TCA 3 Prep

The following is from the article, “Why I Wrote The Crucible” in which Arthur Miller explains his reasons behind writing the famous drama. In the paragraphs below, Miller discusses the political climate of the United States in the years before he decided to write the play. The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims. It suddenly became possible - and patriotic and holy - for a man to say that Martha Corey had come into his bedroom at night, and that, while his wife was sleeping at his side, Martha laid herself down on his chest and “nearly suffocated him.” Of course it was her spirit only, but his satisfaction at confessing himself was no lighter than if it had been Martha herself. One could not ordinarily speak such things in public. Long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly expressed, and vengeance taken, despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions. Land-lust, which had been expressed by constant bickering over boundaries and deeds, could now be elevated to the arena of morality; one could cry witch against one’s neighbor and feel perfectly justified in the bargain. Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord; suspicions and the envy of the miserable toward the happy could and did burst out in the general revenge. Arthur Miller, the author of the play, claims that the witch-hunt was a way for people to publicly express guilt. Which piece of evidence best supports this claim?

From The Crucible ABIGAIL: Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! She goes to Betty and roughly sits her up. Now, you-sit up and stop this! But Betty collapses in her hands and lies inert on the bed. MARY WARREN, with hysterical fright: What’s got her? Abigail stares in fright at Betty. Abby, she’s going to die! It’s a sin to conjure, and we- ABIGAIL, starting for Mary: I say shut it, Mary Warren! Enter John Proctor. On seeing him, Mary Warren leaps in fright. MARY WARREN: Oh! I’m just going home, Mr. Proctor. PROCTOR : Be you foolish, Mary Warren? Be you deaf? I forbid you leave the house, did I not? Why shall I pay you? I am looking for you more often than my cows! MARY WARREN: I only come to see the great doings in the world. PROCTOR: I’ll show you a great doin’ on your arse one of these days. Now get you home; my wife waitin’ with your work! Trying to retain a shred of dignity, she goes slowly out. MERCY LEWIS, both afraid of him and strangely titillated: I’d best be off. I have my Ruth to watch. Good morning, Mr. Proctor. Mercy sidles out. Since Proctor’s entrance, Abigail has stood as though on tiptoe, absorbing his presence, wide-eyed. He glances at her, then goes to Betty on the bed. ABIGAIL: Gah! I’d almost forgot how strong you are, John Proctor! Which detail below best illustrates the theme that appearances can be deceiving?

From The Crucible ELIZABETH: What keeps you so late? It’s almost dark. PROCTOR: I were planting far out to the forest edge. ELIZABETH: Oh, you’re done then. PROCTOR: Aye, the farm is seeded. The boys asleep? ELIZABETH: They will be soon. And she goes to the fireplace, proceeds to ladle up stew in a dish. Pray now for a fair summer. ELIZABETH: Aye. PROCTOR: Are you well today? ELIZABETH: I am. She brings the plate to the table, and, indicating the food: It is a rabbit. PROCTOR, going to the table: Oh, is it! In Jonathan’s trap? ELIZABETH: No, she walked into the house this afternoon; I found her sittin’ in the corner like she come to visit. PROCTOR: Oh, that’s a good sign walkin’ in. ELIZABETH: Pray God. It hurt my heart to strip her, poor rabbit. She sits and watches him taste it. PROCTOR: It’s well seasoned. ELIZABETH, blushing with pleasure: I took great care. She’s tender? PROCTOR: Aye. He eats. She watches him. I think we’ll see green fields soon. It’s warm as blood beneath the clods. ELIZABETH: That’s well. Proctor eats, then looks up. PROCTOR: If the crop is good I’ll buy George Jacobs’ heifer. How would that please you? ELIZABETH: Aye, it would. PROCTOR, with a grin: I mean to please you, Elizabeth. ELIZABETH—it is hard to say: I know it, John. He gets up, goes to her, kisses her. She receives it. With a certain disappointment, he returns to the table. PROCTOR, as gently as he can: Cider? ELIZABETH, with a sense of reprimanding herself for having forgot : Aye! She gets up and goes and pours a glass for him. He now arches his back. PROCTOR: This farm’s a continent when you go foot by foot droppin’ seeds in it. ELIZABETH, coming with the cider: It must be. PROCTOR, he drinks a long draught, then, putting the glass down: You ought to bring some flowers in the house. ELIZABETH: Oh! I forgot! I will tomorrow. PROCTOR: It’s winter in here yet. On Sunday let you come with me, and we’ll walk the farm together; I never see such a load of flowers on the earth. With good feeling he goes and looks up at the sky through the open doorway. Lilacs have a purple smell. Lilac is the smell of nightfall, I think. Massachusetts is a beauty in the spring! ELIZABETH: Aye, it is. There is a pause. She is watching him from the table as he stands there absorbing the night. It is as though she would speak but cannot. Instead, now, she takes up his plate and glass and fork and goes with them to the basin. Her back is turned to him. He turns to her and watches her. A sense of their separation, rises. PROCTOR: I think you’re sad again. Are you? ELIZABETH—she doesn’t want friction, and yet she must: You come so late I thought you’d gone to Salem this afternoon. PROCTOR: Why? I have no business in Salem. ELIZABETH: You did speak of going, earlier this week. PROCTOR—he knows what she means: I thought better of it since. Which of the following specific details best supports the idea that John and Elizabeth Proctor’s marriage is strained?

