Evidence In The Crucible

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play about a group of girls who are caught dancing in the woods and end up accusing people of being witches.

Now how does something like that happen!?!?!?!

Well first we have to know where this all started. This story was written to take place in Salem village during the Salem witch trials.

To sum it up, the Salem Witch trials is a point in time where people started blaming others for misfortunes that occurred. Let’s say you felt a very strong stomach ache while hanging out with your friend. You two had, had a fight recently and you both believed in witchcraft. You could easily take your friend to court and accuse them of witchcraft, as long as you had spectral evidence. Spectral evidence is based

solely on the eyes of the accused. You could imagine how flabbergasting cases like this would be in modern courts.

There is a lot more to this part of history, but it's not the purpose of this video.

In this story, the reader is introduced to Abigail Williams, and her friends. They were the girls who danced in the woods with an African American slave named Tituba. Dancing is a sin for their religion. They could be convicted for this crime, but it gets even worse. One of the girls, Betty, fell ill at this event and you know what that means. At a time like this, witchcraft seems like a viable explanation.

When people start to suspect this, Mister Parris takes action. Mister Parris is the father of Betty, and he’s still trying to figure out what happened as well. In the first scene, we are introduced to a character named Reverend Hale. He comes to the main characters as a “witch expert”.

When he first appears on the scene, everyone is almost certain that he will discover some form of witchcraft in this case.

While observing Betty there is a group of people praying in the the house and when the say God’s name Betty starts to scream. Witchcraft is a reasonable explanation because they believed that anyone who is a witch or is cursed by a witch cannot recite or bear to hear the lord’s name or words from the bible.

As the story moves on the situation with the girls grows out of control. The town decides that all the people accused of witchcraft should be put on trial. Although Reverend Hale believes strongly in witchcraft and it is shown various times in the Crucible, he still speaks, in court, against the girls.

Reverend Hale first starts to question the girls when John Proctor’s wife Goody Proctor gets accused of being a witch. When it comes time for the trial John Proctor tries to alert the court of Abigail and her friends deception. Mary Warren who was once Abigail's friend speaks out against the girls in court. In a turn of events Abigail accuses her of being a witch! Mary confesses to being a witch, but she accuses John Proctor. After seeing this Reverend Hale storms out of the room refusing to believe this nonsense. John Proctor played a key role in helping Reverend Hale finding out about Abigail and her friend

lies.