The Truth Within the Lies A lie can protect the integrity of someone when the truth is nowhere to be found. A lie becomes one 's reality when all hope is lost. Lies can protect bare emotions or embrace one 's false accusations, however once said the truth no longer exists. Spoken with words or depicted by actions, lies evolve from innate feelings within and conspire individuals to act in detrimental ways. The propensity of individuals to lie within the Puritan Society develops from the fear of not fitting within the standards and expectations a Puritan is expected to have. While a lie is a considered a vast sin in the Puritan community, many rely on this sin to covert other ones previously made. In Arthur Miller 's tragic play The Crucible, …show more content…
The plot of the play is pushed by her lies because of the severe consequences they cause and the hysteria that floods the town’s once pure society. Abigail commits her first lie as she tells her uncle Parris and Reverend Hale of Beverly, “I never called him! Tituba, Tituba…” (43) Abigail Williams has been questioned by both her Uncle Parris and Hale, a weighty spiritual doctor that has been called into their town, about what she and her friends were doing in the forest when her uncle spotted them. While Abigail knew the conjuring of spirits and casting a spell upon Elizabeth Proctor was not permitted in the Puritan society and could lead to banishment or death of both her and her friends, she decides to give in to the propensity to lie and put the blame elsewhere. Her initial motivation to lie about what she was doing in the forest stemmed from the natural tendency to avoid punishment, however a deeper motivation blooming from this lie comes from her desire to seek vengeance on Elizabeth Proctor and conceal her lonely emotions she has towards Elizabeth’s husband, John Proctor. Abigail and John both commit the sin of adultery, however while John deeply regrets his behaviors with Abigail and condemns himself back to his marriage with Elizabeth, Abigail has not accepted that fact of being alone and forgotten about. When she blames Tituba for being …show more content…
John Proctor is guilty of both spoken lies and lies conveyed from his actions. John Proctor has to deal with the decision to stay true to himself and not let his frustration condemn him to falsify the truth. Accused of conjuring with the devil among many other innocent Puritans in the town, John has to face making the right decision to either be hanged and keep his soul pure or lie to save his life and oblige to the magistrates that he did indeed conjure with devil. The tendency to want to keep your life is within any human being on this Earth, however John is faced with the decision of saving his life or faulting his already remorseful heart by lying. As John Proctor makes the decision to lie and keep his life, he begins to doubt how others will now think of him knowing he conjured with the devil. When asked to sign his name on paper for the entire town to see he refuses and exclaims, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies…” (143) While John passionately speaks this, his immense frustration is finally released and shows his desire to stay true to himself and others in the town. Refusing to sign the paper conveys the lie he initially told and the truth he sought for once realizing the guilt and remorse he would have for the rest of his life. John Proctor’s feeling of frustration
Abigail Williams is motivated to lie about her affair with John Proctor. What motivates her to lie is the thought of getting hung. Another big reason that she could be lying is for vengeance. Abigail loves John Proctor and one night they had an affair and touched. Since then, Abigail has been jealous towards John’s wife, Elizabeth. Abigail goes into the forest with some other young girls and Tituba, who makes a potion to have boys fall in love with them. This is a great example, “ABIGAIL, pulling her away from the window: I told him everything; he knows now, he knows everything we—BETTY: You drank blood, Abby! You didn't tell him that! ABIGAIL: Betty, you never say that
...fess to them Elizabeth” (238). He’s thinking about giving in to the corrupt church to save his own life like everyone else. But when the Judge Danforth asks him to sign his name on a document confessing of witch craft he won’t do it because he explains, “It is my name I cannot have another in my life because I lie and sign myself to lies. Proctor finally stands up for what’s right and he shows that he won’t taint his name in order to save his own life. So they send him to be hung but he dies with his honor and his integrity.
Abigail’s mendacity is a driving force throughout the play. It becomes clear early on in Act One that Abigail is hiding something. Her reactions to her uncles questioning of her name and reasons for discharge from Goody Proctors service are curious. The stage directions indicate that she answers “with an edge of resentment,” “with ill concealed resentment” and “in a temper.” She defends herself by slandering Goody Proctor. When she and her friends were together and realized that they could be in serious trouble she told them exactly what to say and threatened them if they did otherwise. When pressed with questions about the night of dancing in the woods and drinking blood, she tells blatant lies about Tituba by saying, “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” (1154). This is known to be a lie because earlier when the girls were discussing their alibi, it came out that Abigail drank the bloody charm to kill John Proctor’s wife. Tituba says that
Abigail asks Tituba to help her cast a love spell on John Proctor. Abigail tells the girls who were also involved to keep quiet. Mary Warren begins to feel guilty and tries to persuade the girls to tell the truth. Abigail disagrees with Mary and browbeats the girls “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things… I will bring a pointy reckoning and shutter you”. (Miller 1137) Abigail is threatening the girls that if they say anything about her drinking blood she will harm them. Abigail threatens the girls for her own selfish reasons, Abigail Williams is a villain because she would rather lie and hurt people than tell the truth.
John Proctor: “God in heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor”. John is a man of strong moral beliefs, concerned only for the safety of his family and personal welfare. He cares of nothing for the beliefs of any of the other people in the town and what his supervisor which is the Reverend, thinks either. After trying to avoid involvement in the witch trials he is later prosecuted for witchery and sentenced to hang. John trys to avoid any involvement in the Salem witch trials. His reason for doing so is to protect his image because he is afraid he will be committed of adultery with Abigail Williams. Following these events he trys to save everyone’s lives by admitting to this horrible offense adultery and ends up losing the trial along with his life. He did have a chance to live but instead of signing away his name and his soul to keep his life, he wanted to die honorably with his friends not without a name, a soul, and with guilt. “John Proctors decision to die is reasonable and believable”. Reverend Parris, the Salem minister and Proctors immediate supervisor, which says “ there is either obedience or the church will burn like hell is burning.” “The church in theocratic Salem is identical with the state and the community and will surely crumble if unquestioning obedience falters in the least.” Proctor, on the other hand, “has come to regard his self as a king of fraud,” as long as he remains obedient to an authority which he cannot respect.
