The Crucible does seem to be concerned a lot with image/reputation rather than justice. Reverend Parris is the immediate example of this in The Crucible. He is the 1692 (I think that is the date) Purtinical reflection of modern (or at least Miller’s time) politicians, who are worried only about how they look to the public and how they can benefit themselves from their positions–no matter how many others they hurt. While the play is mainly focused on the communist witch hunt and mirroring McCarthy, I think Reverend Parris automatically puts us in the mindset of greedy, self-absorbed politicians and an uneasy public, which is the environment needed for a witch hunt.
Parris obviously doesn’t care much at all for his daughter or niece as he is simply trying to keep all the visitors from saying anything about there being the presence of the “Devil” in HIS house. He then simply leaves her in the care of anyone left in the house in order to go outside and tidy up his public image by leading a psalm. That obviously shows how much he values his career over his daughter–Also, he gets into a fight about his salary while his daughter is lying apparently lifeless on the bed.
Public image is not simply important to Parris. Everyone seems to have a certain public image, which is later used in the trials. Hale comes along and is well-known for his witch hunting skills and therefore leads most of the people (excluding Proctor, Nurse, and possible Corey) to believe they are in good hands and will soon have a better town because of him being there. He obviously relies quite a bit on his self-image in order to get people in different towns to trust him and automatically makes himself look like a professional by carrying a load of books and claiming he doesn’t find things that aren’t there. Yet, it seems he isn’t doing much at all except arousing fear in everyone and making them all point fingers at each other. Hale also is important because he shows how the reputations of those in Salem look to the outside world. He has obviously heard of Rebecca Nurse for her good Christian charities or whatever it is, and she is well-respected because of this. Yet, he is almost more impressed by Mr. Putnam, who is obviously not the most moral person in the world and seems to be the source of many issues in the community, simply because his family owns a lot of land. Therefore, it is obvious to see already that wealth and prestige matter more than goodness and deeds.
While Putnam and his wife do have reasons to be angry about their lives (having lost seven children), there is no reason for them to blame people like Rebecca Nurse simply because she had the good fortune of not having any children or grandchildren die. They have simply become far too resentful and focused on this one bad thing in their lives, so they try to make everyone else suffer for it–and they do quite a good job at that. Proctor even seems to have a public image that makes people fear him. While Hale may not have heard of him, even the sheriff (or whatever Cheever and Herrick are considered) is frightened to do his job. They also seem to respect Proctor, but I do not really like him at this point in the play as he seems an ill-tempered, rather arrogant man. Abigail is obviously deceitful, petty, and lustful; however, she has the fact that she is an orphan with a greedy, immoral uncle helping her along with her character. Giles Corey seems a decent fellow, who doesn’t really bear a grudge, but can see through the images with which the people front themselves; he seems to just mock them rather than chastise them or confront them as Proctor does. I quite like him. To be short about it, I also think the stage directions and author’s comments are quite helpful as it makes it more of a book as well as keeping the reader in the direction that the author wants them to be heading, which is helpful as he seems to be attempting to make a certain point with this play.
