More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of john proctor and elizabeth relationship
Proctor's relationship with Abigail
Analysis of john proctor and elizabeth relationship
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Analysis of john proctor and elizabeth relationship
When Proctor says, “Vengeance is walking Salem” (77), he mainly talks about how Abigail is taking this opportunity to attempt at getting rid of Elizabeth Proctor. By accusing Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft, Abigail sees a way to legally get rid of Mrs. Proctor. However, this doesn't only extend to Abigail's selfish needs. The witch trials have become a tool to eliminate enemies and competition. An example of this vengeance is Mrs. Putnam accusing Rebecca Nurse of witchcraft. Mrs. Putnam holds a grudge on Nurse because her babies died when Nurse was the midwife. As an act of revenge, Mrs. Putnam accuses Rebecca Nurse of witchcraft and tries to pay her back by taking her life through the legal system.
Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer. This book was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Richard Godbeer examines the witch trials in the seventeenth century. When a young girl Katherine Branch of Stamford, Connecticut is stricken with unexplainable convulsions, her master and mistress begin to think it is caused by something supernatural. Godbeer follows the incident without any bias and looks into how the accusations and trials are handled by the townspeople and the people in charge of handling the trails. Godbeer’s purpose of writing this book is to prove that Salem was not the norm. Godbeer’s approach of only one using one case, slightly weakens his effectiveness that Salem was not the norm.
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
Abigail's necessity for revenge makes her threaten the young ladies into following her idea of deception. “Let either of you breathe a word,” Abigail threatens, “or the edge of a word about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you”(835). Abigail knows that all the girls in the woods fear her to death. Which made the witch trials easier for her to get by. Another thing is that Abigail ends her affair with John Proctor to try to get revenge on him. “A man may think God
Communists or witches to obtain, something they crave, power. No one actually has hard evidence to support these accusations, including the accusers. The more people they accuse the bigger the lies get. The girls in Salem begin to cry out that these witches are sending their spirits on them. The even go to the extent to start shivering, passing out, and mocking the accused as they walk into the room. Abigail Williams also sabotages, Elizabeth Proctor, one of the women she accuses of being a witch. When Abigail witnesses Marry Warren, the Proctors servent and one of the accusers, making a puppet and sticking a needle in it’s stomach for safe keeping Abigail knew it would be taken to her home at the Proctors. So she decides to claim she was stuck with a pin by Elizabeth Proctor through the technique of voodoo and Elizabeth is arrested that night for witchery.
In the novella of The Crucible by Arthur Miller vengeance is walking Salem in causing several conflicts throughout the Salem village. Many of the conflicts are due with getting back at one another with the need for revenge. “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 81). This quote is trying to prove the point the proctor has a very good understanding of what is happening in how the little girls are rebelling and acting out. They are accusing several women of being witches. “Why, Abigail Williams charge her” (Miller 77). The quote is trying to show how many of the girls are calling out the wives in the Salem village.
Elizabeth Proctor is being judged unfairly in the book The Crucible. She's being treated unfair while at her home, because she is being blamed for witchcraft. Abigail williams had accused her of being a witch, because she wants her out the picture, so she being with John Proctor. She is also being accused of stabbing Abigail with a needle with her spirits while Abigail was eating dinner at her house with Rev. Parris, & Gov. Danforth, and Judge Hathorne. Abigail had gotten stabbed in stomach two inches deep, and when Ezekiel Cheever and Marshal Herrick showed up at the Proctor house they had a warrant for Elizabeth. While Cheever and Herrick were at the Proctor house, Cheever had asked for any poppets she may have, and she says that she hasn't
..., Proctor, I never warranted seeing such proof of hell, and I bid you obstruct me not, for I-.” Abigail’s revenge is a success and Elizabeth Proctor is arrested. Proctor is mad, he knows Abigail did this and now wants revenge on her. On page 63, he speaks of his anger over the court and wants the girls to be punished. “I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always wee in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!” He highlights how he is so furious with Salem over what it has become. He states that it the children are now running the place – jangling the keys and writing the laws. He is mad at the Parish for letting the children’s games make them so gullible, leading to the arrest of his wife.
For example, as a result of the lie Sarah is put in the position by the court that she may either confess to the crime and save herself or not confess and get hung. The act also affects the town of Salem because the girls notice how much influence they have over the court and begin to accuse of witchcraft anyone they do not like. Although Mary Warren does contribute to the hanging of many people, but when Proctor begs to her to go to the court with him and confess to save Elizabeth, she gets a chance to redeem herself. She tells the court that the whole witchery situation was just the girls pretending. Mary says, “I cannot charge murder on Abigail” and adds, “[s]he’ll kill me for sayin’ that!”
