In The Crucible there are many smaller arguments occurring. One of these smaller arguments is trust. This is an argument because consistently John Proctor argues why all of the townspeople trust Abigail and the girls and question everyone except them. John says, “If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers?” (Miller 77). John says this to Hale when his wife, Elizabeth, is accused of witchcraft. John knows that Elizabeth is innocent but no one will question Abigail, which is relating to trust since all of townspeople fully trust Abigail they don’t believe that she would lie about Elizabeth being a witch. When John is talking to Hale and he says, “Is the accuser always holy now?” He is showing that the townspeople praise Abigail for condemning people to prison or to death with no real proof. The people treat her like she is a Saint even though she is lying to them and just trying to get revenge on people that have wronged her. For example, she is condemning Elizabeth because she wants John all for herself. When John is …show more content…
The townspeople are too afraid of the idea of witchcraft and the devil that they are blinded by their fear that they can’t see that there is no evidence and that Abigail could be lying. This fear rules them and causes them to turn on each other and accuse neighbors. Fear can cause anyone to think illogically, which is exactly what happened in The Crucible with the townspeople. They were so scared that they just wanted to get rid of all the witches no matter what evidence there was. They wanted to be safe from the devil since they were such devoted Puritans that they couldn't’ stand the idea of the devil being around them, so they decided to get rid of anyone linked to him. That is how fear ruled through Salem during these witch trials, but trust was still a smaller argument in this
In the crucible to have faith was the test in this play. For this reason is that Abigail acts like she was process. She did that so people can forget about her and her friends dancing in the woods. Also the town didn’t like each other because people will make up rumors about each other. For example in the play Abigail said “I want to open myself! I want the light of God; I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book;
Imagine being accused of something you never did just because someone had something against you. That is exactly what the characters in “The Crucible” were going through. The author, Arthur Miller, used the play as an allegory. He wanted to compare the Salem witch trials to the McCarthyism. McCarthyism, created by Joseph P. McCarthy, was popular during the cold war and it falsely accused people of being a communist with no evidence to support the accusation. It became popular because of the spread of communism in China and Europe. In the United States, anyone could accuse someone of being a communist and could ruin their lives. That is exactly what Miller was trying to portray in “The Crucible.” If someone accused another person of witchcraft their whole lives could be turned upside down. They could even possibly be hanged. Throughout the story there are an abundance of arguments. Most of the arguments come from Act III in the courthouse. The arguments are all different, but they all end up being the same in the sense that people are being falsely accused. The arguments that are like that include Giles accusing Putnam, Proctor accusing Abigail, and Parris accusing Proctor.
In the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller there are prominent examples of doubt in the second act. Act 2 talks about a married man named John Proctor, who is rumored to have had intimate relations with Abigail Williams. Abigail is a young girl who still believes Proctor has feelings for her even after he denies their affair in hopes to save his reputation. In addition, Proctor is married to Elizabeth, who begins to question her husband’s relationship with Abigail. During Act 2, Elizabeth loses all faith that Proctor did not have an affair when he admitted he had been alone with Abigail for a moment. Elizabeth believes Proctor would testify against Abigail’s false accusations about the women of Salem being witches if he did not have
Under the assumption that John Proctor is actively search for something “honest” and noble in him at this point, he is on the course of completely escaping from his nihilism. To continue with John’s progress in this phase, his “honesty”, mentioned in the previous paragraph, can be two things. On the one hand, it would be an acknowledgement of John’s vanity and evilness of character, so avoidance of a saintly death (which would be “a pretense” for him), but confession to a lie “that was not rotten long before”, and thus subsequent punishment for his sins, therefore relief and peace through the shame and besmirching of such a confession. The sense of being finally genuine, after having suffered from the paralyzing notions of being a fraud and
John Proctor also lies throughout The Crucible. Although he has come clean to his wife, Elizabeth, about his love affair with Abigail, it is still a secret to the rest of the citizens of Salem. John is severely ashamed of his act of adultery, and has trouble admitting it to himself. When Elizabeth suggests early on,”I think you must tell him[Hale], John” (Miller 67), Proctor evades admitting the truth to Reverend Hale of his affair even though it could have been a valid excuse for the Proctor family’s lack of attendance at church and John’s inability to say the commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” In Act III, when John finally is forced to admit his clandestine affair with Abigail to the court, nobody believes him. Because John has waited so long to confess his affair, it just looks like a poor attempt to save him and Elizabeth from the indictments. If John had divulged the secret of his affair earlier on, people might scorn him for his sin, but he would have evaded the allegations of witchcraft.
