The Crucible tells the story of the town of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1962 during the witch trials. The story follows a young girl who lives in Salem named Abigail. During the opening scenes of the film, Abigail, her friends and Reverend Parris's Slave Tituba are seen doing a witch-like ceremony where the girls dance, chant and make wishes for what they want to happen in the future. Abigail even goes as far as to drink blood and she makes a more sinister wish than the other girls. She wishes for the wife of the man whom she loves and has had an affair with to die. The girls were discovered by Reverend Parris, who is Abigail's uncle, and another one of the girls' fathers, who saw the ritual-like behavior. In fear of tarnishing his family's name, …show more content…
One of these girls is the daughter of the Reverend Parris. Unaware of the scene in the woods, the people of Salem, who are Christians, assume that this strange sleep the girls are in has to do with the devil or witchcraft. So they call in another reverend, Reverend Hale, who specializes in cleansing towns of witchcraft. While Reverend Hale is visiting Reverend Parris’s daughter, he is told of the events in the woods the night prior. The rest of the girls were listening in from downstairs, in fear that they might be accused of witchcraft; they burst in and say they saw the devil in the woods; but the devil was led by Reverend Parris’s slave Tituba, and they were loyal to God. The townspeople become sick with fear that witches are among them and that Salem is being taken over by the devil. Very quickly, ordinary townspeople are starting to be called witches, and they are tried in a court to see if they are guilty. The girls serve as the jury for the trials, claiming they can see the dark spirits of the devil talking to and helping the people who are accused of being witches. Land disputes and civil arguments turn from disagreement to claiming of