Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

The Crucible Character Study and Poetry Each envelope contains an information sheet about a different character from Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. In order to prepare for our reading of the play, you will be creating a poem to demonstrate your understanding of each character. You will use a different form of poetry for each character and turn in your completed poems at the end of the hour. Type of Poem Description Instructions

Shape Poem A shape poem is written in the shape of something it is

describing. You can use nouns, adjectives, verbs any way

you want, but it must be arranged in a shape.

Choose a character and choose a shape to represent that

character. Trace the shape onto your paper and then fill it

with words that describe your character.

SAMPLE: Bird #3

Poe's

raven told

him nothing nevermore

and Vincent's circling

crows were a threat to destroy

sunlight. Now I saw a bird, black with a yellow

beak, orange rubber legs

pecking to kill the

lawn, storm bird

hates with claw,

evil beak,

s

u

n

and eye from http://www.shadowpoetry.com/bestbook/chapter4.html

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Type of Poem Description Instructions

Diamante Poem

*USE TWO

CHARACTERS

A diamante poem follows a very specific format—there are

seven lines and each line must have a specific number and

type of words. When you finish, the poem will be in the

shape of a diamond.

*USE TWO CHARACTERS

*USE TWO CHARACTERS

Line 1= First character (noun)

Line 2 = Two describing words (adjectives)

Line 3 = Three action words (-ing verbs)

Line 4 = Four words: Two words about the first character

and two words about the second character

Line 5 = Three action words for the ending noun (-ing

verbs)

Line 6 = Two words to describe ending noun (adjectives)

Line 7 = Second character (opposite of Line 1)

*USE TWO CHARACTERS

SAMPLE:

Here is an example of a diamante poem about a meteor shower:

Fireball Noun

Brilliant, beautiful 2 Adjectives

Flashing, shining, dashing 3 Verbs

Bright, wondrous, black, nothing 4 words

Staring, hoping, missing 3 Verbs

Deep, quiet 2 Adjectives

Darkness. Noun

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Type of Poem Description Instructions

Question Poem

A question poem consists of a list of questions that may or

may not have answers. It is usually a poem about

wondering. You can write a question poem about a character

or you can write a question from the character’s point of

view.

Choose a character and create a list of questions either

about that character or questions that character would ask.

The perspective you take in this poem is up to you, however

you must remain true to the character and the text.

SAMPLE:

Is there a way out?

By Jenni Glennen

Is there a way out?

Is there a way out of this place?

Is there a way out of this pain?

Is there a way to a better life?

Is there a way to be happy?

How can I achieve it?

From http://www.writeworks.net/Student%Writing_Folder/

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Type of Poem Description Instructions

Acrostic Poem An acrostic poem is a poem or series of lines, where the

letters spell another word.

Choose either a character or a word that is relevant to the

character. Using the word or name you have chosen, create

an acrostic poem by using the letters to form the first word

of each line.

SAMPLE:

Hockey

Hockey is my favorite sport

On the ice or street

Cool and fun

Keep on playing

Exercise and stronger

You should try

from http://www.edu.pe.ca/stjean/playing%20with%20poetry/Hockey/acrostic.htm

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Type of Poem Description Instructions

Found Poem A found poem uses language

from non-poetic texts and

turns it into poetry—think of

a colalge with words. Writing

this type of poetry is like a

treasure hunt—you search

for interesting scraps of

language and then put them

together in different ways to

see what comes out.

As you read one of the character’s information sheets, make a list of the details, words, and phrases that you find particularly moving, powerful, or interesting. Use any or all of these words to create a poem by arranging them as you please. You should read the poem aloud to yourself as you go, making sure it sounds good. Your poem should have at least 8 lines.

You can space words out or have them allruntogether

You can put key words on lines by themselves.

You can emphasize words by making them bold, CAPITALIZING, underlining, eTc. SAMPLE:

Wake Up! Majesty! Majesty! We goin’ to Barbados! A pair of bluebirds wingin’ southerly… The two of us. Tears have faded in the eyes of the accuser There is no justice left. You are pulling Heaven down And raising up a witch!

from http://www.teenink.com/poetry/song_lyrics/article/325858/Witch-Hunt--Found-Poem-from-the-Crucible/

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Type of Poem Description Instructions

Haiku Poem Haiku is a Japanese poetry form that uses just a few words to capture a moment and create a picture in the reader’s mind. In English, haiku is written in three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five syllables in the third line.

Using a character from The Crucible, create three haiku poems about that person by writing 3 lines with 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables in each line. Write three haikus for your character

SAMPLE: Haikus are easy But sometimes they don’t make sense Refirgerator.

