Full Answer
What do Cheever and Herrick do in the Crucible?
Cheever and Herrick have been commissioned to work for the courts; one of their main jobs is to arrest accused townspeople and bring them to jail or the courthouse. At the end of act two, they show up on John Proctor's doorstep.
What tasks are Cheever and Herrick given to Elizabeth?
Herrick is the one who chains her up and takes her away in a wagon. Those are the tasks that Cheever is given. To give this context, earlier in the day, Abigail accused Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch.
What is the purpose of Cheever and Herrick's warrant?
Cheever and Herrick have been commissioned to work for the courts; one of their main jobs is to arrest accused townspeople and bring them to jail or the courthouse. At the end of act two, they show up on John Proctor's doorstep. Cheever himself states his purpose: "I have a warrant for your wife."
Who is John Cheever?
John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs."
Who is Cheever in Crucible?
Ezekiel Cheever was a real-life American tailor who lived in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials. He served as Chief Clerk of the Salem court, as well as drawing up warrants for the accused. In 1953, Arthur Miller wrote a play called The Crucible about the witch trials, turning Cheever into a minor antagonist.
What did Cheever do in the crucible?
Cheever is appointed by the court to arrest those accused of witchcraft. He is purely obedient to what he is told to do and doesn't seem to consider whether he's part of a false and unjust process.
What is the role of Herrick in the crucible?
George Herrick (c. 1658–1695) was the "Marshal" for the Court of Oyer and Terminer during the Salem Witch Trials. Herrick described himself as "bred a gentleman, and not much used to work".
Who is Ezekiel Cheever What is his role in this act?
Ezekiel Cheever and John Proctor Ezekiel Cheever plays the role of the antagonist as he arrives at the Proctor home in Act 2 to serve a warrant for Elizabeth Proctor. He justifies his activities and calmly states that he has been ordered to search the Proctor home for poppets (dolls) as evidence of witchcraft.
How is Cheever characterized?
Ezekiel Cheever A man from Salem who acts as clerk of the court during the witch trials. He is upright and determined to do his duty for justice.
Why were Cheever and Herrick with Elizabeth?
Cheever and Herrick come to the Proctor's home because they are there to arrest Elizabeth Proctor. Cheever discovers the poppet that Mary Warren made for Elizabeth, and he finds a needle inside the doll. Cheever tells Proctor and Hale that Abigail has charged Elizabeth with attempted murder.
Who is Herrick in The Crucible Act 2?
Herrick is an officer of the court. He is a kindly man and is obviously unhappy about arresting people like Elizabeth Proctor and keeping them in jail: In God's name, John, I cannot help myself. I must chain them all (p.
Who is Ezekiel Cheever For what reason does he arrive at the Proctor household?
Who is Ezekiel Cheever? For what reason does he arrive at the Proctor household? He is the "police" during the time period and he arrives because he has a warrant to search for a poppet that Elizabeth possesses.
Who does Cheever bring a warrant?
Ezekiel Cheever and Herrick, the town marshal, arrive with a warrant for Elizabeth's arrest.
Who are the 5 most important characters in The Crucible?
John Proctor is the protagonist and Abigail Williams is the antagonist in "The Crucible." They are the most important characters. Other important characters include Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Parris, Reverend Hale, Rebecca Nurse, Ann Putnam, and Betty Parris.
Who does Cheever bring a warrant?
Ezekiel Cheever and Herrick, the town marshal, arrive with a warrant for Elizabeth's arrest.
Why Cheever is both astonished and afraid?
Explain why Cheever is both astonished and afraid when he finds the "poppet" with the needle in it. Earlier Abigail had a fit and Parris pulled a needle out of her midsection. Cheever believes the poppet with the needle in it is proof that Elizabeth performed witchcraft on Abigail and caused her to injury.
Who is Ezekiel Cheever For what reason does he arrive at the Proctor household?
Who is Ezekiel Cheever? For what reason does he arrive at the Proctor household? He is the "police" during the time period and he arrives because he has a warrant to search for a poppet that Elizabeth possesses.
What does Cheever find in the poppet?
Cheever discovers the poppet that Mary Warren made for Elizabeth, and he finds a needle inside the doll. Cheever tells Proctor and Hale that Abigail has charged Elizabeth with attempted murder.
Who is Giles Corey?
Giles Corey. An elderly but feisty farmer in Salem, famous for his tendency to file lawsuits. Giles’s wife, Martha, is accused of witchcraft, and he himself is eventually held in contempt of court and pressed to death with large stones. Read an in-depth analysis of Giles Corey.
Who is Reverend Parris' niece?
Reverend Parris’s niece. Abigail was once the servant for the Proctor household, but Elizabeth Proctor fired her after she discovered that Abigail was having an affair with her husband, John Proctor. Abigail is smart, wily, a good liar, and vindictive when crossed.
Who is the servant in the Proctor household?
The servant in the Proctor household and a member of Abigail’ s group of girls. She is a timid girl, easily influenced by those around her, who tried unsuccessfully to expose the hoax and ultimately recanted her confession.
What is Cheever's character?
Cheever's character, converted from real-life teacher to tailor in the play, adds an important dimension to Miller's work, and further demonstrates how artfully he avoids assigning convenient blame or creating simplified heroes and villains.
Who is Cheever loyal to?
Yet for all his humility and composure, Cheever is above all loyal to the institutional authority he serves, and he does not hesitate to provide incriminating testimony against a friend and neighbor, such as John Proctor, or to take the vindictive accusations of Abigail Williams at face value.
What is the significance of Ezekiel Cheever's character in the play?
