Logical Fallacies in The Crucible

Logical Fallacies in The Crucible

AP Language and Composition

Multiple Choice

Parris: "I have heard it said [...] that she comes so rarely to the church this year for she will not sit so close to something soiled."

Abigail: "She hates me [...]. It's a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman [...]"

• Ad Hominem

• Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle

• Hasty Generalization

Multiple Choice

Abigail: "They want slaves, not such as I. Let them send to Barbados for that. I will not black my face for any of them!"

• False Analogy

• Appeal to Ignorance

• Hasty Generalization

Multiple Choice

Rev. Hale: "Here is all the invisible world, caught, defined and calculated. In these books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises."

• Hasty Generalization

• Appeal to False Authority

• Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle

Multiple Choice

Proctor: "Why, what did she do to you?"

Mary Warren: "Last month--a Monday, I think--[Goody Osburn] walked away, and I thought my guts would burst for two days after"

• Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

• Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle

• Ad Hominem

Multiple Choice

Proctor: "How may such a woman murder children?"

Rev. Hale: "Man, remember, until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven."

• Appeal to False Authority

• False Dilemma

• False Analogy

Multiple Choice

Cheever: "'Tis hard proof! I find her a poppet Goody Proctor keeps. I have found it, sir. And in the belly of the poppet a needle's stuck. I tell you true, Proctor, I never warranted to see such proof of Hell [...]"

• Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

• Appeal to Ignorance

• Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle

Multiple Choice

Martha Corey: "I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is."

Hathorne: "How do you know, then, that you are not a witch?"

• Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle

• False Dilemma

• Appeal to Ignorance

Multiple Choice

Proctor: "[...] So many of these women have lived so with long with such upright reputation [...]"

Parris: "[...] You should surely know that Cain were an upright man, and yet he did kill Abel"

• False Dilemma

• False Analogy

• Ad Hominem

Multiple Choice

Danforth: "I have seen marvels in this court. [...] I have until this moment not the slightest reason to suspect that the children may be deceiving me."

• Hasty Generalization

• Appeal to False Authority

• False Dilemma

Multiple Choice

Hale: "There is a prodigious fear of this court in the country--"

Danforth: "Then there is a prodigious guilt in the country"

• Hasty Generalization

• False Analogy

• False Dilemma

Multiple Choice

Danforth: "Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself: granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims--and they do testify [...]"

• Ad Hominem

• Appeal to False Authority

• Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc