The Crucible presents a series of power plays between characters and groups of different status. Throughout the play, education, title, luck, age, gender, strength, wealth,
and social connectedness confer power on individuals. In this essay, you will examine
power brokerage-how characters get, use, and maintain power. Choose a major character
from The Crucible and using the "French and Raven's Five Forms of Power" article,
evaluate how that character assumes, utilizes, and maintains (or loses) power throughout
the play. What power bases do they use? How do they use them? Could they have used a
different power base to act with more humanity in the story and mitigate, or lessen, the
abuse of power by themselves or other characters in the play? In what ways do cultural
values or beliefs affect the ways characters use power or make choices? Make sure that
you refer to your character's development of power throughout the play. Cite your evidence
from at least two acts of the play. Make sure that all your assertions are documented by
correctly cited facts (quotations, paraphrases, and summaries of events/characters) from
your sources, and that all assertions are supported with the quotation and your rationale.
The rationale should back up, or support, your assertion(s). Write your essay for a
well-educated person who is familiar with The Crucible but hasn't read French and Raven's
article.