People to Blame in Crucible (Analysis of who is to blame in The Crucible by Arthur Miller) According to Christopher Bigsby, “it is Shakespearean. Parties and counter-parties. There must be a counterparty.” In The Crucible, there are times where everyone is nice to each other, but other times, people are going after others and trying to get them killed. The Salem witch trials were a huge problem because nobody knew who was the cause of this problem and many people were accused of it and hung. According to Penelope Curtis, “The Crucible is the only one in which a whole community is directly, and tragically, implicated.” The play is the only one in which everyone is tragically involved. There are three people to blame in The Crucible by Arthur …show more content…
For example, in the play Abby says “I danced with the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book.” (pg 1156). She was the one who caused all of this because the girls and Abby went into the woods to create a love spell to get the people they wanted to love. According to Robert Martin, “It was that Abigail Williams, the prime mover of the Salem hysteria, so far as the hysterical children were concerned, had a short time earlier been the house servant of the Proctors and now was crying out Elizabeth Proctor as a witch.” Also, she is pretending to do all of this blaming so she can get Elizabeth Proctor out of the picture so she actually has a chance with John Proctor. Everytime someone is accused, Abby and the girls (mostly Abby) pretend to see their spirits trying to harm them, which is causing all of this to go downhill instead of everyone trying to figure out who the real culprit …show more content…
For example, in the play, “I think you must hear the girl, sir, she-” (pg 1190). If Judge Danforth and the other judges listen to Mr. Hale throughout the play, then this situation would have been over before everyone started to get accused. Also, Mr. Hale keeps trying to inform the judges that Elizabeth Proctor is innocent and that Abigail Williams is causing all of this, but the judges don’t listen to him because they want to hear other people’s opinion on this. He thought that his judgment alone was good enough to fix this, but it wasn’t because a lot of people were accused and put on trial and convicted and
The Crucible by Arthur Miller focused on a very dark time in our nation’s history: The Salem Witch Trials. In the midst of this frenzy, many people were accused and killed. In the the play, three very well respected people, Giles Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and John Proctor, were all executed; however, their deaths were necessary.
Essentially, who is responsible for the unfortunate events that took place in the novel “The Crucible”? Throughout the book, Mr.Danforth, who serves as the Judge of the courtroom, seems to be held accountable for numerous misfortunes. Danforth’s biased opinions and leniency towards Abigail led him to make sporadic decisions and impulsive judgements when it came to the accusations of others. Hale, a devout reverend, also plays a prominent aspect in the blame game. However, unlike Danforth, Hale actually searched for the truth and craved justice for others.
What if you were falsely accused for doing something you never did? Worse yet, the judge ends up believing the “victim” because you cannot present evidence that would prove your innocence. You would most likely end up in jail for a while, but at least you still have a chance to prove the accusation false. However, in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, characters that were accused of witchcraft did not receive that same opportunity. They faced a worse fate than spending months in jail; they got death.
He believes strongly in his ability to judge the character of the informants. This comes into play when others question his judgement of Abigail and the girls from the woods. Danforth has a great deal of authority over the verdict of the accused, he has the power to judge them as not guilty. Danforth being the primary judge means he could have admitted to his foolishness and told the community that the accused people were not witches, and it would have made the townspeople believe that there was no witch problem in Salem at all. Danforth is too concerned with his reputation to admit that his judgement, at first, was clouded.
Reverand Hale is responsible for the witch trials becase he lends his expiertise in the matter to Abigals advantage. On many occasions, Hale supported some of Abigals clames in the court, and without his input on the matter the claims may have never been taken seriously by the Judges. Hale believes the girls and supports Abiglals claims until Elizebeth and Rebecca are arrested, and at that time he relizes that the girls are a fraud. Even though Hale is now on the accused side and is trying to keep them from hanging, the damage is already done, and without Hale, the court might have not taken Abgigal seriously. But because Hale is supposed to be "the expert" they believed him.