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

John Proctor

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

John Proctor (from www.shmoop.com)

John Proctor, The Crucible's protagonist, has some major issues. We can see

why. Back in the day, he had everything your average Puritan man could want: a goodly

farm to ceaselessly toil upon, three goodly sons to discipline, and a goodly wife with

whom to make a home. Proctor was a stand-up guy who spoke his mind. Around town,

his name was synonymous with honor and integrity. He took pleasure in exposing

hypocrisy and was respected for it. Most importantly, John Proctor respected himself.

Enter: Abigail, the play's antagonist. This saucy, young housekeeper traipsed in,

and, before John knew it, his goodly life was irrevocably corrupted. John made the

mistake of committing adultery with her. To make things worse, it was also lechery, as

Proctor was in his forties and Abigail was just seventeen. All it took was one shameful

encounter to destroy John's most prized possession: his self-respect.

When we first meet John Proctor halfway through Act One, we discover a man

who has become the thing he hates most in the world: a hypocrite. He is caged by guilt.

The emotional weight of the play rests on Proctor's quest to regain his lost self-image,

his lost goodness. Indeed, it is his journey from guilt to redemption, which forms the

central spine of The Crucible. John Proctor is a classic Arthur Miller hero – a man who

struggles with the incompatibility of his actions with his self-image.

John Proctor (from www.shmoop.com)

John Proctor, The Crucible's protagonist, has some major issues. We can see

why. Back in the day, he had everything your average Puritan man could want: a goodly

farm to ceaselessly toil upon, three goodly sons to discipline, and a goodly wife with

whom to make a home. Proctor was a stand-up guy who spoke his mind. Around town,

his name was synonymous with honor and integrity. He took pleasure in exposing

hypocrisy and was respected for it. Most importantly, John Proctor respected himself.

Enter: Abigail, the play's antagonist. This saucy, young housekeeper traipsed in,

and, before John knew it, his goodly life was irrevocably corrupted. John made the

mistake of committing adultery with her. To make things worse, it was also lechery, as

Proctor was in his forties and Abigail was just seventeen. All it took was one shameful

encounter to destroy John's most prized possession: his self-respect.

When we first meet John Proctor halfway through Act One, we discover a man

who has become the thing he hates most in the world: a hypocrite. He is caged by guilt.

The emotional weight of the play rests on Proctor's quest to regain his lost self-image,

his lost goodness. Indeed, it is his journey from guilt to redemption, which forms the

central spine of The Crucible. John Proctor is a classic Arthur Miller hero – a man who

struggles with the incompatibility of his actions with his self-image.

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Tituba

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Tituba (from www.shmoop.com)

The Reverend Parris’s slave, Tituba, is a woman from Barbados who practices

what the Puritans view as “black magic.” She only does this because the conniving

Abigail manipulates her into doing it. Though Tituba admits her supposed sin, she is not

given a reprieve like the others who confess. Instead, she is condemned to death.

Although there is nothing in the play that directly comments on it, racism undoubtedly

plays a large part in her fate.

The fact that she was convicted at all for her practices is actually inherently

prejudice. Before being brought to Massachusetts, Tituba never saw her singing,

dancing, and spell casting as evil. Such practices were spiritual and descended from

her African roots. This is shown in Act Four, when we see poor Tituba say to her jailer:

Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados, him be singin and dancing […]

It's you folks – you riles him up 'round here […] He freeze his soul in

Massachusetts, but in Barbados he just as sweet. (IV.15)

It's ironic that the Puritans, who came to America to escape religious persecution,

would practice such deliberate, cruel, and ignorant persecution themselves.

Tituba (from www.shmoop.com)

The Reverend Parris’s slave, Tituba, is a woman from Barbados who practices

what the Puritans view as “black magic.” She only does this because the conniving

Abigail manipulates her into doing it. Though Tituba admits her supposed sin, she is not

given a reprieve like the others who confess. Instead, she is condemned to death.

Although there is nothing in the play that directly comments on it, racism undoubtedly

plays a large part in her fate.

The fact that she was convicted at all for her practices is actually inherently

prejudice. Before being brought to Massachusetts, Tituba never saw her singing,

dancing, and spell casting as evil. Such practices were spiritual and descended from

her African roots. This is shown in Act Four, when we see poor Tituba say to her jailer:

Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados, him be singin and dancing […]

It's you folks – you riles him up 'round here […] He freeze his soul in

Massachusetts, but in Barbados he just as sweet. (IV.15)

It's ironic that the Puritans, who came to America to escape religious persecution,

would practice such deliberate, cruel, and ignorant persecution themselves.