After a day or two Abigail had managed to accuse so many girls that they started putting them in jail. Elizabeth makes a comment about how many girls are in the jail, “John, with so many in the jail, more than Cheever’s help is needed now, I think…” (Act 2, pg 1168, lines 17-18) If Mr. Proctor could bring to mind that putting people in jail doesn’t solve the problem, then maybe she would slow down on her accusations. There is a chance, however, that Abigail not be affected by John, but she seemed so attached to him that he could persuade her into anything if he
The central argument of the play, The Crucible, is targeting the idea that dark urges and secret motives may be the cause of radical behavior. In Act One, Abigail mentions to the other girls that they must not speak a word of the things that they actually did in the woods. Abigail 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 and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you... I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down.” (Miller 19). With this statement, she aims to hide the truth in order to start and grow hysteria within the village. The dark motive behind Abigail and the other girls’ bizarre behavior is to ultimately have Elizabeth Proctor out of the picture and John Proctor to herself. Furthermore, in Act Four, Hale pleads with Elizabeth to persuade John to confess that he is working with the devil. Hale reasons, “I would save your husband’s life, for if he is taken I count myself his murderer... I have sought a Christian way, for damnation’s doubled on a minister who counsels men to lie... will you plead with him?” (Miller 122). From this excerpt, it shows Hale and the court officials’ reasons to coax the convicted to confess that they are witches. Throughout the court proceedings, the judges and ministers have realized that they may have condemned innocent people. Therefore, they are forcing people to lie through confession and allow the blood to be
People believe that actions happen for many different reasons and tend to blame others before themselves. Some believe that the devil is doing the work in the body of someone else, and some believe that the devil does not, and some even believe in witchcraft. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, nineteen innocent people are hung for accusations of performing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. A group of young girls go out into the woods which is forbidden in Salem. They are sent into a frenzy when the town’s reverend, Parris, spots them dancing in the woods. The girls are led by Abigail Williams, a young teenage girl who lives with her uncle, reverend Parris. Abigail is not the most truthful girl, which ends up causing 19 innocent people their lives. Previous to these events, Abigail was a servant in the Proctor household, but was sent off after Elizabeth Proctor found out about the affair between Abigail and her husband, John Proctor. In Abigail’s case the more lies she told, the more lives she ended.
If it were not because of the self-preserving and greedy nature, also the paranoia of the people in Salem, the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 would most likely not have occurred. One of those people is Reverend Parris, who is the minister of the church in The Crucible. All Reverend Parris cares about is his reputation/good name and the amount of wealth he has. He is paranoid that there is a faction of townspeople that are trying to get him thrown out of his position. Because of his need to preserve his good name he goes along with the false proceedings of the witch trials. In the end he starts to doubt the trials for the same reason. He also suppresses evidence that would have discredited the court, but
In The Crucible, the townspeople are afraid of witches and will punish anyone that is potentially one, even if they are innocent. “I have seen too many frightful proofs in court—the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points!”(Hale). The people of Salem will take every chance they get to eliminate a potential witch, and all they
All of this relates back to the theme of the, The Crucible to not believe in false accusations, because that’s exactly what happened even though the opposite should’ve happened when Tituba got accused and Abby was the guilty one. Another part of the story to show the theme is when Rebecca Nurse is being accused and even though this is so odd because everyone knows how good of a soul Rebecca is they still believe it just because someone accused her. It is explained here in the text, “You will never believe, I hope, that Rebecca trafficked with the Devil. Hale: Woman it is possible”(32). This part of the story shows the theme, because Rebecca is being falsely accused but everyone is still going along with it. Arthur Miller writes about why he wrote the crucible and says, “There was bad blood between the two women now”(3). Miller is talking about Abigail and Elizabeth in this part about how Elizabeth fired Abigail and now Abby is accusing John of witchcraft. This can explain the theme, because since those two have bad blood between them you can guess that Abby’s accusation is not the truth. This shows to not believe in false accusations, because they could be accusing someone for other reasons than just witchcraft. All in all the theme in The Crucible is to not believe in false accusations or accusations that had no proof, all these examples from the story showed it well because all the
“Reputation is important in the theocratic Salem, where public and private moralities are one and the same. Focused on maintaining public reputation, the townsfolk of Salem must fear that the sins of their friends and associates will taint their names.” “Reputation is the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something”
Individuals leave God in control of determining the future and does nothing in their power to correct their wrongdoings, thinking that karma will catch up to the ones who deserves the most. Dishonesty and religion being the key themes of this book, most characters in The Crucible lie at some point; if not to other people, then to themselves. For example, Abigail and the girls lie about her ability to see spirits, Proctor cheats on his wife and then hides it, and the judges misrepresent themselves to everyone in the town by saying that they serve the cause of God’s justice. People keep a secret to save themselves from having to face consequences. Furthermore, known for their religious purposes, Salem uses god’s name for unholy causes, using it for one’s benefit and for their corrupt reasons. During the witch trials, to be accused means to be found guilty. By telling the truth, “I am not a witch”, one faces a death penalty, but one can also gain freedom, if and only if he or she retains their standing with God. God does not punish people who lie; instead he shows them supremacy in the town. In the book, Abigail
In the story “The Crucible” Abigail and her cousin are accused of being witches. IN act one it states “We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it” (Abigail Page 1). They got caught dancing and doing things they were forbidden to do. Since that day the entire town thinks of then as witches. That being said Abigail tries to make things right. Additionally in act one Abigail states “let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word about a thing or I will came to you in the black of some terrible night” (Page 19). From there forward Abigail started to accuse Tituba. Tituba then confessed “He say Mr. Parris must be killed! And No! I don’t hate that man. I don’t want to kill that man”. But he says, “You work for me, Tituba, and I make you free!”(Page 44).This confession and accession give’s Abigail and Betty a chance to act Innocent and accuse random people as well.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a historical play set in 1962 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. As you may know, you've all placed your trust in the words and actions of someone close to you. And what do they do? They betray you! It's rarely justified, and can happen to the best of us. Based on authentic records of witchcraft trials in the seventeenth-century this play explains how a small group of girls manage to create a massive panic in their town by spreading accusations of witchcraft. These rumors in turn are the causes that many citizens are hung for. This essay will show how the lies and betrayal of a few individuals eventually leads to the downfall of Salem and its society.