Themes In The Crucible With Quotes

I would wish this book could take the form of a plea for everlasting peace, a plea from one who knows... Or it would be fine to confirm the odd beliefs about war: it's horrible, but it's a crucible of men and events and, in the end, it makes more of a man out of you. But, still, none of these notions seems right. Men are killed, dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are afraid and often brave, drill sergeants are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don't and most don't care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme? Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

• Battle The final conflict that decides the goal. Regardless of who wins, the audience learns which values and ideas are superior. • Final Action Against Opponent The hero may make one last action—moral or immoral—against the opponent just before or during the battle. • Moral Self-Revelation The crucible of the battle produces a self-revelation in the hero. The hero realizes that he has been wrong about himself and wrong toward others and realizes how to act properly toward others. Because the audience identifies with this character, the self-revelation drives the theme home with great power. • Moral Decision The hero chooses between two courses of action, thus proving his moral self-revelation. • Thematic Revelation In great storytelling, the theme achieves its greatest impact on the audience at the thematic revelation. The thematic revelation is not limited to the hero. Instead, it is an insight the audience has about how people in general should act and live in the world. This insight breaks the bounds of these particular characters and affects the audience where they live. With a thematic revelation, the audience sees the “total design” of the story, the full ramifications of what it means, on a much greater scale than just a few characters.

For millennia Ukraine had been the crucible of mighty political conglomerates such as the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Kievan realms. Its inhabitants controlled their own destinies and influenced, sometimes decisively, those of their neighbors. The civilizations that were based in Ukraine stood in the forefront of the cultural and socioeconomic developments in all of Eastern Europe. But after the decline of Galicia-Volhynia, an epochal transformation occurred. Henceforth, Ukrainian lands would no longer form the core of important political entities and, except for a few brief moments of self-assertion, the fate of Ukraine's inhabitants would be decided in far-off capitals such as Warsaw, Moscow, or Vienna.* In cultural and economic terms as well, the status of Ukraine would decline to that of an important but peripheral province whose elites identified with foreign cultures and political systems. No longer dominant but dominated, the natives of Ukraine would have to struggle not only for their political selfdetermination but also for their existence as a separate ethnic and national entity. This effort became - and remains to this day - one of the major themes of Ukrainian history. * During the Polish-Lithuanian period, Ukrainians called themselves Ruthenians (Rusyny), a name derived from Rus'. Belorussians were also called by this name. At this time, Russians were generally called Muscovites.