We are reading the book "The Crucible" and I need help with something?

Question

We've been asked to get opinions from different people on certain questions about characters in this book. If some of you could give some opinions that would be great. The opinions are on the Character "Elizabeth Proctor"

She is a religous women. In court she makes an important descision to save her husband's name and tell's a lie. How do you feel about Elizabeth's actions? Was she right to server her husband before GOD? Consider the time period. What were the consequences?

Answer 1

I hate Crucible.

Written by a noted religion hater, the author seeks in his plays to turn morality upside down. He basically turns good into evil, while creating sympathy for those who are evil. The result is a sense of hopelessnes, helplessness and despair. In this way, Crucible is like 95% of the modern literature that teachers and profs have you read. God forbid you would actually read something where it pays to be a good person, and where good triumphs over evil!

In modern court, a spouse cannot be compelled to testify against their husband / wife for just such a reason.

Proctor "tells" (not "tell's") a lie, which by rules is not a correct act in her moral system. We might sympathize with her situation, and believe that the good results of telling the lie make it worth the sin. However, such a deed is not within the moral code of her community nor within the rules that she swore to uphold. Therefore, by definition, it is "wrong."

The only way that it is "right" to do a thing that is normally a moral "wrong" is if you don't have a choice -- ie, someone holding a gun to your head as they tell you to steal. For a choice to be either "right" or "wrong" means that you've got the choice to do either. In this case, Proctor had a choice, however painful that it might be.