The Crucible Metaphors and Similes Quotes

If Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing’s left to stop the whole green world from burning.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Reverend Hale uses hyperbole and a metaphor of the world burning to express disbelief that a woman of Rebecca Nurse’s integrity could be capable of murder. After her arrest, Hale assures her husband Francis that the court will send his wife back home. He tells him to trust the justice of the court. This appears to be the moment Hale realizes that innocent people are being accused and hauled before the witch trials court. However, his confidence that the court will recognize Rebecca’s innocence turns out to be misplaced.

The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris’s house tonight, and without word nor warnin’ she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Abigail launches her diabolical plan to get vengeance on Elizabeth for putting her out on the street. Ezekiel Cheever gives a graphic account of how Abby is stabbed in the belly with a needle while at dinner in Parris’s house. Abby blames Elizabeth Proctor’s spirit for pushing the needle in. Cheever uses a vivid animal simile to describe the horror of the attack, comparing Abby to a struck beast. Of course Abigail is lying, having stabbed herself so she could accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft. Earlier that day in court Abby saw Mary Warren make a poppet doll and stick a needle in it, and the poppet is now in Elizabeth’s house. Abigail seizes the opportunity provided by the poppet to frame Elizabeth.

Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor in this speech is the voice of common sense who rails at the injustice of the Puritan church and court system. He speaks out against the perversion of justice and climate of hysteria that exists. He criticizes the unquestioning acceptance of whatever Reverend Parris, Abigail and her band of child accusers say. In a metaphor “jangling the keys of the kingdom” he describes how power is now in the hands of “little crazy children” led by Abby. With Elizabeth arrested, Proctor personifies vengeance to claim that it is walking Salem and writing the law – his wife is being targeted by Abby out of a motive of revenge. The passage also features an example of a simile: “as clean as God’s fingers.”

PROCTOR: Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away – make your peace! Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now. Aye, naked! And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!
MARY WARREN: I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor grabs Mary Warren by the throat "as though he would strangle her" and demands that she tell the court about Abigail’s lies. Yelling at her in frustration after Elizabeth is taken to jail, he pleads with Mary to be on the right side of the battle between good and evil. Hell and Heaven are personified, when John compares the struggle between them to a wrestling match. He speaks of Mary and himself are metaphorically naked to the elements with their sins exposed, as they face the "icy wind" of God’s judgment and punishment. He wants Mary to explain to the court that it was she and not Elizabeth who put the needle in the poppet and placed it in the Proctors’ house. But the act ends with Mary sobbing and repeating the words over and over, "I cannot." This is an example of how terrified the girls, and especially Mary, are of Abigail.

We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Danforth warning to John Proctor relates to the title of the play. A crucible is a container in which metals may be melted. Danforth is using it here as a metaphor for burning away any lies and deceit in order to reveal the truth. This line is dramatic irony, because the audience knows that the court, far from getting to the truth, condemns the innocent. We also have an example of foreshadowing here, because Danforth actually does burn away Proctor’s concealment of his affair with Abigail.

But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time – we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it. I hope you be one of those.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Danforth, in this courtroom speech to Francis Nurse, comes across as rigid, authoritarian, intolerant and a symbol of the absolute nature of Salem’s justice. He uses the metaphor of "no road between" to emphasize that you are either for the court or counted against it. Driven by an extreme ideology, he views the court and himself as being on the right side of the war between good and evil. They are essentially doing God’s work. In an extended metaphor he compares himself to the shining sun come to light up the dusky afternoon when evil was indistinguishable from good and confused the world. Danforth is self-deluded into believing that he is doing God’s will condemning and hanging innocent people. The irony is that the court is not being guided by God’s grace in a fight against evil. It is the corrupt court judges in collaboration with the lying Abigail and her troop of girls that are the true evil in Salem. Intoxicated by his own power, Danforth fails to see any of this.

Remember the angel, what he say to the boy. Hold to it, now; there is your rock.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. John Proctor uses the metaphor of a rock to advise Mary Warren to be strong. He asks her to remember that archangel Raphael advised Tobit and his son Tobias to "Do that which is good, and no harm will come to thee." He is alluding to the story from the Book of Tobit, one of the books of the Apocrypha. It tells of how Tobias fell in love with Sarah, a woman plagued by a demon that killed each of her seven previous husbands. With the help of Raphael the demon is exorcised and Tobias and Sarah marry.

