The Crucible Greed Quotes

Long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly expressed, and vengeance taken, despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions. Land-lust, which had been expressed by constant bickering over boundaries and deeds, could now be elevated to the arena of morality; one could cry witch against one’s neighbor and feel perfectly justified in the bargain. Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord; suspicions and the envy of the miserable toward the happy could and did burst out in the general revenge.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. There is more to the witch trials than the battle between Lucifer and the Lord, we are told in the play’s introduction. The trials were used to settle old scores between neighbors and adversaries, seek vengeance on others and satisfy the greed for land. Miller uses metaphorical language to describe the battle between good and evil – "plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord."

Where is my wood? My contract provides I be supplied with all my firewood. I am waiting since November for a stick, and even in November I had to show my frostbitten hands like some London beggar!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris, arguing with Giles Corey, is complaining about having to pay for his firewood. He uses a simile to suggest he is being treated like a London beggar. This shows a greedy Parris who is more concerned with his material comforts than with matters of God.

The salary is sixty-six pound, Mr. Proctor! I am not some preaching farmer with a book under my arm; I am a graduate of Harvard College.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Parris is involved in an undignified argument with Giles Corey and Proctor about his salary. Here he disputes Proctor’s claim that his salary is sixty pounds, plus six for firewood. He insists that his pay is sixty-six pounds, and the firewood is provided free. This is an example of greed by the head of the church in Salem. It also shows him consumed with pride, boasting that having a degree from the prestigious Harvard University should command a higher salary. Parris sees himself at a higher level than the typical Massachusetts farmer or craftsman.

Mr. Corey, you will look far for a man of my kind at sixty pounds a year! I am not used to this poverty; I left a thrifty business in the Barbados to serve the Lord. I do not fathom it, why am I persecuted here? I cannot offer one proposition but there be a howling riot of argument. I have often wondered if the Devil be in it somewhere; I cannot understand you people otherwise.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris is very concerned with material wealth, as shown by this speech. But as well as being a man of greed, this passage tells us also that he suffers from the sin of pride.

PROCTOR: Mr. Parris, you are the first minister ever did demand the deed to this house.
PARRIS: Man! Don’t a minister deserve a house to live in?
PROCTOR: To live in, yes. But to ask ownership is like you shall own the meeting house itself; the last meeting I were at you spoke so long on deeds and mortgages I thought it were an auction.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. For a man of the cloth Reverend Parris is unusually greedy. He demands that the deed of the home provided for him by the parish should belong to him and not the church. Proctor argues that Parris is more concerned with ownership of his house than his ministerial duties.

Think on it now, it’s a deep thing, and dark as a pit.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Giles Corey is talking about how people in Salem are not getting along with one another and suing their neighbors at an alarming rate. He himself confesses to being in court six times that year. Using a simile, he warns how people’s greed and hunger for vengeance are pulling them down into a black pit. This is foreshadowing of how the Salem community will be swallowed up by its own dark pit of destruction and Putitan intolerance, leading to many innocent lives being destroyed in the infamous witch trials.

PROCTOR: My lumber. From out my forest by the riverside.
PUTNAM: Why, we are surely gone wild this year. What anarchy is this? That tract is in my bounds, it’s in my bounds, Mr. Proctor.
PROCTOR: In your bounds! I bought that tract from Goody Nurse’s husband five months ago.
PUTNAM: He had no right to sell it. It stands clear in my grandfather’s will that all the land between the river and – .
PROCTOR: Your grandfather had a habit of willing land that never belonged to him, if I may say it plain.
GILES: That’s God’s truth; he nearly willed away my north pasture but he knew I’d break his fingers before he’d set his name to it.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Here we get an insight into a land dispute between John Proctor and Thomas Putnam. It concerns ownership of a piece of land where Proctor harvests lumber. Proctor says that he bought the land from Francis Nurse, while Putname claims his grandfather willed it to him. But Proctor and Giles Corey say that Putnam’s grandfather had a practice of willing land not belonging to him. We see the theme of greed reflected in this exchange.

A minister may pray to God without he have golden candlesticks upon the altar.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Proctor highlights the greed of Reverend Parris to visiting witchcraft investigator Hale. John tells him that since Salem’s church was built by the community, it had pewter candlesticks on the altar made by Rebecca Nurse. But when Parris came to Salem he insisted on golden candlesticks to replace these. To Proctor the lavish candlesticks are a symbol of Parris’s hypocrisy and materialism.

I labor the earth from dawn of day to blink of night, and I tell you true, when I look to heaven and see my money glaring at his elbows – it hurts my prayer, sir, it hurts my prayer. I think, sometimes, the man dreams cathedrals, not clapboard meetin’ houses.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Asked by Hale why he rarely goes to church on the sabboth, hard-working farmer John Proctor angrily decries the greed of Reverend Parris, who spends the community’s money on items like golden candlesticks.

My proof is there! If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeit up his property – that’s law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Giles Corey interrupts the court proceedings shouting that Thomas Putnam is getting his daughter to accuse neighbors of witchcraft. This is so that the wealthy Putnam can buy their abandoned land, Giles reveals. He hands in a deposition as "proof." This quote shows the greed of landowner and opportunist Putnam who vindictively has people falsely accused in order to gain their property. It also speaks to his desire for power.

The proof is there! I have it from an honest man who heard Putnam say it! The day his daughter cried out on Jacobs, he said she’d given him a fair gift of land.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Giles Corey tells the court that Thomas Putnam is exploiting the witch trials in order to acquire vacant land of the accused at a good price. Putnam was overheard by an "honest man" saying that his daughter Ruth accused George Jacob of witchery in order to give her father a "fair gift" of land. In his hunger for more land and power, it seems there is little Thomas Putnam won’t stoop to, including having people falsely accused and hanged for witchcraft.
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