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Abigail

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Abigail Williams (from www.sparknotes.com and www.shmoop.com)

Of the major characters, Abigail is the least complex. She is clearly the villain of

the play, more so than Parris or Danforth: she tells lies, manipulates her friends and the

entire town, and eventually sends nineteen innocent people to their deaths. Throughout

the hysteria, Abigail’s motivations never seem more complex than simple jealousy and a

desire to have revenge on Elizabeth Proctor. It is worth pointing out a few background

details that, though they don’t mitigate Abigail’s guilt, make her actions more

understandable.

Abigail is an orphan and an unmarried girl; she thus occupies a low rung on the

Puritan Salem social ladder (the only people below her are the slaves, like Tituba, and

social outcasts). For young girls in Salem, the minister and the other male adults are

God’s earthly representatives, their authority derived from on high. The trials, then, in

which the girls are allowed to act as though they have a direct connection to God,

empower the previously powerless Abigail. Once shunned and scorned by the

respectable townsfolk who had heard rumors of her affair with John Proctor, Abigail now

finds that she has clout, and she takes full advantage of it. A mere accusation from one

of Abigail’s troop is enough to incarcerate and convict even the most well-respected

inhabitant of Salem. Whereas others once reproached her for her adultery, she now has

the opportunity to accuse them of the worst sin of all: devil-worship.

In Act One her skills at manipulation are on full display. When she's on the brink

of getting busted for dabbling in witchcraft, she skillfully manages to pin the whole thing

on Tituba and several of Salem's other second-class citizens. The horrible thing is that

Abigail is the one who persuaded Tituba to go out and cast the spells. Ever since

Abigail's brief affair with John Proctor, she's been out to get his wife, Elizabeth. Our

crafty villain convinced Tituba to put a curse on Elizabeth, hoping to get rid of her and

take her place at John's side.

It's ironic that the Abigail, who encouraged the witchcraft in the first place, is the

one who goes around accusing everybody else. As ringleader, she excites the other

girls into a frenzy of emotion, which allows them to condemn as witches the people they

know and love. She riles up the entire village’s hatred of witches, just like her 20th-

century counterpart, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, riled up Americans’ hatred of communists.

Abigail's main skill seems to be finding people's flaws, their weaknesses, their

prejudices and mercilessly manipulating them to her advantage.

Abigail's ruthless cunning is shown again in Act Two when she frames Elizabeth

Proctor for witchcraft. Later on in Act Three she seems to lose her last shred of

humanity by damning John Proctor, whom she claims to love. When John attempts to

expose Abigail, she skillfully manages to turn the whole thing around on him, packing

him off to the slammer. Abigail rides her power trip out to the end, eventually beating

town with all of her uncle's money

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Reverend John

Hale

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Reverend John Hale (from www.shmoop.com)

With notable exception of John Proctor, Hale gets our vote for most complex

character in The Crucible. We say so, because Hale goes through a major personal

journey over the course of the play. He starts off with really good intentions. In Act One,

Miller writes of Hale: "His goal is light, goodness, and its preservation." This guy has

trained and trained to be the best witch-hunter ever, and he's psyched to finally get a

chance to show off his stuff. Though he's probably a little full of himself, but ultimately

his goal is to valiantly fight the Devil. What could be wrong with that? Well, a whole lot.

In Act Two, we see that Hale's former confidence is slowly eroding. This is

demonstrated by the fact that he shows up at the Proctors' house of his own accord.

He's there without the court's knowledge, trying to get an idea of who the Proctors are

for himself. This independent action is a big hint that he's probably beginning to doubt

the validity of his own conclusions. When John Proctor gets convicted in Act Three,

through Abigail's transparent machinations, Hale's confidence is shattered. He quits the

court and storms out in anger.

The transition from overconfidence to total disillusionment is already a big

journey, but then Miller takes his character a step further in Act Four. After taking off for

some soul searching, Hale turns up hoping to save some lives. He councils convicted

witches to confess, so that they won't be hanged. Hale is knowingly counseling people

to lie. He's lost all faith in the law, and there's a good chance his faith in God is a bit

shaky as well.

Hale's last effort to wash some of the blood of his hands fails. He's not able to

convince anyone to confess. When John Proctor marches off to his martyr's death, Hale

pleads with Elizabeth to change her husband's mind, screaming, "What profit him to

bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth?" (IV.207) Words

like these show that Hale has become a completely different man than the one we met

at the beginning of the play. The tortured reverend is a great example of the kind of rich,

morally ambiguous character for which Miller is famous.

