What Does Mary Warren Mean In The Crucible

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The Crucible Essay In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller explores the topic of fear and how it can be used to silence people or force them into false testimony. In this play we can see the fear of witchcraft and becoming condemned, or having a family member condemned, can take over a person and get them to act unusually. Mary Warren makes the decision to switch between siding with the girls and with Proctor out of fear for her life, yet only some of her decisions are justified as only sometimes she was trying to make the right decision and others were to save herself. Mary Warren is justified in her decision to switch from the girls side to Proctor’s as she was trying to make the right decision even though her fear was holding her back. Mary Warren finds it very hard to side with Proctor, but he tells her “You’re coming to the court with me, Mary.” Mary cries out “I cannot charge murder on Abigail…she’ll kill me for sayin’ that!” (Act 2, 107) Even though Mary Warren had the fear of being …show more content…

Out of fear she screams at Proctor “You’re the Devil’s man!” she says “I’ll not hang with you! I love God, I love god.”(Act 3, 124) She believes it was better to lie and accuse innocent people out of fear of saving herself, instead of telling the truth and trying to save the other townspeople, even if she died in the process. The decision is not justified as her fear made her focus on saving herself. She is so frightened she rushes to Abby with the promise of “I’ll never hurt you no more!”(Act 3, 125) Mary’s fear forced her into falsely accusing others and making bad decisions such as siding with Abby again. Mary Warren was going hysterical with fright, causing her to make what was the easiest decision for her. As she was just trying to get herself out of trouble, the decision she made is not

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