In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Miller introduces the idea, apparent in today’s world, that sometimes people blame others to save themselves from punishment through the characters’ actions and the asides from Miller. The most prominent character that displays this theme is Abigail Williams. Several times Abigail pushes the blame on others when she senses trouble. When Parris finds the girls dancing in the forest, Abigail knows she has to do something to avoid punishment. Abigail says, “I never called him! Tituba…,” after Reverend Hale asks her about calling the devil (40). As soon as she sees trouble, she blames Tituba. After Tituba accuses Sarah Good of being with the Devil, as an attempt to receive a smaller punishment, she inspires Abigail …show more content…
Then, Abigail accuses Mary to divert the judge’s attention away from herself. Abigail continues to harass Mary until the other girls join in and help her accuse Mary. Then, Mary sees no other way out, so she points at Proctor screaming, “You’re the Devil’s man!” (110). In all of these situations, the blame passes to several people. It all starts because Abigail and the girls do not want to be in trouble for dancing, one without clothes, and drinking blood. So Abigail starts accusing people, and then everyone starts accusing people to avoid …show more content…
When Miller writes the novel, he is not just writing about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller is writing about McCarthyism and communists, too. McCarthyism is like the Salem Witch Trials in the aspect that it is corrupt and people start accusing innocent people. In McCarthyism, McCarthy decides that people are communists if they show signs of being “UnAmerican.” Then, he encourages people to report anyone that they suspect are communists. Eventually, people start accusing others like the characters in the The Crucible. Miller explains this in one of his asides saying, “in America any man who is not reactionary in his views is open to the charge of alliance with the Red hell” (32). Miller is comparing communists to witches by saying communists will have the same charge that witches have, which is an alliance with the Red
In fact, “The Salem Witchcraft Trials have taken on an iconic role in American history, and an unjust search for scapegoats is now commonly referred to as a “witch hunt”” (Billings). Now, during the McCarthy Era, an author called Arthur Miller wrote The crucible, a story “about witchcraft at Salem in 1692, and it was inspired by the social and political climate in the United States in the 1950’s” (Bloom 66) The 1962 Salem characters in Miller’s play represented the Americans that were accused of being communist or sympathizing with communists (Trevino).
The play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller uses an excessive amount of stage directions to establish the character of Abigail Williams. At the beginning of Act 1 when Abigail first enters, Abigail is described as a “strikingly beautiful girl with an endless capacity for dissembling.” Miller immediately established Abigail as a dishonest person because she is willing to lie to save her name in Salem. Another example, of Miller’s use of stage direction is when Parris and Abigail are arguing about her being discharged from Goody Proctor's service, Abigail spoke to Parris “with ill-concealed resentment.” The way Abigail spoke Parris shows that Abigail is short tempered and has a bitter personality.
Even if any of the girls wanted to confess to the court and tell the court they danced in the woods on purpose they are scared of Abigail because she threatens to hurt them. This convinces all of the girls to lie for Abigail and destroy Salem by telling the court they are spiritually being attacked by these people because they work with the
Life is like a mountain range with its many ups and downs. Each person has their own trek amongst the mountains, and some of these treks are more difficult than others. When faced with these difficult treks amongst the mountains, many people do as Dale Carnegie once stated; “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. ” In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the characters Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor each find themselves facing their own mountain, and it is from these uphill tests that each character becomes transformed.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible (1952), there are many examples of aspects of the Salem witch trials repeating themselves today. One example in specific was the similarity between President Trump banning seven countries, mainly Muslims countries, and Abigail Williams accusing people she does not like of being witches, they both abuse the power they are given and when doing so it negatively affects others. Trump judges people based on their religion and the color of their skin by the banning seven countries from entering the U.S. because he thought they are terrorists. He abuses his power, by unfairly judging people and trying to keep them out of the country. Likewise, Abigail misuses her power when she accuses innocent people of being
Despite Abigail doing this to save herself from being hanged, she ended up causing Tituba, an innocent person, to be sentenced and put to death. "She comes to me every night to go and drink blood" (Act II, Pg. 44) This quote comes right after Abigail had said that Tituba cursed her with spirits while she was in church. In this quote, Abigail tries to argue that not only did Tituba send spirits to Abigail, but she also made her and the girls drink blood every night and conjured spirits. With Abigail’s multiple instances of scapegoating people like Tituba, she led many innocent people to their deaths, all just to save her own self.