The following speech entitled “HeForShe Gender Equality is Your Issue Too?” by Emma Watson was presented in 2014 at the Headquarters of the United Nation in New York. The speaker states, “All I know is that I care about this problem, and I want to make it better. And, having seen what I’ve seen, and given the chance, I feel it is my responsibility to say something. Statesman Edmund Burke said, “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.” In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt, I told myself firmly, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you, I hope those words will be helpful. Because the reality is that if we do nothing, it will take seventy-five years, or for me to be nearly 100, before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates, it won't be until 2086 before all rural African girls can have a secondary education.” Which of the examples below is a rhetorical appeal to logos (logic)?

The following speech entitled “HeForShe Gender Equality is Your Issue Too?” by Emma Watson was presented in 2014 at the Headquarters of the United Nation in New York. The speaker concludes, “If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists that I spoke of earlier, and for this, I applaud you. We are struggling for a uniting word, but the good news is, we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I invite you to step forward, to be seen and to ask yourself, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” The use of rhetorical questions in the following line, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” is intended to evoke feelings of

The following speech entitled “HeForShe Gender Equality is Your Issue Too?” by Emma Watson was presented in 2014 at the Headquarters of the United Nation in New York. I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago. When I was 8, I was confused for being called bossy because I wanted to direct the plays that we would put on for our parents, but the boys were not. When at 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media. When at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they didn’t want to appear muscly. When at 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings. In this speech, Watson aims to illustrate gender inequalities throughout the world. How does the repetition of the phrase “when at…” reinforce this purpose?

The following is from the article, “Why I Wrote The Crucible” in which Arthur Miller explains his reasons behind writing the famous drama. In the paragraphs below, Miller discusses the political climate of the United States in the years before he decided to write the play. McCarthy's power to stir fears of creeping Communism was not entirely based on illusion, of course; the paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact. From being our wartime ally, the Soviet Union rapidly became an expanding empire. In 1949, Mao Zedong took power in China. Western Europe also seemed ready to become Red -- especially Italy, where the Communist Party was the largest outside Russia, and was growing. Capitalism, in the opinion of many, myself included, had nothing more to say, its final poisoned bloom having been Italian and German Fascism. McCarthy -- brash and ill-mannered but to many authentic and true -- boiled it all down to what anyone could understand: we had "lost China" and would soon lose Europe as well, because the State Department -- staffed, of course, under Democratic Presidents -- was full of treasonous pro-Soviet intellectuals. It was as simple as that. If our losing China seemed the equivalent of a flea's losing an elephant, it was still a phrase -- and a conviction -- that one did not dare to question; to do so was to risk drawing suspicion on oneself. Indeed, the State Department proceeded to hound and fire the officers who knew China, its language, and its opaque culture -- a move that suggested the practitioners of sympathetic magic who wring the neck of a doll in order to make a distant enemy's head drop off. There was magic all around; the politics of alien conspiracy soon dominated political discourse and bid fair to wipe out any other issue. How could one deal with such enormities in a play? Which of the following is NOT a valid reason cited by Miller for Americans’ growing fear of communism?

