During the early years of the colonies, there was a mad witch hunt striking the heart of Salem. Anger, reputation, and even religion play an important part during the play of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. The author allows us to witness the vivid idea of the hysteria taking place in Salem, Massachusetts, and why it was so vulnerable during the time. Throughout the many acts of the play, we sense the anger rolling off Abigail’s words. “I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” By these words, we know that Abigail Williams is angry. She’s angry at John Proctor for trying to hide the crime he committed with her, and for the lack of closure she …show more content…
The people of this time, believe in witchcraft, and if you are apart of it, you must confess and redeem yourself or be hanged for your crimes. The girls use the ‘confession’ as a way out of casting charms in the forest, and then shout random names to shift the blame off of them. This becomes a good advantage for the girls. During the play, we notice that anyone who opposes the court and testifies against it, is soon labeled as the enemy of God and must be a servant of the Devil. Giles Corey and John Proctor happened to be two of the many associated with designation. The authorities felt the need to ‘purify’ the village, and therefor hang anyone connected to such crimes. Religion was such a major role in this time frame, and because of various viewpoints, several have died. The Salem Witch Trials marks a vulnerable era in history. The play allows us to see that uncontrolled rage, pride, and even religion at times, can lead to destruction and mayhem. With these factors, it’s quite clear to see why Salem was vulnerable to these
Towards the middle of the play Hale has begun to see that abigail is out for vengeance than actually finding witches. “Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profit nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl” (Miller 74). Hale has now realized that the Devil may be at work in Salem but if he is it is not on Abigail and the girls. Once the girls but mainly Abigail accuse Elizabeth Proctor most people especially John Proctor and Reverend Hale begin putting two and two together that these girls are out for blood and not revealing who is conspiring with the
The focus of Miller’s The Crucible is an appalling witch trial that morfs the once-peaceful town of Salem into a cutthroat slaughterhouse. As a lucrative playwright and a not-so-subtle allegory author, Miller is a seasoned wordsmith who addresses people akin to himself, and is not secretive about that information. The Crucible best serves its purpose as a learning device and a social statement, especially at the time of its publishing. Miller‘s piece showcases the appeals in an easy-to-identify manner that is perfect for middle or high school students who are new to the appeals, or for English majors who have no problem pinpointing them, making this play ideal for a classroom setting.
... life and goes back to these girls who turned on her in an instant. Others even confess to witchcraft because, once accused, it is the only way to get out of being hanged. The confessions and the hangings actually promote the trials because they assure townsfolk that God?s work is being done. Fear for their own lives and for the lives of their loved ones drives the townspeople to say and do anything.
A motivation can be described as a character having a reason to behave or act in a particular way. Someone or something can be someone's motivation. A child obeys its parents to avoid punishment or a clerk works overtime so that he can afford a better car are examples of motivation. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, characters illustrate several types of motivations. Throughout the play, Abigail is motivated by jealousy, power, and attention.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.
The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
In the book The Crucible many characters go mad with power. One of this person is Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris niece. Abigail is the president or leader of a group of girls that start accusing people of being witches. Abigail went Mad with Power when she starts to accuse Tituba and Sarah Osborne of being a witch. “She made me do it! She made betty do it!” (Act 1 pg 847). Abigail first tells Hale about the “witches” when Betty, Parris’s daughter, fell into a deep sleep and wouldn’t wake up. She first accused Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn. Later in Act II Abigail goes completely mad with power. In Act II Abigail accuses Mary Proctor of have sent her spirit upon her and stab her with a pin. “Why, Abigail Williams charged her” (Act II
The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is about The Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600’s. The town was placed in hysteria by some of the town girls such as, Abigail, Tituba, and Mary Warren. Certain events in the story led to the widespread of hysteria amongst the town. First, when Abigail pointed her finger to blame Tituba. Second, names of people were mentioned and other events made the town think that the Devil was taking over.
