Vanity In The Crucible

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In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and in real life people are faced with decisions that reflect either on their reputation or conscience. This begs the question: Do people act out of honesty or vanity? In the Crucible, Rev. Hale states “God damns a liar less than that throws his life away for pride”(Miller Act 4 p 132). Ultimately the convicted are hanged as they chose to die with integrity rather than live with false and damaging reputations. Today, people face the same dilemma though it is expressed in different circumstances. Everyone is told that they should unapologetically be themselves. However, this expectation is thrown out the moment someone's true self delineates from what is societally and individually accepted. At that point, …show more content…
That extent is dependent upon the situation which can be broken down into three parts; first being the characteristic or action in question, second being that person's need for acceptance, and third being the audience. To clarify, people will be genuine until doing so would tarnish their reputation to the point they couldn’t exist in a way they see fit. This is where the events of The Crucible come into play. To the characters hanged, confession would ultimately result in losing necessary acceptance, thus they chose to die. This scale also can be used to evaluate the choices made by participants at pride events worldwide, like the 2013 gay pride parade in Uganda. There, marchers gathered despite a pending bill that would result in “the death penalty for acts of so-called ‘aggravated homosexuality’”(Hillary Hueler Voa News). In this situation, participants’ need to be true to themselves outweighed their need for societal acceptance. On a smaller scale, we are all taught at a young age the value of a white lie. In order to maintain civil relationships, we have to be act with other people’s fragility in mind. This means when a friend asks your opinion on the dinner they prepared, you say it was delicious regardless of the truth. In this situation your friend's feelings are more important than your opinion, so naturally you would act out of
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