In reading this passage, from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, I have come to believe that John’s relationship with Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s relationship with John are two completely different things. Elizabeth’s relationship seems more at ease, a little distant, untrusting, but yet non-judgmental. Now John’s relationship seems to be passionate about arguing, trusting, a little judgmental (of self), and regret. But similarly they have love in common. First up is Elizabeth’s relationship with John because it seems to have more of an impact in the story line. This relationship seems distant, relaxed, untrusting and not judgmental. Distant because of the fact that throughout the whole argument Elizabeth stays cool and relaxed, not becoming heated unlike John, distant can mean a variety of things but mainly it means to be disconnected from.
I believe that Elizabeth’s relationship with John is at a serious disconnection, mainly from John’s mistake. The word relaxed fits with distant because this whole time Elizabeth remains in a calm state when she probably wants to kill John. The untrusting comes from John’s mistake of cheating with Abigail Williams (who is historically 11 years old but, in the Crucible by Arthur Miller, she is 17 years of age). Yet, Elizabeth remains non-judgmental of John and just asks questions, not trying to judge him by his answers but trying to understand his reasoning of the question. Next, on the opposite side, is John’s relationship with Elizabeth that is filled with a passion for arguing judgment, trust, self-judgment and regret. The passion for arguing judgment arose because while reading through the text I noticed that the one thing John brought up quite a few times were telling Elizabeth not to judge him but to instead judge herself. I think that John said this not because he believed that she was judging him but because he would rather have her judging him than himself doing the judgment because he thought or hoped she wouldn’t be as hard of a judge as he himself was being.
This brings us to self-judgment because that is the main theme in this story, mainly because a lot of place in this book you see characters judging the outcomes of all scenarios and trying to pick the one that would cause less judgment, by themselves, friends, family and most importantly God. The next two topics fit nicely together, I think. Trust and regret. John is trusting of Elizabeth because she has never done anything to wrong him but the regret comes in when John has sinned and committed adultery and
has to face his wife who has been nothing but faithful to him, a little distant but never unfaithful. So were Elizabeth is lacking trust John more than makes up for it.
The only thing that I noticed that John and Elizabeth’s relationships had in common was the love that they have for each other even if neither of them realize it and the love that they have for their family, friends, and for God. The strength of their relationship and the thing that makes them able to stay together besides divorce not being legal was the unending love that they had for each other and the life that they had created together that reminded them of the time when they were strong and told them that they could get through this hardship if they tried.
I believe that because they are two completely different people that the relationships they have with each other are also different in the respect that it’s two different people’s feelings toward/about each other. The only thing that was in common was love. As is in most cases, if you look closely beneath the surface you can find the two separate relationships hidden behind one John and Elizabeth have, with one single little emotion in common. Love.