Whereas Mickey Mouse's tailor becomes the savior of his community, Ezekiel Cheever contributes to an episode of shame and violent social implosion. But even as the play's tragedy reaches its climax, Cheever avoids the vicious fanaticism of Judge Danforth and the crippling self-loathing of Reverend Parris.
What does Cheever do when he arrives at the Proctor home?
When he arrives at the Proctor home to serve Elizabeth a warrant, he reaches his own informal verdict against her based upon Abigail's carefully contrived manipulations. Previously a well-regarded member of the community, Cheever becomes the eyes and ears of the court, taking on its assumptions.
What is the lesson of Ezekiel Cheever?
Get acquainted with Ezekiel Cheever from Arthur Miller's compelling play 'The Crucible' in this lesson. Cheever helps demonstrate Miller's strength as a crafter of complex and resonating characters.
What is Cheever's role in the court?
He also maintains a level of balance and objectivity beyond that of his superiors. Yet for all his humility and composure, Cheever is above all loyal to the institutional authority he serves, and he does not hesitate to provide incriminating testimony against a friend and neighbor, such as John Proctor, or to take the vindictive accusations of Abigail Williams at face value. When he arrives at the Proctor home to serve Elizabeth a warrant, he reaches his own informal verdict against her based upon Abigail's carefully contrived manipulations. Previously a well-regarded member of the community, Cheever becomes the eyes and ears of the court, taking on its assumptions.
What is Cheever's duty?
Cheever uses his duty to create a bubble around himself that protects him against the animosity and emotional turmoil of his neighbors. He is able to minimize Giles Corey's condemnation. He shifts the need for human understanding onto John Proctor ('I am clerk of the court now, y'know'), who is about to see his wife arrested on the outrageous charge of voodoo-style black magic.
Who is John Cheever?
John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born, and Italy, especially Rome. His short stories included " The Enormous Radio ", "Goodbye, My Brother", " The Five-Forty-Eight ", "The Country Husband", and " The Swimmer ", and he also wrote five novels: The Wapshot Chronicle ( National Book Award, 1958), The Wapshot Scandal ( William Dean Howells Medal, 1965), Bullet Park (1969), Falconer (1977) and a novella Oh What a Paradise It Seems (1982).
Where did Cheever live?
For the next few years, Cheever divided his time between Manhattan, Saratoga, Lake George (where he was caretaker of the Yaddo-owned Triuna Island), and Quincy, where he continued to visit his parents, who had reconciled and moved to an apartment at 60 Spear Street. Cheever drove from one place to another in a dilapidated Model A roadster, but had no permanent address. In 1935, Katharine White of The New Yorker bought Cheever's story "Buffalo", for $45—the first of many that Cheever would publish in the magazine. Maxim Lieber became his literary agent, 1935–1941. In 1938, he began work for the Federal Writers' Project in Washington, D. C., which he considered an embarrassing boondoggle. As an editor for the WPA Guide to New York City, Cheever was charged with (as he put it) "twisting into order the sentences written by some incredibly lazy bastards." He quit after less than a year and a few months later he met his future wife, Mary Winternitz, seven years his junior. She was a daughter of Milton Winternitz, dean of Yale Medical School, and granddaughter of Thomas A. Watson, an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell during the invention of the telephone. They married in 1941.
What was the name of the book that Cheever wrote?
Cheever himself came to despise the book as "embarrassingly immature", and for the rest of his life destroyed every copy he could lay his hands on. However, the book may have saved his life after falling into the hands of Major Leonard Spigelgass, an MGM executive and officer in the Army Signal Corps, who was struck by Cheever's "childlike sense of wonder." Early that summer, Cheever was transferred to the former Paramount studio in Astoria, Queens, New York City, where he commuted via subway from his apartment in Chelsea, Manhattan, New York City. Meanwhile, most of his old infantry company was killed on a Normandy beach during the D-Day invasion. Cheever's daughter Susan was born on July 31, 1943.
What was Cheever charged with?
As an editor for the WPA Guide to New York City, Cheever was charged with (as he put it) "twisting into order the sentences written by some incredibly lazy bastards.".
Where did Mary Cheever go to school?
In 1926, Cheever began attending Thayer Academy , a private day school, but he found the atmosphere stifling and performed poorly, and finally transferred to Quincy High in 1928.
Where was John Cheever born?
John William Cheever was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the second child of Frederick Lincoln Cheever and Mary Liley Cheever. His father was a prosperous shoe salesman, and Cheever spent much of his childhood in a large Victorian house, at 123 Winthrop Avenue, in the then-genteel suburb of Wollaston, Massachusetts. In the mid-1920s, however, as the New England shoe and textile industries began their long decline, Frederick Cheever lost most of his money and began to drink heavily. To pay the bills, Mary Cheever opened a gift shop in downtown Quincy—an "abysmal humiliation" for the family, as John saw it. In 1926, Cheever began attending Thayer Academy, a private day school, but he found the atmosphere stifling and performed poorly, and finally transferred to Quincy High in 1928. A year later he won a short story contest sponsored by the Boston Herald and was invited back to Thayer as a "special student" on academic probation. His grades continued to be poor, however, and, in March 1930, he was either expelled for smoking or (more likely) departed of his own accord when the headmaster delivered an ultimatum to the effect that he must either apply himself or leave. The 18-year-old Cheever wrote a sardonic account of this experience, titled "Expelled", which was subsequently published in The New Republic. (1930).
When did John Cheever win the Pulitzer Prize?
A compilation of his short stories, The Stories of John Cheever, won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and its first paperback edition won a 1981 National Book Award. On April 27, 1982, six weeks before his death, Cheever was awarded the National Medal for Literature by the American Academy ...