Cataclysmic Habitual Essences Salem’s unity, community, and perfection disintegrates with the town’s absurd ways of their daily life. Scapegoating and vengeance becomes a key component of the society’s everyday life; either trying to execute the actions, or evading the actions. Salem is a town where the accusing finger lays. Scapegoating is a way to incriminate others for their own abominable bungle. Throughout the play, a teeming amount of people get the accusing finger thrown at them.
As the criminals get caught they go to jail and serve their sentence for the years they have in prison. Abigail does not like people in this story, she likes to turn everyone that she doesn't like in to the court for being a witch. I have watched the movie and I am now reading the book. Abigail went to dance in the woods with a bunch of girls and then all of a sudden the day after her attitude completely changed.
Through harsh rejection and preposterous delusions, Abigail Williams abused her good name and became the fault for the bitter ends of many for something they were not guilty of. I have reread significant sections of The Crucible several times and have read and analyzed it to the best of my ability on multiple occasions. Once reading this book in my Honors English Course at the number one high school in the state of California, we carefully analyzed the characters, going as far as even making character charts, to understand them and their intentions much better. Abigail WIlliams, who is at fault for the Salem Witch Trials, held verbal power and influence over the girls which led to the sentenced hanging of many, and acted unwisely on the galling
(Act 1) Since Tituba is a slave, Abigail knows she has power over her and that people won't believe a slave over her. Just incase Tituba was not enough of
In the late 1940s – early 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy made the grandiose pledge to uncover a communist plot to overthrow democracy in United States. No one was safe from persecutions, and the “witch hunts” for communism began. In response to the mass hysteria over this communist infiltration, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible. In the play, the people of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 sought to destroy the devil’s influence by seeking and destroying witches. This began the Salem Witchcraft Trials.
The play accurately describes the mass hysteria of both events. When the character Mary Warren states chants “Abby, you mustn’t (Miller Act 3:1012)”, the other girls, including Abigail Williams, all repeat. Prior to this Abbygail pretends to be bewitched by Mary, and all the other girls follow Abigail in fear. When people are under pressure, like how Abigail threatens the girls, people are in
Miller had been accused of being a communist sympathizer during the Cold War. Miller said in a New Yorker article, “”The Crucible” was an act of desperation.” He then explained that his desperation likely stemmed from his Depression-era trauma. He later said was motivated to write The Crucible because he felt that liberals were afraid to speak out against civil rights violations, because they felt like they would be accused of being a Communist. This is very similar to what was going on during the Salem Witch trials and in the play, with Townsfolk afraid to speak out against the accusations made onto others that hadn’t done anything wrong out of fear that they would then get accused of witchcraft as
To begin, Arthur Miller claims that the McCarthy Era and the Salem witch trials were in fact very similar through the use of diction. Throughout Millers article, it can be seen many times the way that he compares the McCarthy Era to The Crucible. At one point of his article, Miller uses the adjective of “cautionary” to explain the people chose of words during the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy Era. Millers choice of diction conveys the fear and the reluctance that people had in speaking of the events taking place due to the claims made against the accused witches and accused communist during the two different time periods. Miller explains how at those points in time “words had gotten fearsome” and people were
Abigail Williams is not your typical teenage girl. She is a girl that will drink blood to kill someone, accuse people of witchcraft, and have a affair. By looking at The Crucible, one can see that Abigail Williams develops the theme of reputation, which is important because people who fear losing their reputation spread hysteria. Protecting her reputation motivates Abigail Williams to accuse others of being a witch.