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. By examining the characters of the play, I believe that the three major characters who should be blamed the most for the witch trials are Abigail Williams, …show more content…
In the first Act, Abigail manipulates the girls into helping her lie about the forest “incident” in the beginning of the play. "Now look you, all of you we danced and Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam 's dead sisters, and that is all. Mark this let either of you breathe a word and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you." (Miller I, 20). In this quote, Abigail becomes aware of what she did in the forest along with the girl and threatens them to keep silence if they want to keep their lives. It is in this same intimidating mood that the girls follow her lead in beginning to call out the names of who they "saw" with the Devil at the end of Act I. Her dominance continues as the play advances and the girls are required to attend court and follow Abigail’s order. They all start pretending as if they have a special ability to identify those who are
Amanda Able Nordgaard Hour: 5 Honors English 10 Due: 11/4/15 Abigail is to blame In The Crucible, Abigail Williams is to blame for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, because she started the witchcraft activity, brought innocent people into her little game, and used deceiving tricks to get the court to believe her story. Abigail’s past could have led up to her witchcraft activity and childish behavior. When Abigail was little, she witnessed her parents being murdered.
Despite their deeply religious values, the members of the Puritan Society in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible are equally as sinful as the rest of the world. The Puritans, known for turning to God when given any matter at hand, lay blame on the Devil, regardless of their contradictory values. By blaming on him for their wrongdoings, the Devil earns power through the Puritans restoring to involve him whenever any one thing goes wrong. Power is defined by one’s reputation, status, wealth, gender, and age; although the natural deciding factor of one’s power in the Puritan society is land, the Devil himself holds ultimate power. Despite the fact that he does not appear as a human figure, he controls the thoughts and actions of the Puritan society, serving as the ultimate threat.
Out of all the characters in the book, there are many that contributed to the hysteria of the witch trials, however, of these characters Abigail Williams contributed the most. In the beginning of the play, we see Abigail and a collection of other girls dancing and making a charm in the woods. Abigail made this charm in order to kill Mr.Proctor 's wife. If Abigail wasn 't so crazy in love with John this scene in the woods probably wouldn 't have taken place. Therefor, Parris would have never caught the girls and there wouldn’t be rumours of witchcraft.
Abigail is extremely concerned with her well-being and reputation. In Act One, Reverend Parris confronts Abigail about dancing in the forest, and, instead of confessing, she begins denouncing others. This illustrates how she is willing to allow others to be harmed because of her extreme fear. One example of this is when Abigail states, “Not I sir—Tituba and Ruth” (Miller 15). The character of the residents of Salem is not exceptional.
In the play, the Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Salem, Massachusetts was a place of constant hysteria in the 1600s because of what would come to be commonly known as the Salem Witch Trials. This was a full-blown witch hunt for people found to display signs of witchcraft. Abigail Williams was the main person to blame for this pursuit of witches in Salem because, first off, she was the one who caused hysteria about witchcraft just to cover up the fact that
Who's to Blame For the Salem Witch Trails? In Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth, and John Proctor are responsible for the witch trials. Not only is Abigail one of the characters responsible for the witch trails, but she is the one who instigated the witchcraft fervor within Salem. John is one of the characters responsible for the trails because he has an affair with Abigail.
This is called scapegoating. Although some believe that vengeance is the main purpose, it is actually scapegoating. The theme scapegoating is the main purpose of the play because the girls blamed innocent Puritans just to protect themselves. Abigail Williams
In a small village called Salem, witchcraft and sorcery exist, however everyone is pointing fingers but not a single soul knows who is actually to blame for this nonsense. During this time period of hysteria, there are multiple scenes that are very questionable due to one person and one person only. Abigail is the one most responsible for the hysteria and witchcraft in Salem. She threatens the group of girls that accompanied her in the woods while they all danced. She has also lied about many things on multiple occasions in which causes an extreme amount of suspicion.
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.
Fear that spread among a group of people in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials, that event in history is a prime example of Mass Hysteria. In Salem the reason why so many women were killed was because of Mass Hysteria. It caused many people, in Salem during this event to think fast, rash and jump to conclusions. “The Crucible”, a short play dedicated to these events in Salem shows us how hysteria was such a leading cause of why the Witch Trials had even occurred. Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth.
(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.
Abigail forces the girls of Salem to dance in the woods with her to help conjure spirits and make the charm to kill Goody Proctor. Abigail threatens the girls right after Betty took fright by saying, “let either of you breathe a word or the edge of a word about the other things and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” (Miller, 144). Later on as the trials prolong Mary Warren turns on Abby and is telling the court that she lied. When Abigail then accuses Mary of witchcraft she turns back to Abby and obeys her once again.
“Character Analysis over The Crucible” Arthur Miller is a commonly-known playwright, most famous for his 1953 play, The Crucible. The basis for The Crucible came from the witch trials which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during the puritan era. Miller even uses some of the same characters in his dramatized play that were a part of the original witch trials in Salem. However, Miller made a few alterations to the historical members of the Salem society in order to suit his dramatic purpose in The Crucible, particularly Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Samuel Parris.
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.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play about what happened during the Salem Witch Trials. It gives insight about what people had to deal with in this situation and how they handled it. The trials were basically a big test which helped figuring out whether or not people were guilty of witchcraft. This is an example of what a crucible is. In our world today we still have crucibles and even though they are different than back then, they all relate to each other because of what influence they have on people.