Examples Of White Lies In The Crucible

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.” ~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. In the play, “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller the Salem district formed lies in order to safeguard their repute or even to save their own lives. Miller’s The Crucible is based on (sadly) a true story. The notorious Salem Witch trials happened in 1692. It was a time of vast, fearful ignorance with hundreds of superfluous deaths caused by ‘better safe than sorry’ mindsets. It was also a time when hearing anything about witchcraft and or the devil would cause the preponderance of Salem sprinting home at the sight of the falling sun, biting their nails, hiding their

Abigail falsely accused many, many people for witchcraft. Notably, in ACT 1, Abigail screams, “She comes to me every night to go drink blood!” (36) Abigail falsely accuses Tituba of witchcraft, for her own profit. Abigail wants only to keep her good name in the parish. The Crucible centers mostly on the adulteration between Abigail and John. John deceives his wife on the subject of the affair to protect his good name and his marriage. Such as, in ACT 1, John says, “If the girl’s a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she’s fraud, and the town’s gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone. I have no proof for it.” John hides the fact that he was alone with Abigail. Theories to why may be because: he still desires her, or the knowledge that it’d make his wife