The Crucible quotes (theme: reputation) – Flashcards

Reputation is important in theocratic Salem, where public and private moralities are one and the same. Focused on maintaining public reputation, the townsfolk of Salem must fear that the sins of their friends and associates will taint their names. Various characters base their actions on the desire to protect their respective reputations. As the play begins, Parris fears that Abigail's increasingly questionable actions, and the hints of witchcraft surrounding his daughter's coma, will threaten his reputation and force him from the pulpit. Meanwhile, the protagonist, John Proctor, also seeks to keep his good name from being tarnished. Early in the play, he has a chance to put a stop to the girls' accusations, but his desire to preserve his reputation keeps him from testifying against Abigail. At the end of the play, however, Proctor's desire to keep his good name leads him to make the heroic choice not to make a false confession and to go to his death without signing his name to an untrue statement. "I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" he cries to Danforth in Act IV. By refusing to relinquish his name, he redeems himself for his earlier failure and dies with integrity.

"A man will not cast away his good name" "I have given you my soul; leave me my name" "I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint" "I have rung the doom of my good name" "These people have great weight in society"

"I think you must be a wise judge to be what you are" "He damned the court and ripped your warrant" "I'll have no effrontery here" "I cannot pardon these when twelve are already hanged for the same crime"

"I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-nerved people to me" "Speak nothing of unnatural causes" "There is either obedience or the church will burn like Hell is burning" "My enemies will, and they will ruin me with it" "You cannot hang his sort. There is a dagger for me"