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Reverend

Parris

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Reverend Parris (from www.shmoop.com)

Parris is a wormy little character. Miller says in his notes that he found nothing

redeemable about the historical Parris. As a result, he evidently felt no need to make his

fictional version any better. First of all Parris is greedy. John Proctor accuses Parris of

this several times in the play. The Reverend gives weak justifications, but never denies

any of the accusations. Some examples of Parris's greed include: quibbling over

firewood, insisting on gratuitous golden candlesticks for the church, demanding (against

time-honored tradition) that he have the deed to the house he lives in.

Parris's repeated demonstrations of exceedingly selfish behavior don't help his

case. In the very first scene, we see him standing over his daughter Betty's sick bed. At

first the audience might feel bad for him. But then they'd quickly realize that Parris is just

worried about his reputation. He's afraid that if people think there's witchcraft in his

household, he'll lose his position as minister of Salem. In Act Three, when he shows his

spineless selfishness once again when he perjures (intentionally lies in court) himself.

He tells the court that he saw no naked dancing in the woods, yet we know that he did,

because he says as much to Abigail.

Parris's lack of redeemable qualities becomes even more apparent in Act Four.

At first it seems like he may have come to his senses, because he's asking Danforth to

postpone the hangings. Abigail has flown the coop, making it pretty darn obvious she

was lying the whole time. It turns out that Parris isn't pleading out of remorse at all,

though, he's only concerned for his own life. He found a dagger in his front door, and is

afraid that if respectable citizens like John Proctor and Rebecca Nurse are hanged, the

town will revolt. Most despicably we see Parris cry – not because of all the people who

he's helped to senselessly murder, but because Abigail stole his money and he's now

broke. Yes, by the end of the play, Reverend Parris is thoroughly exposed as the

sniveling parasite that he is.

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Elizabeth

Proctor

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Elizabeth Proctor (from www.shmoop.com)

Elizabeth's positive qualities are also her negative ones. She is a virtuous woman

who is steadfast and true. These traits also make her a bit of a cold fish. When we first

meet her, she's especially cold and fishy. She's got good reason to be, though, because

her husband has recently had an affair with their housekeeper, Abigail Williams.

Elizabeth's reaction to the affair reveals a bit of a vindictive streak. When she

discovered her husband's sin, she gave Abby the boot and then proceeded to drop a

few hints around town that the girl may just be tainted. (Isn't John a little responsible,

too?)

For the most part, though, Elizabeth is a stand-up woman. Throughout the play,

she seems to be struggling to forgive her husband and let go of her anger. And, of

course, her hatred of Abigail is understandable. Elizabeth's dislike of Abigail seems

justified later on in the play when Abigail tries to murder Elizabeth by framing her for

witchcraft.

Overall, Elizabeth is a blameless victim. The only sin we see her commit is when

she lies in court, saying that John and Abigail's affair never happened. This is

supposedly the only time she's ever lied in her life. Unfortunately, it's really bad timing.

Though she lies in an attempt to protect her husband, it actually ends up damning him.

After she’s spent a few months alone in prison, Elizabeth comes to her own

realization: she was a cold wife, and it was because she didn’t love herself that she was

unable to receive her husband’s love. She comes to believe that it is her coldness that

led to his affair with Abigail. This realization helps Elizabeth forgive her husband, and

relinquishing her anger seems to bring her a measure of personal peace. Elizabeth's

noblest act comes in the end when she helps the tortured John Proctor forgive himself

just before his death.

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

The Crucible Character Study and Poetry

Shape Poem: Choose a character and choose a shape to represent that character. Trace the shape onto

your paper and then fill it with words that describe your character.

CHARACTER:

Diamante Poem: Choose two characters and create a diamante poem comparing and contrasting them.

CHARACTERS:

___________

(first character)

_____________ ______________

(adjective) (adjective)

______________ _____________ _____________

(-ing verb) (-ing verb) (-ing verb)

_______________ _______________ ________________ ________________

(words describing character 1) (words describing character 2)

______________ _____________ _____________

(-ing verb) (-ing verb) (-ing verb)

_____________ ______________

(adjective) (adjective)

______________

(second character)

Question Poem: Choose a character and create a list of questions he/she would ask or you have about

the character.

CHARACTER:

Name: _________________________________ Date: _____________ Hour: ______

Acrostic Poem: Choose a character and using either that character’s name or another relevant word,

create a poem using the first letter to begin each line.

CHARACTER:

Found Poem: Choose a character and using words for the character’s description, write a found poem that

reveals the character.

CHARACTER:

Haiku Poem: Choose a character and using proper hiaku format (3 lines, 5/7/5 syllables) write three haiku

pertaining to your character.

CHARACTER: