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Corruption and influence fiction
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William Gaddis once said “Power doesn’t corrupt the people, the people corrupt the power” William claims that people corruptes the power, this statement explains how Abigail Williams corrupted the power of the court in the play The Crucible. It was not the power that corrupted the people it was the people that held the power that corrpted the people in the town. Since Abigail williams is motivated by obsession, jelousy, and power, her decision to take of the town to help herself creates total choas by the end of the play.
At the begining fo the paly Abigail is obsessed with John Proctor. She wants to be with him because of the afair that they had before the paly even begain. Abigail is jeouls of his wife Elizabeth, she wants her dead so she can be with John. So abigail takes matters in to her own hands, and uses the power that she holds to try and kill Elizabeth. Abigail reveals “... I have seen you since she put me out; I have seen you nights” (1037). I think that this quote shows
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One of the people that she claims is witching her is Elizabeth, because Abigail wants her dead so she can be with John Proctor. Elizabeth indentifies what Abigai is trying to do, “... And she may dote on it now - I’m sure she does - and thinks to kill me, and take my place” (1035). With this quote I think that her lieing to the court about all of this id the reason that the court is falling apart. John has now come i to save his wife because of Abigails lies. Now that her lies have been brought to attention, she starts to lie on top of the lies she has already told. The choices that Abigail has made has changed the town and the court for the worst. Abigails plan start to fall apart when her lies and the other girls lies are brought to attention. To fix the problem they start to lie more, truning on one of their own where is Mary Warren. Just to get the court to believe that they are not
Elizabeth and John start to feel the tension when Elizabeth tries to convince John about going to court and persecuting Abigail but he refuses. When he disputes with his wife he argues, “you will judge me no more Elizabeth I have good reason to charge fraud on Abigail and I will think on it” (193). Proctor is not completely satisfied about throwing Abigail under the bus because he doesn’t want to initially hurt her and he would lose his respect in the town if he did. So he isn’t convinced about the fact that his wife is trying to get him to charge fraud at this point of the play. Soon afterward Mary the proctor’s servant comes home with news that Elizabeth has been convicted of witchcraft as well and was arrested by the sheriff in town to be brought to the trials.
Have you ever been overwhelmingly passionate about something that you would do anything it took to accomplish it? Sometimes people go to extreme lengths to get what they want. The Crucible is a play that shows us that trait. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams does just that. Abigail William's desire for John Proctor creates her dishonest and manipulative actions that affect the whole village.
How can a girl who condemned seventy two to a death sentence and drank a charm to kill a man’s wife, a man she has slept with on more than one occasion be the victim? It’s possible when the town she lives in is worse than her. Although Abigail Williams is typically thought of as the antagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, she is in fact a victim as much as any other tragic character in the play.
Without a doubt, Abigail convinces the group of girls to not speak about the night, or she will make them regret it. Clearly, Abigail makes them lie to save herself. As Betty whimpers in bed, she says “You drank blood Abby! You didn’t tell him that… You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!”(Miller 18). Abigail uses the threat of violence to manipulate Betty when she says “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night…”(Miller 19). This shows Abby’s personality is manipulative and evil. As the reader can tell, Abigail says this because she knows there will be consequences for her. Additionally, Abigail lies another time when she plants revenge on Elizabeth Proctor. With this in mind, Abigail claims Elizabeth stabbed her
Explore Miller’s dramatic presentation and development of the theme of power and authority. Even though The Crucible is not historically correct, nor is it a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, it still stands out as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance, hysteria, power and authority is able to tear a community apart. The most important of these is the nature of power, authority and its costly, and overwhelming results. “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or against it,” says Danforth conceitedly. With this antithesis, Miller sums up the attitude of the authorities towards the witch trials that if one goes against the judgement of the court
The Crucible is a play with many underlying messages and themes. One of which is the idea of power. Power is a very important term in this play in that whoever holds the power, holds the fates of others. The hysteria within Salem has directly effected society. Everything has turned upside down and has gotten distorted. Arthur Miller is telling us that all the power in Salem is given to those who are corrupt and their abuse of it is directly shown through: the actions of Abigail throughout the play, the corruption and desires of Parris, as well as the witch trials held by Judge Danforth.
Overall, in the Crucible, many people become prosperous in the domination of power in the population. Characters, such as Abigail and Danforth, drill fear in people’s minds whether it be through threats, blackmailing or even fraud. Deceiving people take advantage of their own authority to rule the majority. As a result, the innocent became victims subjected to their own death. The Crucible shows that anyone can become mighty if they have the true desire
One of the main predicaments of the story is the tension between Abigail and John and Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail displays at least three of the evils of man; wrath, envy, lust. Abigail and John had a brief relationship that ended when the book started. Her lust for John led to wrath displayed by Abigail accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft. That kind of claim will kill Elizabeth, widow John, and Abigail would be waiting for Proctor with open arms. Abigail envies that John decided to stay and take care of Elizabeth. Envy took over Abigail’s life. It absorbed through her skin and ran through her blood until she boiled with jealousy. She took a lie too far causing her own neighbors to die from the words she spoke.
An American is somebody who can overcome anything. No matter what problem comes in front of an American they can always face it head on and be successful. Corruption is something commonly found in the reading we have done in class, for example in the story The Crucible , people overcome corruption in many ways. Salem would become corrupted with rumors of witchcraft. All of the girls in the town take the opportunity to take over the city, as they chose who lives and dies. Nobody wants to follow in the footsteps of the unfortunate accused witchcrafters. So the entire town points fingers with girls causing chaos throughout the town. Although it seems like many people won’t stand up for the accused people, John Proctor and others would stand
One of the many people who is trying to take advantage of this opportunity and seize power is Abigale. She is deceiving and lying to the town and more importantly to the church whom right now holds most, if not all of the power to gain more power and to get what she wants. In the book it says “Elizabeth: And she charges me? (Miller 203)” This is when Elizabeth realized that Abigail is falsely accusing her of being a witch. Abigail is doing this because she is madly in love with Elizabeth's
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.
She started all the accusations about witchcraft and she blamed innocent people because she wanted revenge on those who hurt her. She also framed Marry Warren and Elizabeth Proctor for being involved in witchcraft. She framed Marry into giving Elizabeth a poppet. Little did Mary know that it was a poppet that had a needle in it which represented a form of unacceptable witchcraft. Before this happened, Parris and Abigail talked about what happened in the forest she denied the harsh allegations she wants to lie to the citizens so she cannot be punished by anyone. “My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is spoiled! Goody Proctor is a liar!” (Miller, 570) Abigail is now starting to lie about how things occurred, she is now blaming it on Goody, Proctor who had nothing to do with the witchcraft that has happened in the forest. She also tried to make it clear to Mrs. Putnam that she did not see any signs of witchcraft at her house or with Betty. She was with Betty and Parris. Betty starts showing evident signs of witchcraft. She attempted to fly, but was held back by Parris. After Abigail found John Proctor outside.”She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her.” (Miller, 578) Once Abigail finds John Proctor she talked to him and things did not go well. John said he never wanted to see her again. She does not believe him she thinks anything to do with her. He makes it clear he does not
The crucible, by Arthur Miller, show how the power of words by Abigail and Parris can be used to persuade people to get what they want. Abigail uses her power to get the town to believe what she saw is true. Once she built that foundation she used her words to kill innocent people. On the other hand, reverend Parris denies that his niece was practicing witchcraft to save his reputation in the town. Innocent people lost their lives because of lies. The words used to accuse the innocent had a big impact on what took place in Salem, Massachusetts, making
There was many themes displayed throughout “The Crucible” like cowardice, honesty, and greed but one theme overthrows all of them and that’s hunger for power, authority, and respect. The hunger for power is shown the most in this play because many people wanted to keep the power they had. Countless people had shown this but we are only going to talk about Reverend Parris, Abigail, John Proctor, and the Danforth.
John Proctor has an affair with a young woman named Abigail Williams prior to the beginning of the play, which sets the basis for the events to occur. Williams is an antagonist of the play and sets rumors ablaze about certain women in the town being witches, and she embodies the absence of innocence. Due to her immense jealousy towards Elizabeth Proctor, John’s wife, Williams accuses her of witchcraft and blames her for the death of a woman’s babies to further prove her point. Unfortunately, many of the citizens believe Williams due to her adolescent innocence, and Elizabeth is tried for witchcraft. Elizabeth understands abigail’s true plan and states, “She wants me dead. I knew all week it would come to this! And what of tomorrow? She will cry me out until they take me!” (Miller 942). Likewise, John Proctor is able to see past Abigail’s innocent facade, and he says, “A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is . . . She thinks to dance with me on my wife's grave!” (Miller 973). Additionally, Mary Warren, a friend of Abigail’s, retains her innocence up until she follows in Williams’ footsteps and accuses other women of witchcraft as well due to the pressure she feels placed on her. This further exemplifies characters losing their innocence. After seeing characters lose their innocence, some characters attempt to assist