The concept of escape has a simple meaning: to break loose from confinement or to get free. The ideas that usually come to mind upon hearing this is to get away from a certain place, and to some people it may be escape from authority. But the definition of escaping is not only confined to leaving a physical place, escaping also stretches to the mind. Often times identifying mental escape is harder than physical escape due to its more complex interpretations. Nonetheless, both types are found in many things from books such as the “The Glass Castle”, a memoir by Jeannette Wall, and “The Crucible”, a play by Arthur Miller, to society itself. With careful and in depth analysis, escape does have several different meanings depending on the situation …show more content…
The play is filled with characters that make false accusations in order to gain what they want and to evade punishment, or worse, death. The theme of escape is quite evident from the start when Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris’ niece, and the other girls begin accusing women in the village of dealing with the Devil. Back then, the people of Salem were highly religious people and condemned anyone who isn’t with the church or with God. So why would the girls shout out false accusations? Well, prior to the accusations the girls were discovered by Reverend Parris in the woods the night before, just fooling around and casting “spells” for fun. But the following day, two of the girls, including Betty, Parris’ daughter, would not wake up from their sleep. The adults were all concerned and confused and some claimed that it was the Devil’s work, and so a professional, Reverend Hale was brought in for investigation. Fearing that one of the girls will confess to what happened in the woods, Abigail falsely admits that she did deal with the Devil and starts accusing villagers, crying out, “I want to open myself!” and “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”(Miller 1.48). The other girls present follow her lead, all fearing the consequences they would have to face for fooling around in the woods, and thus escaping punishment. Furthermore, more examples of escaping is seen by many of the accused witches. If the accused witches do not confess to witchcraft they are automatically hanged, but if they confess their lives will be spared. Many of the accused confess so that they may escape from death and live, people like Tituba in Act 1 page 45 when she admits,, “ I don’t know sir, but the Devil got him numerous witches.” (Miller 1.45), further amplifying the lie. But lying is a sin that God
Quote Analysis: Miller tells us that Reverend Parris, “like the rest of Salem, never conceived that the children were anything but thankful for being permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly lowered, arms at the sides, and mouths shut until bidden to speak.” Children in Salem were expected to be happy and content with the strict theocratic society they live in. When Abigail and the other girls were found disobeying puritan laws and dancing naked in the forest, it was outrageous and unbelievable that they would rebel against the laws.
In the Town of Salem Massachusetts, 1692, a group of adolescents are caught dancing in the forest. Among the adolescents in The Crucible, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren. The girls are horrified that they have been caught dancing, a sinful act, therefore they devise a story to evade punishment: they claim to have been bewitched. The first person who they accuse of witchcraft is a the black maid, Tituba. This results in her jail sentence as well as fearful suspicion throughout the town. Arthur Miller demonstrates the impact of lying as the girls recognise and manipulate their power in the town. Lead by Abigail, they go further, claiming countless others guilty and dooming them to exile. Miller demonstrates that there power is so great that even when Mary attempts to stand against her friends, she is quickly overwhelmed and once again plays along with their trickery. As the girls’ conspiracy continues, controversy arise over their truthfulness; people choose sides often lying themselves to support their side, further altering the lives of all involved.
... 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.
In Act 1, Scene 1 of the Crucible, Arthur Miller’s theme is evident when Abigail worryingly puts all the blame on tituba because she knows that Tituba’s race puts her at a disadvantage, thus leading to tituba lying for her own safety. Passionately trying to seek answers Parris threateningly screams, “ You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!”(Miller 24) Tituba fearfully replies, “ No--no, don’t hang Tituba. I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir.” (24). In the quote, Parris didn’t like that tituba didn’t tell him she dealt with the devil so he threatened to kill her. Historically whipping was a method to abuse or punish slaves for misbehaving. After the beatings if still alive the slaves will suffer mental and physical distress. This image of a brutal death
It was easier for them to blame the devil for the problems of society than fix the problems of their own strict way of life. So the girls involved with Abigail, like Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren, named many people in the town as witches. These people were put in jail and would be hanged if they did not confess to the crime of devil worship or witchcraft. Another part of the developing plot is that John Proctor knows Abigail and her friends are lying, but he is afraid to say anything because eight months before he had an affair with Abigail and did not want to be seen by the town as a lecher, which means wife cheater. So, Mr. Proctor has to fight with himself to come out and tell the truth, or his wife might die because of Abigail saying she was a witch.
The people of Salem, Massachusetts wanted to do more than repeat the same things everyday. People of Salem Town claimed that a “Rampant fear among the Puritans in the New England village of Salem sparked attacks against anyone who was suspected of witchcraft.” (History.com “Salem Witch Trials”) yet, it is likely most of the people, accused or not, knew that the accused weren’t witches. People have said that the Betty and/or Abigail were just sick and were being pressured to see if they were being bewitched by so called “witches” to be acting like they were and seeing what they saw. More and more accusers, mostly children, were being caught, but still recanted(page 96). As the judges were being rapt(page 70) listeners, they were wasting their time listening to the attention-hungry accusers. Most accusers used “spectral evidence” so they could get away with saying lies that sounded worthy of execution and “Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence, his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials.” (History.com”Salem Witch Trials”). The girls fervently(page 65) said that the accused were indeed witches, trying to act believable and they succeeded. The accuser’s “belief in the power of the accused to use their invisible shapes or spectres to torture their victims had sealed the fates of those tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer.” (Salem Witch Museum “ The 1692 Salem Witch Trials”) and brought sadness to
...nsequences for their thought about actions. Hopefully growing strong and overpowering the weakness in their life. Similar circumstances also occur in other aspects of life. For example I myself would like to go to a specific university, though I was not excepted. With this I must attend a near by community college for two years increasing my chances of getting into the university. It is hard to escape not going to the community college if I know my chances will be better attending the community college. The idea of “escape” can be portrayed in several different ways.
