One of the strongest, most intuitive, and most influential feelings that most individuals encounter throughout their lives is fear. Many people let their fear take control of them, leading them to act dishonestly or irrationally. In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, Salem, Massachusetts, is a feeding ground for hysteria and fear. Throughout the entire play, several characters could have done more to put an end to the hysteria in Salem. For example, Abigail Williams should have been honest from the start; Mary Warren, who participated in the false accusations, chose to faithfully continue her lies rather than being fearless and seizing the opportunity to put an end to all of the lies; and Reverend Hale, who is knowledgeable about witchcraft …show more content…
Abigail knew from the beginning that her acts and falsehoods were immoral, yet she decided to keep doing them to portray herself as a saint. Before the performance began, the town's panic and fear of witchcraft had not yet spread, giving Abigail the chance to confess without suffering severe consequences, “I want to open myself!... I want the light of God!... I danced for the Devil;” (Page 595, Line 481, “The Crucible”). Nonetheless, she threatened the girls around her, “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,” (Page 575, “The Crucible” Act 1, Line 160). Although there was still time before the issue became too difficult to handle, Abigail made the other girls involved lie, instead of giving them the option to speak the truth. The notion of witchcraft would not have existed in the town if Abigail hadn't made the girls lie and instead told the girls' story straight. For her self-serving ends, Abigail persisted in her falsehoods about witchcraft, which led to a widespread panic that would never have taken hold if she had been honest from the …show more content…
Mary Warren was described as "a subservient, naive, lonely girl" at the beginning of "The Crucible" (Page 574, Act 1, Line 142) but as the trials go on, she starts to think highly of herself. Mary intended to tell the truth about the atrocities she and the other girls committed from the start, but she gives in to Abigail's pressure and lies throughout most of the play. Mary did give in to the truth for a little period throughout the trials, although she nearly fully fabricates the charges. Mary tries to explain to the court authorities that all of the charges were pretense with John Proctor's assistance. Mary grows a little braver and makes an effort to expose the lies behind the charges. Abigail and the other girls act as though Mary is enchanting them while chatting with the court officials. Mary begs them to stop, but the girls keep up the façade. Mary is interrogated brutally by the judges, and instead of speaking out for the truth, she turns on John Proctor and declares, "You're the Devil's man!" (Page 654, Act 3, Line 500, "The Crucible"). Mary Warren diverts attention away from herself and onto John Proctor rather than disclosing the facts as
Abigail’s lies have caused many issues, but the lie that not only was she not dancing and conjuring spirits with Tituba and the other girls, but that she was nowhere near the forest where the girls were. Even though she says later to the other girl’s that no one can find out. Although it’s not sure if anyone found out, the reader knows this, and can’t help but think about her involvement in it. Because of this, Abigail should be thought of as a manipulative schemer, and
Abigail Williams, the antagonist, and John Proctor, the protagonist, carry opposing viewpoints concerning their strict and somewhat suffocating Puritan principles; Abigail secretly disobeys them, while John fights against the wrongs enveloped in their standards during the witchcraft trials, which leads to timeless, crucial comprehensions. To begin, Abigail has a poor relationship with the Puritan standards as she goes against the Puritan values and practices in a completely outrageous and betraying fashion. She has neither respect nor loyalty towards Puritanism and allows the excitement and hype of “crying witchcraft” go to her head. Abigail is able to manipulate those around her into believing she is the victim in every situation. In The Crucible, it is stated that Abigail is “a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling.
Through her false accusations, Abigail stirred up hysteria among the villagers, resulting in an escalating cycle of paranoia and suspicion. Despite feeling remorse for the chaos caused by her lies, Abigail ultimately stands by them until the very end of the movie. For example, Abigail started the witch trial in The Crucible by fabricating stories of witchcraft. She spread rumors that she and other girls had been attacked by witches, leading to a wave of paranoia and suspicion among the villagers. When questioned about her lies, Abigail used manipulation tactics to convince the court
Abigail is vengeful, selfish, manipulative, and overall a magnificent liar. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible American play from the 1990s reveals how hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe false claims. In The Crucible mass hysteria is shown to allow the people of Salem to believe that their neighbors who they considered outstanding people are now committing absurd and unbelievable acts. I believe that Abigail Williams could have ended the mass hysteria in Salem by coming forward and telling the truth about what happened in the woods with the other girls, not accusing innocent people of witchcraft, and admitting to pretending she was bewitched.