The following is from the article, “Why I Wrote The Crucible” in which Arthur Miller explains his reasons behind writing the famous drama. In the paragraphs below, Miller discusses the political climate of the United States in the years before he decided to write the play McCarthy's power to stir fears of creeping Communism was not entirely based on illusion, of course; the paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact. From being our wartime ally, the Soviet Union rapidly became an expanding empire. In 1949, Mao Zedong took power in China. Western Europe also seemed ready to become Red -- especially Italy, where the Communist Party was the largest outside Russia, and was growing. Capitalism, in the opinion of many, myself included, had nothing more to say, its final poisoned bloom having been Italian and German Fascism. McCarthy -- brash and ill-mannered but to many authentic and true -- boiled it all down to what anyone could understand: we had "lost China" and would soon lose Europe as well, because the State Department -- staffed, of course, under Democratic Presidents -- was full of treasonous pro-Soviet intellectuals. It was as simple as that. If our losing China seemed the equivalent of a flea's losing an elephant, it was still a phrase -- and a conviction -- that one did not dare to question; to do so was to risk drawing suspicion on oneself. Indeed, the State Department proceeded to hound and fire the officers who knew China, its language, and its opaque culture -- a move that suggested the practitioners of sympathetic magic who wring the neck of a doll in order to make a distant enemy's head drop off. There was magic all around; the politics of alien conspiracy soon dominated political discourse and bid fair to wipe out any other issue. How could one deal with such enormities in a play? If someone were to make a claim that Miller was endangering himself by writing the play The Crucible, which of the following pieces of evidence would be relevant in supporting this claim?

The following is from the article, “Why I Wrote The Crucible” in which Arthur Miller explains his reasons behind writing the famous drama. In the paragraphs below, Miller discusses the political climate of the United States in the years before he decided to write the play. McCarthy's power to stir fears of creeping Communism was not entirely based on illusion, of course; the paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact. From being our wartime ally, the Soviet Union rapidly became an expanding empire. In 1949, Mao Zedong took power in China. Western Europe also seemed ready to become Red -- especially Italy, where the Communist Party was the largest outside Russia, and was growing. Capitalism, in the opinion of many, myself included, had nothing more to say, its final poisoned bloom having been Italian and German Fascism. McCarthy -- brash and ill-mannered but to many authentic and true -- boiled it all down to what anyone could understand: we had "lost China" and would soon lose Europe as well, because the State Department -- staffed, of course, under Democratic Presidents -- was full of treasonous pro-Soviet intellectuals. It was as simple as that. If our losing China seemed the equivalent of a flea's losing an elephant, it was still a phrase -- and a conviction -- that one did not dare to question; to do so was to risk drawing suspicion on oneself. Indeed, the State Department proceeded to hound and fire the officers who knew China, its language, and its opaque culture -- a move that suggested the practitioners of sympathetic magic who wring the neck of a doll in order to make a distant enemy's head drop off. There was magic all around; the politics of alien conspiracy soon dominated political discourse and bid fair to wipe out any other issue. How could one deal with such enormities in a play? Miller’s central claim in this excerpt is that McCarthy used fear of world events to manipulate the public into believing his claims. Which of the following subclaims best supports Miller’s main idea?