First it started off as a want for boys in salem until one of the girls from Salem tried to turn it into something else by wishing bad things upon a man named Proctor. She wished death upon Proctor’s wife whose name is Elizabeth because she was obsessed with him. After the girls left the woods Abigail williams after being caught Abigail tried to convince the rest of the girls that they were only in the woods dancing as seen on page 148 in lines 353 to 360 which explained that Abigail told the others if anyone ask they were only dancing. So who's to blame? Abigail williams because the lies started with her and because she threatened all the other girls to lie also.
The Crucible, as Originally produced by Arthur Miller in 1953, is a well acclaimed tragedy that still holds reverence today. Given its prestige and overall dramatic richness, it can be understood why the Playmaker’s very own Desdemona Chiang chose to recreate and reimagine the play. The Crucible, being set in Salem Massachusetts, is centered around the spectacle of witch hunts that occurred in the year 1692. As imagined, mass hysteria, fear, and paranoia, occurred because of this. The plot of the play is centered around the protagonist John proctor (Ariel Shafir), a prideful man who finds himself entangled in these bizarre events. Throughout the play, Proctor (Ariel Shafir) and his allies struggle to convince the Salem townspeople of the nonsense and inaccuracies that surround the witch hunts. The conflict of the play has an underlying message as it represents the struggle between reason of the human mind and irrational hysteria. The theme of The Crucible embodies how a community can turn so quickly on one another, and
The Salem Witch Trials were an event where Americans were at their lowest. Whenever someone could be accused of being a witch and was guilty until they were proven innocent. The Crucible is a play written about this time frame where it really shows the mob mentality that everybody can have. The accusation of “witchcraft” spreads through this village putting peoples’ lives at stake just to cover up what some girls are afraid to confess to. Because of the fear through the village of witchcraft, it is believed to be true and people begin to be put on trials. The way the mob can affect a community can be overwhelming to the people in the town and could even tear it apart. Just because of one group of people, it can become chaos. Groups of people are unpredictable and can turn into mobs because people act differently in crowds, one person can affect everybody, and with more people, more things are going to happen.
Of the major characters, Abigail Williams is clearly the villain of the play: she tells lies, manipulates her friends and the entire town, and eventually sends nineteen innocent people to their deaths. Throughout the hysteria, Abigail’s motivations never seem more than simple jealousy and a desire to have revenge on Elizabeth Proctor. When the first girl, Betty Parris, is accused of witchcraft, Abigail is trying to convince her uncle that there is a rumor of witchcraft circulating in town; “Uncle, the rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself”(1130). She convinces him that he should go down talk the rumor, she is attempting to cover her tracks, and shift the attention away from her and the girls. This is the main example of how Abigail is a liar.
In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the 1692 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Abigail is a mean and vindictive person who always wants her way, no matter who she hurts. Through out the play her accusations and lies cause many people pain and suffering, but she seemed to never care for any of them except John Proctor, whom she had an affair with seven months prior to the beginning of the play. John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth used to employ Abigail, until Elizabeth found out the affair and threw Abigail out. Although John told Abigail that the affair was over and he would never touch her again, she tried desperately to rekindle their romance. "Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I'll ever reach for you again." (Page 23) She claimed that she loved John and that he loved her. Before the play began, Abigail tried to kill Elizabeth with a curse. She thought that if Elizabeth were dead John would marry her. Further into the play, Abigail accused Elizabeth of witchcraft. She saw Marry Warren, the Proctor's servant, making a poppet. Mary put a needle into the doll, and Abigail used that for her accusation. She stabbed herself with a needle and claimed that Elizabeth's soul had done it. Although Abigail claimed she loved John, she may have just loved the care and attention he gave her. John cared for her like no one else had. In a way he could be described as somewhat of a father figure to her. When Abigail was just a child, she witnessed her parents' brutal murders. "I saw Indians smash my dear parent's heads on the pillow next to mine..." (page 20) After her traumatic experience, she was raised by her uncle, Reverend Parris, who is somewhat of a villain. In the play it was written, "He (Parris) was a widower with no interest in children, or talent with them." (Page 3) Parris regarded children as young adults who should be "thankful for being permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly lowered, arms at the sides, and mouths shut until bidden to speak." (Page 4) Therefore, it is obvious to see that Abigail grew up without any love or nurturing.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that they were being punished by God himself.