In the novel, The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is centered on false claims of witchcraft in the city of Salem during the late 1600’s. These false claims took a toll on the usual way of life, and changed the characteristics of the entire village, many believed their own family members could not even be trusted. The witch trials are a result of religion, and superstitious culture; sets the tone for numerous characters to believe that killing the witches in the village was to fulfill God’s work. Hysteria was a key piece of evidence in The Crucible. It shows why the allegations spread through the village and resulted in numerous deaths. The word Hysteria means “a situation in which many people behave or react in an extreme or uncontrolled …show more content…
In The Crucible, she is Elizabeth and John Proctor’s servant. Mary was one of the girls seen in the forest dancing and reciting spells with Abigail. Betty fears being punished and pretends to be in a coma, and compelled by the Devil so she can’t wake up. Abigail knows she is not in a coma but makes severe threats to the girls, and mostly putting fear into Betty, and Mary Warren by saying, “And mark this. 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” (WilliamsCollege). When Betty hears the threat in her sleep she continues to play along with Abigail’s accusations to refrain from being killed. Throughout the story Mary Warren and Abigail go head to head with either telling the truth or continue sacrificing others for their lies. In order to turn the suspicion off of her, she and the other girls pretend that a yellow bird in the ceiling of the church is the spirit of Mary Warren. Abagail and the others chant, “But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary...Oh, Mary, this is a black art to change your shape” (WilliamsCollege). The other girls begin to scream and run out of the church, and Mary Warren is so accustom to playing into Abigail’s plan, she does not realize that they are setting her up. She was so fixed into the …show more content…
She is still concerned with covering her numerous lies and getting Mr. Proctor all to herself. Without her, the girls would not have made the false accusations against any of the villagers. They were persuaded by her slickness, and were very convinced that they were really being tormented by the Devil. If Abigail would not have started instigating the situation and just told the truth, many lives could have been saved, and the rumors of them being possessed would have passed with time. It may seem wrong to say that Abigail was the prime suspect and should take most of the blame, but it is safe to say that she took advantage of the situation by using witchcraft and superstition to cover her lies. Everything she did was to protect herself from being seen as the culprit; she did not care about anyone else’s’ life or how she caused havoc. As long as the blame was not on her, she was happy and continued to lust after Mr.
In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, conveys what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true. In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch.
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
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.
Fear holds a great control over any mortal human-being through daunting and restricted words, most commonly seen while anyone is under pressure. While being controlled over fear, you may come to realize that you are being manipulated to the possibilities of a threatened punishment and may also be mislead by lies. Arthur Miller’s classic novel, The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, where a lot of times fear would be used to control anyone to blame another of witchcraft. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller elucidates this through Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Williams, and Mary Warren, that fear holds a great torment on the truth.
and shame. Early in the drama, it is revealed that Proctor has been unfaithful to his wife, Elizabeth, indulging in an extra-marital affair with a servant girl, Abigail. Suspecting the affair, Elizabeth dismisses Abigail amid rumor and innuendo, and Proctor confesses to his wife. The value of truth in their marriage is sorely tested when Elizabeth cannot find it within herself to forgive him. As the chain of events surrounding Abigail and the dancing girls in the forest leads to mounting self-protective lies about their activities, many women in the community, including Elizabeth, are accused of the practice of witchcraft. When the magistrate comes to arrest Elizabeth, the charges revolve around a doll made by servant girl Mary Warren and Abigail’s claim that the doll is Elizabeth’s devilish instrument of torture. Mary Warren’s awakening to the truth about Abigail’s lies causes her to question he...
When Abigail and the girls go against Marry Warren, they pretend that Mary is trying to hurt them through her spirit. They repeat whatever Mary Warren says and act like she will attack them. Mass hysteria can be seen during this scene. Overwhelmed, Mary, who was on John Proctors side, blames everything on him. “No, I love God; I go your way no more. I love God, I bless God. Abby, Abby, I’ll never hurt you more!” (Mary Warren, Act 3, pg. 52) She goes back to Abigail and John Proctor is arrested.
