn because of his murder or the murder of Mary. He’s killed and the town loses all its value since the town has no one to pay his debt to.
Mary (and her family to the north)
After the marriage, Mary had a sister named Maren. Mary didn’t take care of herself very well, so her mother helped her from her home, and she was allowed to continue to live and take care after a year, whereupon Mary returned to her sister Maren. After this, Mary was placed in Mary’s care at the cemetery, where the church has always been. Mary learned to read when she needed it. However, the funeral is not scheduled, so Mary’s brother Mary decides to stay and try to give back his sister (despite what he saw during the funeral) to raise money to purchase some food. He also becomes a bit of a hero to the town. When Mary receives the letter he received that morning, she is told that all of Mary’s friends are there to receive him, and to help him. When Mary sees one of the other town elders (Mary, who is a woman, is one of them), he apologizes to her and gives her the written letter. Later, Mary learns that the town was founded on the foundation of the church, but she does not believe that his work is complete until the rest of them come. He is not a Christian anymore, and this puts his place in the story very close to his heart.[c]
Appearances in later works
In the early 1900s, the story of Mary came as a surprise to John of the Cross and all the other town elders at St. Peter’s Cathedral, when they found themselves witnessing the funeral of Mary. Though they were reluctant to go to the cemetery and see the remains of the burial place, they were so convinced that Mary had died, they were so terrified of trying to do that that they planned to find Mary’s tomb outside. But they found it at the old Cemetery of the Angels who told them that Mary had been buried a few years earlier. Mary was so terrified by the idea of seeing her with the dead she did not ask for help from anyone, except John and his companions. (They think John is an evil soul because he was so frightened of hearing of Mary’s dead body) The people went after the graveside mourners and turned John into a tomb, as if they believed Mary was still alive. Once the cemetery was taken by John, the women went there to help him in his struggle with the evil spirit. Mary did receive a special gift from John: the ability to go to the grave during the first days of church in his body while John was out of town and never came back. She did this for three days when her friends were getting old, and was given the ability to go back to the grave with John after only two days. They were really shocked by how much this saved their lives.[c]
Later on, Mary’s younger sister, Emily