Free Essays on The Crucible “Stifled Hero“

Stifled Hero Everyday we are faced with countless tests of mettle or courage whether we realize it or not. From the kindergartener who will not to eat sand, the teenage girl who demands to keep her virginity, or the lawyer who refuses to forge a legal document, their decision (and the consequences) will remain with them forever. Martyrs face the ultimate test of mettle and die for their beliefs, while others gain a sense of accomplishment, pride and self-respect. Those who do not pass the test of mettle, however, may stand to lose a part of themselves in the process. In Arthur Miller’s 1960s play, The Crucible, Mary Warren underwent one of the most significant tests of mettle when her employer, John Proctor, sent her to the court to confess that she was lying about discovering witchcraft in Salem. Her confession would prove that the witch trials are a fraud and would prove Goody Proctor’s innocence. Although her new role in society pleases her, she realizes that innocent people los t their lives because of her act and she wants to reconcile her sins. By confessing to Judge Danforth, Mary Warren risks jeopardizing her reputation to save the lives of those people whom she condemned. She also has to stand up to her friends who will also be affected by her sudden fit of conscience. Her claim will especially affect Abigail whom Mary claims saw her stick a needle into the poppet that she made for Goody Proctor and faked evidence. Mary seems fearless and committed when Danforth threatens her about her lie: â€Å"I will tell you this- either you are lying now or you were lying in the courts, and in either case you have committed perjury and you will go to jail for it† (Miller 94). Still struggling with her test of courage, Mary replies, â€Å"I cannot lie no more† (Miller 94). But Mary Warren does not endure her â€Å"crucible† once Abigail accuses her of witchcraft, she becomes fully aware of the fact that she could go to jail or die and h... Free Essays on The Crucible â€Å"Stifled Heroâ€Å" Free Essays on The Crucible â€Å"Stifled Heroâ€Å" Stifled Hero Everyday we are faced with countless tests of mettle or courage whether we realize it or not. From the kindergartener who will not to eat sand, the teenage girl who demands to keep her virginity, or the lawyer who refuses to forge a legal document, their decision (and the consequences) will remain with them forever. Martyrs face the ultimate test of mettle and die for their beliefs, while others gain a sense of accomplishment, pride and self-respect. Those who do not pass the test of mettle, however, may stand to lose a part of themselves in the process. In Arthur Miller’s 1960s play, The Crucible, Mary Warren underwent one of the most significant tests of mettle when her employer, John Proctor, sent her to the court to confess that she was lying about discovering witchcraft in Salem. Her confession would prove that the witch trials are a fraud and would prove Goody Proctor’s innocence. Although her new role in society pleases her, she realizes that innocent people los t their lives because of her act and she wants to reconcile her sins. By confessing to Judge Danforth, Mary Warren risks jeopardizing her reputation to save the lives of those people whom she condemned. She also has to stand up to her friends who will also be affected by her sudden fit of conscience. Her claim will especially affect Abigail whom Mary claims saw her stick a needle into the poppet that she made for Goody Proctor and faked evidence. Mary seems fearless and committed when Danforth threatens her about her lie: â€Å"I will tell you this- either you are lying now or you were lying in the courts, and in either case you have committed perjury and you will go to jail for it† (Miller 94). Still struggling with her test of courage, Mary replies, â€Å"I cannot lie no more† (Miller 94). But Mary Warren does not endure her â€Å"crucible† once Abigail accuses her of witchcraft, she becomes fully aware of the fact that she could go to jail or die and h...

Apposition Definitions and Examples

Apposition Definitions and Examples Apposition is the placement side-by-side of two coordinate elements (usually noun phrases), the second of which serves to identify or rename the first. Adjective: appositional. In his study of Apposition in Contemporary English (1992), Charles F. Meyer observes that the relation of apposition is realized by a variety of syntactic forms, noun phrases predominantly but other syntactic forms as well. Although these forms can have a full range of syntactic functions, they most commonly have two: subject and object (p. 10).   Etymology: From the Latin, to put nearExamples and Observations: Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.(P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves, 1934)The sidewalk just outside the Casino was strewn with discarded tickets, the chaff of wasted hope.(Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn. Doubleday, 1999)Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,grew lean while he assailed the seasons.(E.A. Robinson, Miniver Cheevy)The undistinguished example that fronts the Duke of Wellington pub is serviced by the pigeon man, an elderly stooped figure entirely in brown: from his flat cap, through his greasy raincoat, to his worn shoes, he is the color of Daddies Own sauce scraped from a formica table.(Iain Sinclair, Lights Out for the Territory. Granta Books, 1997)This was not Aunt Dahlia, my good and kindly aunt, but my Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.(P.G. Wodehouse)This is a valley of ashesa fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of ho uses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.(F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925) It was a bleak period of present privation and threatening disasterthe period of soya beans and Basic Englishand in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendors of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language, which now with a full stomach I find distasteful.(Evelyn Waugh in 1959 on his wartime novel Brideshead Revisited)The sentencethe dread sentence of deathwas the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.(Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum, 1842)Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.(Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita) Syntactic Characteristics of Apposition Syntactically, apposition is most commonly a relation between two juxtaposed noun phrases having a syntactic function (such as direct object) promoting end-weight.Although units in apposition can have a variety of different syntactic forms, the majority of appositions in the corpora (66 percent) consisted of units that were noun phrases. (1) Desegregation is beginning in two more important Southern citiesDallas and Atlanta. (Brown B09 850-860) Because appositions are syntactically heavy constructions, most (65 percent) had functions that promote end-weight, most commonly direct object (example 2) or object of preposition (example 3). (2) A plug and a tube with holes in its cylindrical walls divided the chamber above the porous plug into two parts. This arrangement had the purpose to prevent heated gas to reach the thermocouple by natural convection. (Brown J02 900-30)(3) The heart is suspended in a special portion of the coelom, the pericardium, whose walls are supported by cartilage. (SEU W.9.7.91-1) . . . [M]ost appositions (89 percent) were juxtaposed. . . . Even though more than two units can be in apposition, most appositions (92 percent) were single appositions consisting of only two units.(Charles F. Meyer, Apposition in Contemporary English. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992) An Interrupter Although the appositive does not disturb the natural flow of the sentence as violently as parenthetical expressions do (mainly because the appositive is grammatically coordinate with the unit that it follows), it does interrupt the flow of the sentence, interrupts the flow to supply some gratuitous information or explanation.(Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, Oxford Univ. Press, 1999) Appositive Exercises: Practice in Identifying AppositivesSentence Building with Appositives