Hysteria is characterized as an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality. Wherever hysteria takes place, it seems to condone distortion of the truth, unfathomable actions, and illogical accusations causing communities to rip apart. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they grown to trust, do things that one would normally find anomalous. People who died in the haste of fear and uncertainty were often unnecessary because fear clouds the judgment and perception of a person.
In Arthur Miller 's famous play The Crucible, innocent people are falsely accused of witchcraft and are killed as a result. Even the thought of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600s would put the whole village into mass hysteria. Mass hysteria refers to collective delusions of threats to society that spread rapidly through rumors and fear. This is the main cause of why so many people were arrested and killed for witchcraft. One way people could save themselves was by falsely confessing to have performed witchcraft. Many people did not do this though. This is because the townspeople were held to very strict moral values and must uphold their good name in society. They did not want a bad reputation. In The Crucible, by Arthur
The crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials and how people react to hysteria created from the fear of witches. In the play, after hysteria breaks out, the Salem government starts persecute and hang people it believes are witches. This prompts people to start to accusing people of witchcraft. Some people who accuse others of committing witchcraft are Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam. They do not accuse people of witchcraft to stop witchcraft, but for personal gain or to hurt others. Thomas Putnam, one of the many characters who takes advantage of the witch trials, is able to use the fear of witches to bend the court to his will. Hysteria causes people to believe claims that are clearly false. This allows Putnam to persecute his enemies. He and many other are able to get away with this because hysteria driven persecutions are not run like regular courts and the fact that witchcraft is an invisible crime allows evidence to be made up. The theme of The Crucible is when any persecution is driven by fear and people can and will manipulate the system so they can gain and hurt another.
The devil is defined as being a spirit or power of evil. In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, numerous citizens of Salem Village are prosecuted and convicted for having made contact with the devil. While historically, the Salem Witch Trials were an effect of greed and vengeance and are said to be false, the devil was indeed present in the town of Salem; he takes the shape of a young girl named Abigail Williams. Abigail depicts her evil spirit and coalition with the devil though her deception of anyone willing to listen, her irrational behavior, and her immoral actions, which directly defy the Puritan church.
The statement,“The Crucible is essentially about courage, weakness, and truth,” is proven true numerous times, throughout the play. The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller, about the true events that happened in Salem, Massachusetts, between the years 1692 and 1693. The Salem witch trials consisted of many hangings, lies, and complete mass hysteria. The citizens of Salem followed the religion of Puritanism, and the ideas of predestination. The root of the mass hysteria comes from their belief in the sense that in something happens then it must have been planned by God. In Miller’s portrayal of the story, Abigail Williams was the ringleader of the witch trials, and she used the idea of predestination to cover up her own sins. Abigail was a very manipulative girl and ruined many lives. John Proctor, Mary Warren, and Elizabeth Proctor were just a few of the victims in Abby’s game. John, Mary, and Elizabeth exhibit the traits courage, weakness, and truth, whether it was in a positive or negative way.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
In The Crucible, the mass hysteria surrounding the witch trials caused paranoia amongst the people of Salem. Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as a symbol and allegory of the fear surrounding the spread of communism during the 1950s in America. The community’s sense of justice was blinded by the mass hysteria and for some, a desire for vengeance and personal gain. The Putnams
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...
The witch hunt in the crucible is initiated when Abigail and her friends fear the consequences of their ‘dancing’ in the forest. This connects to McCarthyism as the HUAC is represented by the judges and the ‘accuses’ (the girls) are representatives of Elia Kazan and others like him. The theocratic society of Salem is what the girls fear as the forest is seen as the devils resting place and the puritan nature of the town forbid dancing as it was seen as ‘vain enjoyment’ which as Miller himself states at the beginning of the novel to not be allowed. The character of Mary Warren begs the girls to just admit they were dancing as “…you’ll only be whipped for dancin’…”, but as Abigail is questioned and Parris mentions the kettle and how he believed “…there to be some movement- in the soup…”, the devil becomes prominent in the conversation. This is due to Abigail fearing that she will be blamed for devil worshipp...