Puritans In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible the people of Salem are Puritans. They are portrayed to be extremely religious people. The Puritans believed they were chosen by God to live according to the scriptures. In the small village of Salem all the people believe in the Puritans way of life and tried as they would to follow their scriptures daily. Yet with living so closely with their faith a group of girls are descorved in the woods at a ritual with one of their slaves Tituba. Two of the younger girls in the group began to scream and shout upon being discovered by Reverend Parris they both soon fall into a seemingly endless sleep. The Reverend had seen most of the ritual. Except when an older girl named Abigail drank blood and that is when rumors of

Both the Putnams and the Parris send for the town doctor. He tells them both the same thing “that he cannot discover no medicine for it in his books”(Miller 5). “You might look into unnatural things for the cause of it”(Miller 5). Mr.Parris denies all acts of witchcraft. As word spreads throughout the town the Putnams begin to point blame. “ I have laid seven babies unbaptized in the earth… And now, this year, my Ruth, my only - I see her turning strange. A secret child she has become this year, and shrivels like a sucking mouth were pullin’ on her life too”( Miller 11). Mrs.Putnam explains. She told the courts that it was Rebecca Nurse. Rebecca Nurse is eventually is tried and convicted of “marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam's babies”(Miller 1280). This is a small example of how someone just scared to lose their child can pear pressure the rest of their community into believing that another good person is evil. Without any evidence against Rebecca Nurse. Goody Putnam is devout Puritan yet by sending Rebecca Nurse to the courts she is going against her faith by bearing false witness to thy neighbor as the eighth commandment