Pride In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, the characters take a lot of pride in their name. Citizens in the Puritan society of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 believed that a person lived on his name. If someone’s name was sullied by a crime or other immorality, no one would do business with them, so it was important to protect one’s name. Four characters in particular, Judge Danforth, Reverend Parris, Abigail Williams, and John Proctor, went to great lengths to shield their name. Judge Danforth was the judge that oversaw all of the court hearings in the Salem Witch Trials. When the trials first began, he had signed many death warrants for convicted witches in the town. Towards the end, however, John Proctor presented solid evidence that everyone has lied about seeing witches and the devil. One of the girls who claimed to see witches, Mary Warren, confessed that everyone was pretending. Instead

In Act One, she made a point of saying her name was clean. “My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is soiled!” (Miller 12). She was the one to set off the hysteria of witches in Salem. Her ultimate plan was to have Elizabeth Proctor killed because she was jealous of her. Elizabeth’s husband, John Proctor, had an affair with Abigail, and Abigail believed that if Elizabeth was dead her and John could get married. However, Elizabeth was a respected citizen of Salem. If Abigail wanted to successfully accuse her, she had to have a clean name, or no one would believe her. She started out by accusing others, like Sarah Good, Goody Osburn, and Bridget Bishop. Since these women were convicted, they had no reason to doubt her when she accused Elizabeth Proctor. Also, when John finally admitted to their affair, Abigail denied it to protect her name. The reason she started the witch accusations was because she loved John, yet she turned her back on him to save her