The author of The Crucible is Arthur Miller. In the play, there is a mass hysteria, which was that the people of Salem believed witchcraft existed. There are two characters that could have stopped the hysteria. Abigail and Tituba could have taken different steps that would have ceased the existence of the tragedies.
Parris’s niece Abigail is one of the main characters that could have ended the hysteria. She should have told the truth in the beginning and shouldn’t have put all the blame on Tituba. But, instead she decided to tell the other girls to lie and say that they only danced. Abigail tells the girls “Listen, now: if they be questioning us tell them we danced- I told him as much already” (Miller 574). This passage shows that she told the others to lie so that they did not get in trouble and to make Tituba sound like
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She should have spoken up when Parris was asking questions, instead of accusing Sarah Good and Goody Osburn. Tituba tells Parris “Aye, sir, and Goody Osburn” (Miller 595). This passage shows that she felt scared and agreed to the lies that Parris was harassing her with. The women accused of witchcraft had nothing to do with the dancing, the witchcraft, and the charming in the woods. Tituba was only worried about saving herself, if she would have told the truth their lives would have been spared. Some may say that Abigail could not have stopped the mass hysteria because it had already gotten out of hand. They may also claim that she was only a child and no one would have listened, but the children had a lot of power over the adults. They were listening to her lies so they would have listened to the truth as well. If she would have told the truth, then the other girls would not have felt obligated to play along with the lies. Abigail was the leader of the young girls because she was the bossy type. Mary and the others would have agreed to anything Abigail would have said