The Crucible And Half Hanged Mabeth Analysis

In times in hysteria and crisis, people will do all they can do to redirect blame from themselves. This is exemplified in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and “Half Hanged Mary”, by Margaret Atwood. The Crucible is a story about a Puritan village that experiences a major crisis in which people, predominantly women, are believed to be witches. This causes a series of events in which people are hanged, simply for being alive. Half Hanged Mary is a poem about a woman who is hanged for being a witch, but does not die. Based off both of this text, one can see that in a time or crisis, people will abandon the morals and ethics they have, and essentially sacrifice the people around them to save themselves. The Crucible starts with small talk about girls dancing in the forest, and somehow, this begins to turn into talk of those girls being witches. As the story picks up, friends begin turning on each other. Abigail, a devious character, while in a heated argument with Betty and Mary on what to confess states, “We danced. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night. I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down.” (Miller 26). Abigail, despite being close friends with Betty and Mary implies that she would hurt them if they said anything she didn 't agree with to anyone. This, among many of Abigail’s behavior in the story, shows that people will abandon the morals they have