This is one example of Mary Warren’s cowardly nature. She contradicts herself throughout the play with a lack of structural values that the audience, or even other characters, can rely on her for. Her weak nature becomes a source of frustration on several occasions, such as at the end of Act II, when after a long struggle between herself and everyone else in the court, Mary turns completely against John Proctor and proclaims that he is, “...the Devil‘s man!” This is a much different claim than the one she made when first arriving in the court, and when speaking to John himself. This shows why Mary Warren is a character most notable for her weakness and
In Act III of the Crucible many of the characters feel compelled through desperation to lie because they feel like that is the only way to get the people they care about out of trouble. Since this whole thing started from a lie, whether it was a lie to God about adultery or a lie to get out of trouble when doing witchcraft. All the problems seem to be coming from Abigail. Mary warren had to lie because Abigail threatened her in Act I, Abigail said if you tell anyone what we were really doing ill hurt you. So Mary lied about it how she isn’t hurting Abigail through the bird at first and whenever she realized if she didn’t do anything then she was going to be killed.
Her manipulations were powerful enough to brainwash a crowd, leading others to believe everything she said. Her clever assumptions deceived the girls of Salem into mimicking Mary Warren's words (Act 3, Line 471, HMH). Mary, a frightened young girl, was one of the many accused women in Massachusetts. Abigail portrayed Mary’s character as one who participates in witchcraft, which allowed her to lead others into her trap: believing that Mary Warren is a witch. This has resulted in an act of peer pressure, causing a chain reaction in the community.
The first lesson that people can learn by reading The Crucible is not to always trust what the majority of people perceive as correct. In many aspects of the play, people believe that there is witchcraft in Salem. This sends the town into mass hysteria and intensifies the situation. Though Hale, at the start of The Crucible, has preconceived ideas of the whole situation, his perspective even changes. In the beginning,
Throughout all of the court hearings, if Abigail would say or do something all of the girls would follow her. If she would tell one of the girls to do something, they automatically did it without a question. In Act 3 on page forty three Mary Warren says, “I cannot, they’ll turn on me.” John Proctor wanted Mary Warren to turn Abigail in for lying but Mary Warren was too afraid of what Abigail and the other girls might do to her. In Act 1 on page twenty 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.
Mary Warren makes an appearance as a character in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. She works as John Proctor’s maid and is one of the accusers in the witch hunt led by Abigail Williams. Mary Warren is a very weak character who gives in to pressure quite regularly. One of the most egregious examples of someone giving in to peer pressure is when Mary Warren decides to accuse Proctor and assert that he is working with the devil. Mary sputters under the strain of the court and points at the Proctor.
In the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, the character Abigail Williams is an orphan who likes to keep her private life a secret to where no one knows what she is doing. Abigail is the type of character that likes to lie about the things that she does, and blames things on others to make sure she is not being suspected of any wrong doings. She makes sure that if people are suspecting her in any type of way then she has an excuse to prove them wrong that she is the innocent one. Abigail Williams is lying throughout the whole play. Her motivation to keep her reputation throughout the play is to lie, or cover up the sins and wrongdoings that she does.
These lies are the basis for issues in our society today like gossip magazines, and social media. UsWeekly is one of the largest gossip magazines in the US and has some of the same ethics as Abigail. They don't care who they hurt or what damage is caused from the news spread, just that the views and subscriptions are up. This causes people to believe what they see and not to actual fact check what they are seeing. This carried from the crucible because nobody wanted to check and see if these people were actually in the presence of the devil they just assumed because that is the first thing they heard.
She realizes that she can lie and say that Proctor was working with the devil. She confesses that she was forced by Proctor to do things for the Devil and she got out of trouble. This shows how people will lie and confess to things they didn’t do to protect themselves. In the end of the first act, Abigail gets in trouble for doing witchcraft in the woods. She is already facing rumors from Goody Proctor that she was soiled and working with the devil.
People in the village had power by influencing others to lie in order not to receive the consequences of witchcraft. Abigail shows power in the play by influencing the girls and what to say and do. She threatened all the girls she will hurt them if they open their mouth and say the truth. Abigail threatens, “Let either one of you breathe a word, or the edge of the other thing and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will being a pointy reckoning that will shutter you.”(Act 1). Abigail tells them she will shutter them with something that will hurt them in a dark night.
(Act 1, p.20) said by Abigail Williams. These are the true motives behind Abigail’s actions, even as she tries to get the girls to agree with her so as to protect herself from accusing with witchcraft. She threatened the girls with