DANFORTH: Mr. Hale, you surely do not doubt my justice.
HALE: I have this morning signed away the soul of Rebecca Nurse, Your Honor. I’ll not conceal it, my hand shakes yet as with a wound! I pray you, sir, this argument let lawyers present to you.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. As Danforth’s merciless brand of justice for the witchcraft accused relentlessly moves forward, doubts about its fairness begin to creep in for Reverend Hale. He is particularly concerned about the charges against one of Salem’s upstanding elderly citizens Rebecca Nurse. He appeals to Danforth to allow defense evidence to be heard on her behalf. Using a dramatic simile, he speaks of how his hand shook as if it was wounded when he signed her death warrant.

I have made a bell of my honor! I have rung the doom of my good name…My wife is innocent, except she knew a whore when she saw one!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. In saying this to the court, Proctor confesses his illicit sexual affair with Abigail. He uses the ominous metaphor of a bell ringing his doom to describe how he is sacrificing pride and reputation to expose witchcraft accuser Abby as a whore. He is fighting to save the life of his innocent wife Elizabeth. When Proctor speaks of doom, he is foreshadowing his own eventual tragic fate.

He wake me every night, his eyes were like coals and his fingers claw my neck, and I sign, I sign.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Mary Warren goes from being servant to the Proctors to their mortal enemy as she provides false testimony that John Proctor is working for the Devil. She throws her employer under the bus, telling the court that he forced her to sign the Devil’s book. She uses demonic imagery and simile – "eyes were like coals," "fingers claw my neck" – to describe how Proctor woke her up every night until he got her to sign.

A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud – God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Proctor’s rageful final speech to Danforth as he is being arrested at the end of Act 3 uses powerful fire and Devil metaphors for the injustices happening in Salem. Wickedness, ignorance and the inaction of people who stand idly are burning down truth and justice in Salem, leaving a community in ruins. In speaking about Salem’s "filthy face," he is referring to those people who value pride and reputation above integrity and fail to do the right thing. The imagery symbolizes also the hellfire reserved for those who have sinned, including Danforth and Proctor himself. Proctor is telling Danforth that Lucifer is indeed at work in Salem. However, it is not the people accused of witchcraft who are carrying out the Devil’s work, but the corrupt court itself. Using a metaphor, Proctor damns Danforth and the judges for their "black hearts" in killing innocent people while knowing the accusations against them are lies. Proctor admits that he also is bound for hell for his wrongdoing, including failure to expose sooner the manipulations of his former mistress Abby. This passage is one of Miller’s most ferocious denunciations of the Salem authorities who jailed and executed innocent people, and the townspeople who stood by and did nothing to stop this.

SARAH GOOD (rising in her rags): Oh, Majesty! Comin’, comin’! Tituba, he’s here, His Majesty’s come!…Oh, is it you, Marshal! I thought sure you be the Devil comin’ for us. Could I have a sip of cider for me goin’- away?
HERRICK (handing her the flask): And where are you off to, Sarah?
TITUBA (as Sarah drinks): We goin’ to Barbados, soon the Devil gits here with the feathers and the wings.
HERRICK: Oh? A happy voyage to you.
SARAH GOOD: A pair of bluebirds wingin’ southerly, the two of us! Oh, it be a grand transformation, Marshal! (She raises her flask to drink again.)

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. When Marshal Herrick arrives to the prison to move some prisoners, a delusional Sarah Good and Tituba mistake him for the Devil. They believe that Satan is coming to fly them to freedom and Tituba’s homeland of Barbados. Sarah uses an animal metaphor to compare the two of them to bluebirds. The good-natured Herrick, somewhat inebriated, gives Sarah a sip of cider from his flask. Miller includes this humorous episode at the beginning of the final act to provide comic relief in what is an intense and deadly serious play. But it shows too how there is no justice for disadvantaged people like the slave Tituba and the beggar Sarah Good, who provide easy targets to frame for witchcraft. Among the first women to be arrested, they have spent the longest time in jail and have now gone crazy and believe they are witches.

