Crucible act 2

I never really considered the color coded characters much after Mr. Tadla's class, but I guess they make enough sense. When I come to think of the most important characters in the play within the context of happy little colors, it seems clear enough to me.

I would say that Abigail is probably orange. Orange people are most interested in being active and having a good time. She danced at night with other girls at a heathen ceremony because it seemed like it would be fun and entertaining (Miller 11). This shows that she was more concerned with having a good time than with her family (whose reputation she put in jeopardy), the rules (which she clearly broke), or much of anything else. She seems very uninclined toward learning, so that definitely rules out green. I think that she is really just a very immature orange type. Well, maybe immature is the wrong word for her. Perhaps vile or evil work better?

Proctor is gold, I think. Golds are typically very family centered and organized. He is willing to soil his own reputation in order to save his wife, showing how much he cares about her (Miller 80). People with gold personalities often care a great deal about their families. Mr. Langley said that golds will act more like blues when they are under stress, and perhaps Proctor was under a lot of stress with his wife when he had his affair with Abigail, because having a lover seems more like a blue sort of thing to do than a gold kind of thing, blues being the type of people who care most about relationships with other people (Langley). If he were really a blue, I doubt he would be putting Abigail on ice as well as he has by this part of the play. The play mentions that he has a sort of moral superiority about him, and this is keeping with a gold personality as well (Miller 20).

I think that Rebecca has a blue personality. Even though she has not really said much so far in the play, every time she speaks her words have a comforting about them. She really cares about Betty and her illness when she is in the first act, even though she knows that Betty had been out dancing in the middle of the night (Miller 39). When in the second act it mentions that she was arrested, the reader cannot but feel sympathy and worry for the kind old woman.

I think the Putnams are a little harder to place. They are very calculating about how best to get their revenge on people who they feel have done them wrong. I am not sure if this would be more green or more orange because of how hard they work at their schemes. On one hand, their schemes revolve around who they think has done their family wrong in some circumstances, like when due to some neighbors a family member of theirs was not allowed to be minister (Miller 15). On the other hand, some of their plots are sheerly about economic gain, like when they have a man accused of witchery so they can gain his land (even though I was not supposed to read that yet). Anyway, I think the Putnams are a very close call between green and gold.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Langley, John. English 332. Pleasant Plains High School, Pleasant Plains, IL. September 8, 2011.