Reverend Parris’ fear of losing his job provokes him to cry witch. Reverend Parris’ daughter feigns to be in a coma. When the doctor bade Susanna tell Reverend Parris that he “might look to unnatural things for the cause of it” (9), he denies that possibility because he fears that rumors of witchcraft under his roof would help his “many enemies” (10) to drive him from his pulpit. Later, by supporting the Salem witch trials, Reverend Parris secures his position in the church. When John Proctor brings a deposition to court signed by Mary Warren that calls Abigail and her girls’ frauds, Reverend Parris urgently tells Judge Danforth that “they’ve come to overthrow the court” (88). When Mary Warren cannot faint in court, Reverend Parris accuses her of being “a trick to blind the court” (107). After Abigail pretends that Mary Warren is attacking her, Reverend Parris spurs on the accusations by telling her to “cast the Devil out” (118). Reverend Parris fears that if Abigail becomes exposed he will be punished for supporting an illegitimate court procedure. When execution day arrives, Reverend Parris fears that the “rebellion in Andover” (127) over hangings will occur similarly in Salem. Reverend Parris pleads to Hathorne that “. . . it were another sort that we hanged till now . . . these people have great weight yet in the town” (127). Reverend Parris’ last attempt at preserv...
The witch trials are also metaphorically a melting pot, again, for people's grudges, and their seeking of revenge. The play shows us also how people can give into their fear and superstition. The trials are not really about witchcraft, Abigail admits to John in private how the witchery is a hoax 'We were dancing in the woods last night and my uncle leaped out on us. She took fright, is all'. As she says this she is confident and relates the situation with a wicked air of control. This not to say people in Salem do not believe in the supernatural. Although many people in The Crucible believe in witches, many Salem residents simply take advantage of the...
For the case of Abigail Williams, she made use of the paranoia of the witchcraft trials to her advantage to carry out personal vengeance against Elizabeth Proctor. Firstly, she amplifies the townsfolk’s’ fear of the supernatural by pretending she was being attacked by witches. By pretending she was being attacked by an invisible bird sent out by Mary Warren (“why do you come, yellow bird?”) and accusing countless people of witchcraft, Abigail sows discord and fear amongst the staunch Puritian villagers, by making them suspicious of one another and addressing their fear of the unknown. She then manipulates their fear and paranoia to work to her advantage. Since act 1, the author has shown that Abigail has harboured a hatred of Elizabeth Proctor (“It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman”) partly because she was fired from the Proctors’ service, and maybe also because she wants John...
Vengeance is the main theme of The Crucible. The people of the town of Salem were not united, but instead, distrusted and disliked each other. During the court trials, the girls started accusing certain people that they didn't like of dealing with witchcraft. For example, Abigail Williams couldn't forget John Proctor even though their affair was over. She believed that if his wife, Elizabeth Proctor, was out of the way, Abigail and John would be together again. Therefore, she told everyone that Elizabeth's spirit was trying to kill her and accused Elizabeth of being a witch.
John Proctor and Reverend Hale are similar as they have both detected the corruption beneath the witchcraft accusations and attempt to prevent false testimonies and innocent people being hanged. John Proctor easily realizes the truth of the witchcraft trials because of his affair with Abigail Williams, one of the leading culprits of the hysteria in Salem. Abby exclaims that “Elizabeth hates me, uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave. It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman” (Miller 12). Abigail feels this way, not because Elizabeth has mistreated her, but instead because Elizabeth is Proctor’s wife, a nuisance to Abigail and Proctor’s relationship. Additionally, after Elizabeth found out about the affair, she fired Abigail, thus ridding Abigail
In The Crucible, two characters that serve as a foil for each other are Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail. Elizabeth Proctor is known as an honest woman, while Abigail is consistently seen as a dishonest person whose lies result in the widespread paranoia of the Salem witch trials. For instance, after she dances in the forest with other girls, she forbids them from telling the townsfolk about it and accuses other people of witchcraft, which leads to their deaths. Another example is the fact that she had an affair with John Proctor, Elizabeth’s husband, and tries to conceal it because she does not want her reputation to get ruined. Her motive for accusing others of witchcraft is because she wants to get rid of Elizabeth so that she could be John’s “perfect wife,” and because she does not want to get in trouble. Abigail is the perfect foil for anyone who is even slightly honest.
John Proctor, whether consciously or not, constantly determines the path to his fate through his actions, choices, and judgment. Though overall he is an honorable and principled man, he is flawed by one crucially harmful past deed to his reputation—his committing of adultery with seventeen-year-old Abigail Putnam. In a final attempt to save his wife from the accusation of witchcraft, he admits to his crime of lechery, by which he plans to unveil Abigail’s true motive for accusing his wife Elizabeth: “A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that…She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it, I set myself entirely in your hands” (Miller 113). This merely warrants him harshly disapproving views from his puritanical peers, and not even this act of utter honesty and sacrifice can reverse the witch trial hysteria that his affair with Abigail sparked. Both he and his wife Elizabeth are jailed, he is hanged, and Abigail maintains po...