The rumor here speaks rebellion in Andover…Andover have thrown out the court, they say, and will have no part of witchcraft. There be a faction here, feeding on that news, and I tell you true, sir, I fear there will be riot here.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. With the witch trials destroying so many lives, Salem has descended into chaos and conflict. Parris expresses his worries to Danforth of riots and rebellion breaking out. Using personification, he says that rumor "speaks" of resistance in Andover and the people throwing out the court. In a food metaphor, he describes how a group of dissenters in Salem is "feeding" on those reports.

I will not receive a single plea for pardon or postponement. Them that will not confess will hang. Twelve are already executed; the names of these seven are given out, and the village expects to see them die this morning. Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part; reprieve or pardon must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now. While I speak God’s law, I will not crack its voice with whimpering. If retaliation is your fear, know this – I should hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law, and an ocean of salt tears could not melt the resolution of all the statues. Now draw yourselves up like men and help me, as you are bound by Heaven to do.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. The unbending presiding Judge Danforth rules out any possibility of pardon or postponement in the witch trials cases. His tone is full of the power and control he exercises over the Salem court. His merciless justice is expressed in the metaphor: "an ocean of salt tears could not melt the resolution of all the statues." Danforth claims to speak for God, has ultimate power of life and death over people and is not shy to use it. After hanging twelve people already, he promises another seven hangings that day, and even boasts of hanging ten thousand if necessary. Pride and ego speak loudly in this speech, as he says postponement would show "floundering" or weakness on his part. He shows unwavering faith in his own infallibility and that of the court. He views himself as the instrument of divine justice, chosen by God to drive the Devil out of Salem and cleanse it of the evils of witchcraft. Postponement is personified in the passage as having the ability to speak.

I come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves. There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head!!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. When Danforth asks Hale why he has returned to the court, he makes this sarcastic reply to the supervising judge. Using verbal irony, the clergyman says that he is doing the Devil’s work asking people to lie and confess to witchcraft to save their lives. The blood on Hale’s head is a metaphor for his feelings of guilt over the court condemning and hanging innocent people with his help. Now more outspoken and less respectful to the court, Hale is not the same enthusiastic witch-hunter who arrived to Salem with complete confidence in the justice system.
He is now more concerned with preserving life than with collaborating with the court to kill "witches." We see the strength of Hale’s moral integrity here.

I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up. Beware, Goody Proctor – cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Using extended simile and metaphor, Hale likens his arrival in Salem to that of a proud groom bringing gifts to his beloved. But his good intentions and metaphorical "crowns of holy law" faith he proudly brought resulted in the loss of innocent lives. Hale is a much changed, humbler and guilt-ridden witch-hunter who now seeks redemption for his wrongdoing. He tells Elizabeth not to make the same mistake that he did. He warns against blind adherence to religious laws that demand the sacrifice of a person’s life. Hale wants Elizabeth to save her husband’s life by persuading him to confess to witchcraft.

Woman, before the laws of God we are as swine! We cannot read His will!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Reverend John Hale wants Elizabeth Proctor to persuade husband John to make a false confession to witchcraft, to save him from hanging. Hale is a very changed clergyman who has lost confidence in the Salem court and believes Proctor to be innocent. In trying to explain to Elizabeth why one can lie to save life, he uses an animal simile. People are like swine before God’s laws, he says, and we cannot read God’s will.

Be there no wifely tenderness within you? He will die with the sunrise. Your husband. Do you understand it? What say you? Will you contend with him? Are you stone? I tell you true, woman, had I no other proof of your unnatural life, your dry eyes now would be sufficient evidence that you delivered up your soul to Hell! A very ape would weep at such calamity! Have the Devil dried up any tear of pity in you? (She is silent.) Take her out. It profit nothing she should speak to him!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Danforth is angry at what he claims to be Elizabeth Proctor’s unconcerned reaction to her husband being hanged at sunrise. He and other members of the court want her to talk with her husband and get him to confess to save his life. In a metaphor Danforth compares Elizabeth’s hardness to "stone." He uses animal imagery to say that even an ape would be weeping in such calamitous circumstances. Danforth is desperate to extract a confession from Proctor in order to justify the witch trials and the hangings that have taken place so far. At this stage the trials have come under pressure, with rumors of rebellion and the main accuser Abigail having fled Salem. Danforth’s speech also shows how little understanding he has of people like the Proctors.