Confessions within the play The Crucible are driven essentially by fear and are not based on the truth. Arthur Miller uses the concept of self-benefiting confession to show the dark side of Salem, creating a sense of dramatic tension and suspense. The confessions are used to drive the play towards the objective of Miller’s story, the crumbling of the Salem community and continuous hangings. Within the play The Crucible confessions are seen as a sign of purity as admitting guilt suggests personally extricating the devil. However, the confessions create a climate of frenzy and cause Salem community members to accuse others of witchcraft to save themselves. The confessions bring the case of witchery from the court to the homes of the villagers. Tituba, Reverend Parris’ slave, is one of the first characters to confess, after being falsely accused by Abigail Williams. Tituba ‘is in her forties, from Barbados’ (Act Ι, pg. 6), she is an intelligent woman who observes that if she were to confess to being an agent of the devil, the village, Reverend Hale and members of the church would forgive her and try to find other agents of the devil within the community. Abigail ‘a strikingly beautiful girl, aged seventeen and an orphan with an endless capacity for dissembling’ (Act Ι, pg.6) notices this and decides to follow Tituba. As she sees this as an escape, Abigail commences to falsely accuse female villagers of Salem, such as; Goody Proctor. In this case, her accusations and confessions are purely for her benefit, her life and to re-ignite her love affair wi...
Throughout history, there have been many times where we have been unable to escape the inevitable. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller displays a major historical event of the 17th century, the Salem Witch Trials. In the story, the antagonist, Abigail Williams, has an affair with John Proctor. When Proctor will not leave his wife, Elizabeth, for the girl, Abigail gathers her friends in the woods to wish death upon Elizabeth. Abigail’s uncle, Reverend Parris, finds them in the woods and instead of owning up to what they were doing, the girls claim they were under the influence of witchcraft. From there, they begin accusing people in the town of being witches. The witch trials in The Crucible were inevitable because Abigail was unwilling to ruin her reputation, she displayed unfavorable character traits, and she had personal rivalries with other characters in the town.
Fear also played an important role in The Crucible. The girls were afraid of being accused as witches themselves, so they started accusing other people in the town of being witches. Moreover, many people who were accused of being witches confessed to being witches because they were scared of death. People who confessed to witchcraft and dealing with the devil only stayed in the jail for a short time while others who refused to give in were hanged. Towards the end of the play, Abigail and Mercy ran away with huge amounts of money because they were afraid that if the authorities found out that they were lying they would be punished severely.
In Arthur Miller’s story The Crucible (1953), he asserts that deadly rumors and false beliefs lead to innocent deaths. These deaths total up to 19 souls hanged away from Salem, MA due to “witchcraft”. All the witchcraft talk began when Reverend Parris, Salem’s minister, caught his very own slave, Tituba, dancing in the forest along with many other girls one evening. These girls are known to be Abigail Williams, Mary Warren, Susana Walcott, Betty Parris, and plenty other wild girls of Salem. These young women seem to praise Tituba during the dance which lead them to act in an insane and unwomanly manner. They run around like psychos, yell from the top of their lungs, get undressed, and place
The people in Salem were ruled by the fear being killed. All the lying that occurred in Salem began the build of fear. Abigail is the main character that caused the lying. Her first lie starts in the beginning of the book after being caught dancing with other girls in the woods. Abigail herself feared the consequences she would face if the town found out about what happened in the forest. She made sure to threaten all the girls by saying “...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…” (Miller 20). Her threat established a fear into the girls’ heads that would prevent them from their normal action of telling the truth. Following this event Abigail must save her reputation, In order to do this she lies to Reverend Hale saying “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!”(Miller 43). Abigail's accusation toward Tituba also leads to the accusation of Sarah Good and Goody Osburn. The way Abigail acted was a result of fear, if she feared nothing bad would come from telling the truth then she wouldn't have lied. The girls may have set the wi...
The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a series of trials held before a magistrate which took place in many parts of Massachusetts, revolving around what was thought to be practice of witchcraft or “Devil’s magic.” Many girls from the town of Salem, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris in particular, falsely accused other townsfolk of possessing them or practicing witchcraft. The government officials of this town believed that the girls were telling the truth about what they claimed to have seen/know and their random outbursts caused by this “demonic possession” or having a spell put on them. This scam led on by a couple of teenage girls ultimately ended up taking the lives of 20 people before it was demanded to stop by higher Massachusetts government officials and the cases were proved as a mistake. Since then, many psychologists, philosophers, and historians have tried to figure out the motive of the teenage girls.
Being isolated from any other group of people with different beliefs created a church led Puritan society that was not able to accept a lot of change. The church was against the devil, at the same time it was against such things as dancing and other premature acts. The reputation of the family was very important to the members of the community. When the girls were caught dancing in the woods, they lied to protect not just themselves but the reputation of their families. They claimed that the devil took them over and influenced them to dance. The girls also said that they saw members of the town standing with the devil. A community living in a puritan society like Salem could easily go into a chaotic state and have a difficult time dealing with what they consider to be the largest form of evil.
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...