he Crucible is about the witchcraft trials that took place in the Puritan community of
Salem, Massachusetts, in 1962. Miller studied the court records of the trials to gain insight to develop his characters which were actually all real people. Miller perfectly conveys the theme that rumors can destroy a person by using the conflict between Mary Warren and the other girls.
Mary Warren is against the girls because the girls are accusing her of witchcraft. Abigail yells out “Mary, please don’t hurt me” because she wants to make it seem like Mary is practicing witchcraft (Miller 195). She is lying about the fact that Mary is being controlled by a dark spirit.
Once Abigail started to accuse her of witch craft the other girls did too. That lead to
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Mary responds with “I’m not hurting her” because she doesn’t want to be accused of witchcraft and she hasn’t done anything wrong to Abigail or the other girls (Miller 195). She is telling the truth in this statement because she has not done any type of witchcraft. Mary is over ruled by the town so whatever she says even though it’s the truth that she hasn’t done any witchcraft, the town still doesn’t believe her. Danforth asks “why does she see this vision?” as to why Abigail is blaming Mary for her witchcraft. Abigail is just lying and wants attention along with the other girls and that’s exactly what they are getting from their town.
Danforth further goes on to say “Mary Warren! Draw back your spirit out of them” as if that will actually make her do that when she can’t do it because that is not what she is doing
(Miller 195). This shows Danforth believes Abigail and the other girls and this is ruining the chance of Mary’s innocents. So by multiple girls accusing Mary of witchcraft and playing it out good, people believe them, hence rumors can destroy a person.
Being accused of witchcraft or some kind of dark spirits will eventually lead to death. So literally rumors can destroy a person because the people being accused were killed, mostly by