The following is from the article, “Why I Wrote The Crucible” in which Arthur Miller explains his reasons behind writing the famous drama. In the paragraphs below, Miller discusses the political climate of the United States in the years before he decided to write the play McCarthy's power to stir fears of creeping Communism was not entirely based on illusion, of course; the paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact. From being our wartime ally, the Soviet Union rapidly became an expanding empire. In 1949, Mao Zedong took power in China. Western Europe also seemed ready to become Red -- especially Italy, where the Communist Party was the largest outside Russia, and was growing. Capitalism, in the opinion of many, myself included, had nothing more to say, its final poisoned bloom having been Italian and German Fascism. McCarthy -- brash and ill-mannered but to many authentic and true -- boiled it all down to what anyone could understand: we had "lost China" and would soon lose Europe as well, because the State Department -- staffed, of course, under Democratic Presidents -- was full of treasonous pro-Soviet intellectuals. It was as simple as that. If our losing China seemed the equivalent of a flea's losing an elephant, it was still a phrase -- and a conviction -- that one did not dare to question; to do so was to risk drawing suspicion on oneself. Indeed, the State Department proceeded to hound and fire the officers who knew China, its language, and its opaque culture -- a move that suggested the practitioners of sympathetic magic who wring the neck of a doll in order to make a distant enemy's head drop off. There was magic all around; the politics of alien conspiracy soon dominated political discourse and bid fair to wipe out any other issue. How could one deal with such enormities in a play? The author reasons that the fear that drove the McCarthy Era politics was real. Which of the following is the most valid support for this claim?

The following speech entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth was presented in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio: Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or Negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say. Truth claims that having rights as women, especially a right to vote, is common sense. Which piece of textual evidence best demonstrates an opposing viewpoint of the speaker?

In this passage, Miller examines his reasons for writing The Crucible. The Crucible was an act of desperation. Much of my desperation branched out, I suppose, from a typical Depression-era trauma - the blow struck on the mind by the rise of European Fascism and the brutal anti-Semitism it had brought to power. But by 1950, when I began to think of writing about the hunt for Reds in America, I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many liberals who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitors' violations of civil rights, were fearful, and with good reason, of being identified as covert Communists if they should protest too strongly. In any play, however trivial, there has to be a still point of moral reference against which to gauge the action. In our lives, in the late nineteen-forties and early nineteen-fifties, no such point existed anymore. The left could not look straight at the Soviet Union's abrogations of human rights. The anti-Communist liberals could not acknowledge the violations of those rights by congressional committees. The far right, meanwhile, was licking up all the cream. The days of "J'accuse" were gone, for anyone needs to feel right to declare someone else wrong. Gradually, all the old political and moral reality had melted like a Dali watch. Nobody but a fanatic, it seemed, could really say all that he believed. Miller chose to write a play to mask his social commentary of the political issues of his time. He cites that the play was “an act of desperation.” Which piece of evidence justifies this as a fair claim?

The following speech entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth was presented in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio: Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or Negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say. What is the speaker’s overall purpose when presenting this speech?

From The Crucible: PROCTOR: I come to tell you, Abby, what I will do tomorrow in the court. I would not take you by surprise, but give you all good time to think on what to do to save yourself. ABIGAIL: Save myself! PROCTOR: If you do not free my wife tomorrow, I am set and bound to ruin you, Abby. ABIGAIL, her voice small – astonished: How – ruin me? PROCTOR: I have rocky proof in documents that you knew that poppet were none of my wife’s; and that you yourself bade Mary Warren stab that needle into it. ABIGAIL – A wildness stirs in her, a child is standing here who is unutterably frustrated, denied her wish, but she is still grasping for her wits: I bade Mary Warren – ? PROCTOR: You know what you do, you are not so mad! ABIGAIL: Oh, hypocrites! Have you won him, too? John, why do you let them send you? PROCTOR: I warn you, Abby! ABIGAIL: They send you! They steal your honesty and – PROCTOR: I have found my honesty! The author originally added this scene to the ending of Act II. If the scene were to have been included in the text, what significant information would it have provided to the audience?

The following speech entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth was presented in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio: Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or Negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say. In the above passage, what does the author focus on to achieve her purpose?