Giles Corey

(First off I downloaded and read the playwright of The Crucible as a PDF form. I like to read more than watch movies.) “Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. "More weight," he says. And died.” In this passage from The Crucible the author describes the size of the stones as “great stones” by doing this he is trying to help the reader understand how heavy and big these stones really were. The author then goes on to say “they lay (them) upon his chest until he plead aye or nay.” With this Arthur Miller is bringing an image to our minds of a man who has been accused of witchcraft and if he denies the claims then they would have hung him. So either way he really was screwed. As punishment for the accusation he is having heavy stones placed on his chest until he dies because of it. This was a very common torture tactic. It would be a slow and painful death. In the next part of the passage it says “They say he give them but two words. “More weight,” he says. And died.” With this Arthur is trying to bring to our minds the image of Giles Corey a man who refused to claim he was a part of witchcraft when he was not so instead he chose to just be crushed to death. That has to be a very strong thing to do because most people would just admit to witchcraft to avoid the slow death such as having large stones placed on your chest vs. being hung which would be a quicker death in most cases.

            I chose this passage because it was a great way to show that Giles was the same old guy when he was alone as when he was in public. By refusing to just admit to witchcraft in order to have a swift death he chose to stand up and not stoop to the level that everyone else was doing by admitting to doing something they didn’t do just so they could receive a quicker death. By Giles saying “More weight” before he died it showed resilience, strength, and dedication to what he believed was right by not taking the easy way out and selling himself when he didn’t do anything.