I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man. My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. At the end of the play John Proctor is faced with a moral dilemma. He can lie and falsely confess to witchcraft to save his life. Or he can choose to die a martyr, "like a saint," as he tells Elizabeth in a simile. Since he is already an adulterer with a "rotten" soul, he feels that he can’t damage it any further with this lie. The greater fraud, he believes, would be to die on the scaffold alongside sinless people like the saintly Rebecca Nurse. He doesn’t feel worthy of joining the ranks of such martyrs. John shows his honesty and integrity here.

Whatever you will do, it is a good man does it. I have read my own heart this three month, John. I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery…I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me! Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say my love. It were a cold house I kept!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. As John Proctor agonizes over whether to make falsely confess to witchcraft to save his life, Elizabeth makes her own confession. Describing him as a good man, she admits to being partly to blame for his affair with Abigail by being a cold wife who didn’t know how to love. She uses personification when she describes how "suspicion kissed" her husband when she did. By accepting her owns faults and his goodness, she is finally forgiving John for his infidelity. Elizabeth also uses a metaphor when she decribes how she "read my own heart" like you read a book.

God in Heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor? I think it is honest, I think so; I am no saint. Let Rebecca go like a saint; for me it is fraud!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Proctor, wrestling with his conscience and guilt, is persuaded to make a false confession to witchcraft to avoid the gallows. With some irony he describes agreeing this lie as being "honest." But he believes it would be an even greater lie for a lecher and sinner like him to go to the gallows with sinless people like Rebecca Nurse. In a simile, he compares her to a saint.

They think to go like saints. I like not to spoil their names.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Proctor refuses Danforth’s demand that he name other people he saw with the Devil, including Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty and Martha Corey. While Proctor is willing to lie that he took part in witchcraft to save his own life, he is not prepared to blacken his innocent friends’ good names and lie about them. Using a simile, he says they believe that they are going to their death "like saints." The demand to name names was a feature of the McCarthy political witch hunt of the 1950s. At the time Miller wrote the play America was in the middle of the McCarthyism Red Scare.

You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of salvation that you should use me!…I have three children – how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends?…I blacken all of them when this is nailed to the church the very day they hang for silence!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. John Proctor refuses to have his false confession to witchcraft publicly nailed to the church door for all the town to see. He stands up to the corrupt court, vowing that the judges will not use him like they did Sarah Good and Tituba. They confessed and named others as witches in order to escape hanging. While John is initially convinced by Judge Danforth to sign a confession, when Danforth reaches for it John snatches it back, speaking these words of defiance. He doesn’t want to dishonor his friends who never gave false confessions. The simile – "how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends" – shows feelings of responsibility and concern towards his children and friends. Themes of pride, reputation and integrity are on display here.

PARRIS: Proctor, Proctor!
HALE: Man, you will hang! You cannot!
PROCTOR: I can. And there’s your first marvel, that I can. You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. John Proctor goes to the gallows refusing to falsely confess to witchcraft. In doing so he preserves his integrity and finds his "shred of goodness." He chooses not to live a lie. Instead he decides to die with honor with the other good people who will not make a false confession to save their lives. Having initially signed the confession, he tears it up before a horrified Hale and Parris. They cannot believe his refusal to permit it to be publicly posted on the church door as "proof." John’s last speech before being hanged shows that, having been racked with guilt over his lechery, he has at last forgiven himself for his sins. The animal metaphor "dogs" are the figures of authority in the court trying to get John to confess to the bogus charge of witchcraft. Proctor also uses a weaving metaphor in his final dramatic speech.

Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. John Proctor’s final words before he is hanged for the false crime of witchcraft are appropriately to his wife. In his impassioned plea to Elizabeth, his dying goal is the preservation of his integrity. Asking her not to cry because he is doing the honorable thing, he asks her to metaphorically make her heart a stone. John has confessed his infidelity and feels he can die without shame.
    • 1
    • 2
Close