Literary Tradition In The Crucible

During the 1600s, young girls in a village located in Massachusetts began accusing women for performing witchcraft. The result of these accusations led to hysteria and the hanging of many people throughout the village. The playwright, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and the novel, Witch Child, by Celia Rees, have both fictionalized the Salem Witch Trials. In The Crucible, the antagonist Abigail Williams is the source of conflict. She falsely accuses several village people of performing witchcraft, which resulted from her jealousy of her lover’s wife.

With Abigail's careless act, the town is in despair, every time she would create a lie it would turn people against each other. Even when these group of people have been living with each other years, with one action from Abigail they are automatically believing each person is associated with the Devil. Questioningly, Abigail says “Why? Why do you come, yellow bird?” (Miller.3.991). Once again, Abigail uses spectral evidence to get her way.

The Crucible is a book written by Author Miller to illustrate all the lies and deceit that took place during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693. There are so many different forms of lies and deceit present with in this book. But to me the three biggest are when Mary Warren and the girls, Putnam’s versusthe rest of the town and John Proctor vs Abigail. But the lies and deceit derail all of these. The main story in the book is about how the girl lied to everyone about doing witchcraft to save them selves.

This appears man times throughout The Crucible. One time is when Mary Warren is getting questioned about pretending and she then accuses John Proctor. She did this because she was scared for her life. That show weakness because she cannot handle being questioned. Another example of weakness is when Abigail Williams runs away from Salem and robs her uncle.

The Salem Witch Trials was a series of false accusations of witchcraft taking place in Salem, which during the seventeenth century, was apart of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The trials began in February of 1692, when the first three victims, Sarah Good, Sarah Osbourne, and a slave girl named Tituba, were sentenced to their hangings (Brooks). They were caught in the winter of 1691, playing a fortune telling game with a makeshift ball (Boyer). Tituba, owned by Reverend Samuel Paris, confessed to be a witch working with the devil to tear apart the village (Campbell). Her confession

In colonial New England and Europe, belief in the supernatural, specifically in the devil’s procedure of giving some humans –witches –the power to impair others in return for their faith, was unfolded in the early 14th century. People who were thought to be different were accused of witchcraft and apprehended for trials. One of the first trials of Salem was in January 1962, when one of Reverend Samuels Parris’s slaves, called Tituba, would gather a bunch of teenage girls every day. Later in spring, the townspeople were shocked at the girls’ behaviors. It was believed that they danced a black magic dance in nearby woods, and some girls would fall on the floor and hysterically scream.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials had many effects on the town of Salem, Massachusetts. A lot of the effects were negative, destroying the community, government, even individuals. The Witch Trials affected the community of Salem in multiple ways. The witch trials created many tensions between several families in the town. The most acknowledgeable dispute from the play was between the Putnam’s and the Nurse’s.

When a woman is accused of being a witch and her life is in danger in 1600’s Salem, MA what recourse does she have to protect herself? Women of the time had no authority; they were seen as property of the men they married or were born to. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible takes place during the famous Salem witch trials. It all starts when young Abigail Williams has an affair with John Proctor and practices witchcraft in an attempt to kill John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth. When Abigail is accused of witchcraft, she confesses and in order to take blame off of herself, she accuses many others as well.

And how did it all end it so easily? The trials are one of the most talked about events of hysteria and scapegoating in American history. It all started in January of 1692, when a group of eight young girls started having random outbursts of seizures, contortions and screaming fits. The girls then started accusing innocent women of being witches, and working for the devil. The first three unfortunate victims the girls accused of this crime were Tituba, a slave, Sarah Good, a

He also goes on and tries to explain to an unforgiving crowd that the witch hunts are a fake, and that it is all led by a lovesick girl. In The Crucible, John Proctor, the protagonist of the play, is put under intense guilt