During the hysteria of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, many people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Therefore, their reputation, was ruined. Other people committed many sins in order to keep their reputation clean in town. For instance, some characters had to lie, fight, and accuse other people of witchcraft which could get the individual out of trouble and keep their hands clean. when a person got accused of being a witch, the person’s reputation would get ruined and the person would go to jail or be hanged.
Miller best depicts the evils in people through the main prosecutor in the the play Abigail Williams. Abigail is undeniably the most destructive and corrupt individual in The Crucible. Through her vengefulness, threatening her peers, carelessness at others’ expense, and complete disregard for human life, she ensues a tumultuous event to Salem. Abigail’s initial accusation against the town beggar was solely to defend herself from punishment for dancing in the woods.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatic play that expresses a very important message and that is how far people would go to save themselves from the hands of death. There are many characters in the Crucible who are guilty of taking innocent lives, but there are three major characters who, without a doubt, are the most at blame. The play takes place in the city of Salem, a city filled with people that would do anything to keep their reputation clean. Throughout the play, Miller is introducing multiple characters that experience changes in their decisions and negatively influence more people eventually leading up to the witch trials. The main point that the story revolves around is that people would rather lie and blame someone else instead of confessing and accepting the punishment.
Individuals must stand in opposition to collective injustice. By the end of the summer in 1692, twenty three innocent citizens of Salem, Massachusetts had lost their lives to the tyranny of the Salem witch hunts. By the end of the year 1956, countless U.S. citizens were victims of a second witch hunt which destroyed careers, friends, and lives. This is why there should be opposition against collective injustice. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible innocent people were getting accused and punished for witchcraft, when in fact they were not guilty.
(I.465-472). Seeing Abigail cry, it suggests that Abigail’s affair with John Proctor has influenced her behavior in jealousy and lust as she strives for nothing more than her love for John Proctor. By only being heartbroken, Abigail is not to be fully blamed for the hysteria within the town as her actions are only based on desperate attempts to win John Proctor over, and no intentional harm whatsoever. However, on the other hand, Abigail cannot be excused with outside forces making her the way she is due to the fact that she has clearly had a choice in most of her decisions and actions throughout the witchcraft crisis. When Mary Warren, another girl involved in the forest incident, enters the court, she explains to Danforth, the judge, that the girls are lying and are only pretending to see spirits.
When she is later questioned, she said it was just fun and games. Her soul purpose of being in the woods that night was to drink a charm that hopefully would kill Goody Proctor. John was constantly on Abby’s mind
In result of abigail bluffing all the time the town went into hysteria, this is a perfect example of the consequences of not owning up and taking responsibility because what she did saved herself from punishment although in doing so it killed 20 people and endangered many others. If abigail had used her hysterical lie where she confessed to god and said that she was free of the devil’s curse and didn’t blame anyone none of those people who were hang would have died and the witch trials could have been avoided all together. The other representation of taking responsibility, as I once said, would be john proctor because at the very end he refuses to lie to save himself and he takes responsibility by lying about him being possessed, then refusing to sign the confession and ripping it up; in doing so he made sure nobody else got killed and ended the killings of witch accusations because the town knew the judges had no right to accuse him because of his reputation, and the type of person he
One Choice Can Change Lives Who knew one seemingly innocent lie could cause 19 deaths and pit an entire town against itself? That’s exactly what happens in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Authors often use similar plot devices, and their favorite one is having their characters face a test. In a small town called Salem in early America, something terrible is happening.
One of the main elements that eventually build up to the main plot in the play is power. Many of the characters in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible have a strong desire for power. The Salem witch trials empowered several characters in the play who were previously marginalized in Salem society. It gave them the chance to misuse it leading to horrible suffering and even deaths of some innocent people in the town. Some of these characters are Abigail Williams, Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris.
After her affair with John Proctor, john was embarrassed and ashamed of what had happened. Abigail on the other hand regretted nothing. In fact she still loved John Proctor and wanted him all to herself. That’s why she accuses