John Proctor is, at first, willing to offer up a false confession that his life may be spared. Inevitably, John Proctor possesses that fateful attribute known to fall fatal to many human beings - pride. While he has, indeed, been ashamed of his many sins throughout his life, Proctor's soul still clings to his pride and his good name, however soiled it may have become. On the morning scheduled for his execution, Proctor wrestles with the realization that one more sin so heaped upon the rest in his life will make precious little difference in the end; "I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man.... My honesty is broke... I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie." (126) He attempts to calm his pride by telling himself that the other accused witches who will not give false testimony to save themselves from the gallows have every right to do so; they led lives free of blame. He, however, he tells himself, did no such thing; what right has he to hang among the righteous? "Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls. It is pretense for me, a vanity that will nor blind God nor keep my children out of the wind." (126) Thus the conviction first reached by John Proctor is to save his life rather than to throw it away in mock martyrdom.
Have you ever told a lie to protect yourself or someone you love? People lie for their own purposes. Some people lie for themselves or for their close one. They depend on the lies so much that they do not care that their lies might hurt others. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, almost all the characters lie for their own desires and to protect their own interests. Even though lies are forbidden in their religion, some people are blind to understand the punishment of lying. The concept of lying to save oneself is also evident in “Fear Was Reason For Lying About Shooting, Woman Says” by Mary Spicuzza. The article highlights how a woman hid the truth about witnessing a murder just for the sake of her own life. Another article, “The Truth
Proctor’s confession to having seen Satan is fake, and without the confession he must be executed. Proctor’s confession is soon to be revealed false when he states: “ You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of your salvation that you should use me!” ( Act 4 Lines 281- 283). John’s decision to keep himself honest, while at the same time, wanting to confess, leaves him with a magnitude of frustration aimed at himself. With the option to save himself by lying and confessing about having Satan visit him, John feels that this is his chance to prove to himself that he is not a fraud. John’s decision to destroy the signed confession causes him to forgive himself and not to think of himself as a
When confronted with a problem, why does the human brain default to lying? Dishonesty is never a solution, although it may seem like the best option in the spur of a moment. My grandma always gave the example of her youth: she avoided and deceived her friend’s sister because the little girl riled everyone. Come to find out, the sister passed the following month due to an illness. I could never imagine the guilt she experienced. Nevertheless, everyone has been deceitful before and many characters were in the tragedy, The Crucible, by playwright Arthur Miller. Reasons for lying are understandable, but most people will admit that mendacity has only caused pain. Lying’s outcome is never positive: it may seem like a good option, for falsehood can save a person’s life, benefit someone, and it eases stress, but these are all transitory.
In Arthur Miller’s book “The Crucible” there is an inadequacy of honesty which is a very important trait for everyone to learn. In this essay I am writing to prove that the paucity of honesty is negative and was very prevalent in Salem, and that very few people remained truthful throughout the Salem Witch Trials. The dishonesty in The Crucible would soon lead to the deaths and imprisonment of many residents in Salem. Those accused would lie and accuse other people of staying out of trouble from the authorities, but this took the lives of many innocent victims. In Miller's book Dishonesty is expressed by almost everyone included in The Crucible such as Abigail, Mary, and Elizabeth.
Also important to the play is how Arthur Miller depicts how one selfish, evil person like Abigail Williams can bring others down and make others follow her to commit evil acts. These evil acts affect even the most honest people in the town like John and Elizabeth Proctor, and Rebecca Nurse who cannot fight the accusations made against them by those following Abigail. Those following Abigail are considered to be holy men that are full of honesty and justice, but the play shows that even those who are thought to be respectable and right, like people of government or community leaders can bring death to innocent people if they are driven by something wrong. II. Plot: The plot begins with the inciting incident where Rev. Parris finds his niece Abigail Williams and his daughter Betty along with his slave Tituba doing some dance in the forest.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that discusses many issues and spurs contemplation within the reader. While reading this play, because of the controversy of many issues detailed within, it is difficult for one not to take a look at one’s own morals and determine what one would do if placed in a similar situation. The key issues discussed within this play, the effects of hysteria, marital betrayal, and the murderous powers of lies, are portrayed intriguingly and effectively. The lessons that can be learned from The Crucible are still quite applicable today.
Many characters in The Crucible fall under the trap of lying, if not to other people, then to themselves. The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in history, surrounding the Salem witch trials. It takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during 1692 and 1693. Additionally, Miller wrote the play as an allegory to mccarthyism, which is the practice of making accusations without evidence. In the play, Arthur Miller develops the theme of lies and deceit by showing Abigail lying for her own benefit, John Proctor committing adultery, and Elizabeth lying to protect her husband.
The first, the importance of personal integrity, is brought to light through John Proctor, who finds himself facing personal conflict when making the decision of whether to lie and 'confess' to the court, saving his own life, or to tell the truth and be condemned by it. Upon first deciding to confess and live, Proctor acknowledges he has given his soul to the devil, but refuses to also tarnish his name by allowing his confession to be stuck to the door of the church.
To further complicate matters, John decides not to reveal to the court that Abigail has admitted to him in private that they were just sporting in the woods. Abigail spreads additional accusations and false rumors about her neighbors. These accusations have no basis in truth and their only purpose is for Abigail’s own benefit. Furthermore, Abigail is jealous of John’s wife, Elizabeth, and she schemes to get rid of her in order to take her place. Abigail’s plot is to accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft.