Abigail Jonesy In The Crucible

When in the course of human events, man punishes innocent people based on misleading allegations, the line between justice and revenge needs to be assessed. One such event is the Salem witch trials in 1692. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” portrays chaos created off of false indictments from the town’s young girls. After being accused of associating with the Devil and performing witchery, the young girls plot to confess that they had indeed been affiliated with the Devil, but now wish to do God’s work. In claiming to do so, they accuse several people in the town who they have grudges against in an attempt to mask their reprisal as justice. In doing so, these girls disobey several puritanical commandments, the main one being not “bearing false witness against thy neighbor.” In “The Crucible,” the Judge Danforth’s obliviousness

Abigail claims Goody Proctor made a voodoo doll of her and stabbed a needle through her stomach. John, fed up with the court’s folly, expresses his frustration at Hale when the court issues a warrant to search their house for poppets: “ If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder is Parris be innocent, to Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now?…I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—vengeance is walking Salem” (Miller 77). Danforth and the people of the court automatically point their fingers at Goody Proctor as being guilty, but they fail to recognize the Abigail’s underlying desire for vengeance. Because of their blindness, they don't question Abigail’s integrity. As the reader knows, Abigail is trying to kill Goody Proctor; therefore, Abigail’s knowing that a needle was in the voodoo doll could’ve been used to frame Goody Proctor of witchery. This would be a form of lying which defies one of the commandments, showing how a Puritan would overstep their superficial rules to satisfy their