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The Role Of Fear In Act 1 Mercy Lewis

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Fear. We all just relate to it as being another common emotion that is regularly familiar in everyday life which isn’t much of a problem. But fear has a larger impact on our decisions and actions than we all think. It is powerful in transforming the way people react and act towards certain situations and can be more serious. Fear arises with the threat of physical, emotional, or psychological harm. In recent times, we have come to recognize that the rate of bullying across Australia has escalated through the roof, with more children targeted and abused. Just last month a 13- year-old teenage girl was tortured, bashed, and stabbed in an hours-long ordeal, with videos posted to social media by three girls. The three girls acted out of fear and …show more content…

Many people throughout the play have threatened to physically hurt Mary, and this results in her lying continuously to protect herself from death. In Act 1 Mercy Lewis threatens Mary with physical violence saying 'I'll beat you, Mary Warren? I'll whip you if you dare leave this house again!" The use of aggression in the emotive language…. It is the start of the threats towards Mary which prompted the vulnerability of this character, starting to explicitly follow everyone’s sayings and act against her morals in order to protect herself from the powerful people. Throughout the play, as Mary was continuously threatened and targeted throughout the court allegations, as many people decided to turn the blame onto her knowing she would be an easy target. She was therefore forced into agreeing with the allocations of participating in witchcraft or else she would be killed. In Act Three several characters threaten Mary with violence if she does not lie in court to protect their own dignity. When Abigail says, "…Think you be so mighty that the power of Hell may not turn your wits? ". This threat is not specifically targeted towards Mary but aggression and anger are constant traits of Abigail and is easily aggravated when fighting against her. This intimidated Mary and made her especially more likely to lie in court when protesting the witch trials. Abigail’s mention of "the power of Hell" and her warning to "beware of it" imply a potential for danger and harm. This allows the audience to understand that the fear of the unknown and unpresidential can result in people acting against their morals of standing up for themselves and protecting their

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But Mary admits “I have no sense of it now”, which leads to her credibility diminishing (Miller 3.750). The power Proctor placed in her hands granted her the opportunity to defeat Abigail, but Mary doesn’t effectively use it to faint and instead weakens under the court's questioning. Abigail detects Mary’s power abating and claims “A wind, a cold wind, has come.” , Mercy continues by asking “Mary, do you send this shadow on me?” (Miller

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Everybody in the town feared her, they were all paranoid about being hanged or having to confess to witchcraft. That is why all the girls follow behind her, because if they do what Abigail wants them to, their sense of paranoia is lessened. Another time when fear took over a person in The Crucible, is when John is threatening Mary. “She’ll kill me for sayin’ that”(Miller 38)! This is a quote from Mary that exposes the threats that Abigail is using to make the girls hysterical.

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Now Mary didn’t want harm to come to other people. What she wanted from everything was no innocent lives taken and for people to stop lying. Mary and Abigail had very different motives throughout the play but unfortunately, they both didn’t get what they wanted. Abigail was now a “Wanted” persons and she flees the town and for Mary she becomes

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“My name, he want my name. ‘I’ll murder you,’ he says, ‘if my wife hangs! We must go and overthrow the court,’ he says!” (Miller). In the courtroom Mary was going to testify, saying that the other girls were just pretending to be seeing spirits but she was too terrified of what Abigail might do to her is

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While Abigail has little regard for those in positions of authority, she frequently opposes them. In Act 3, Abigail accuses Mary Warren of practicing witchcraft. When Judge Danforth confronts Mary, Abigail persuades the court that Mary is sending her spirit to harm the judge. This reveals Abigail's disdain for the truth and her willingness to take advantage of her

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Mary is part of the courts and seems to use this to manipulate her employer, Mr. Proctor. Her first act of defiance was when she told him that he could not order her to bed, give her whippings, or stop her from going to court proceedings (Miller, pg. 59). It is not certain if she knew the intent of Abigail to use the poppet to condemn Elizabeth Proctor. However, when she asked by Mr. Proctor to tell the truth about the poppet, she adamantly says that she cannot because she fears the girls will turn on her. When she does have a change of heart and is put in front of the courts, she shows her weak side and you can see her confidence wane.

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Mary says this because she is afraid that she might be hanged for lying as Abigail and the

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Mary is right in the middle of all the chaos in Salem. Therefore, when it comes down to making a decision she gets stuck with the devil's bargain regardless of the path she takes. For intense she is being compelled by the manipulative character of Abigail Williams to claim that she's seen various people practicing witchcraft. Miller creates the character of Abigail to represent the powerful leaders that emerged throughout the 1950s by utilizing people's fears. This devious tactic is also used by Abigail as she asserts fear into Mary Warren.

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Mary then accuses John Proctor of witchcraft by influencing her. She calls him the “devil’s man” and forced her to sign his “black book” stating that she must overthrow the courts to overcome them. This shows the falsehood of Abigail and her girls, because it proves that lying can get you out of punishment when it

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Abigail knew from the beginning that her acts and falsehoods were immoral, yet she decided to keep doing them to portray herself as a saint. Before the performance began, the town's panic and fear of witchcraft had not yet spread, giving Abigail the chance to confess without suffering severe consequences, “I want to open myself!... I want the light of God!... I danced for the Devil;” (Page 595, Line 481, “The Crucible”). Nonetheless, she threatened the girls around her, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you,” (Page 575, “The Crucible” Act 1, Line 160).

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That is until Mary caves under the pressure and accuses John Proctor of being the Devil 's man, so nothing bad occurs due to Abigail. In addition, Abigail tells lies, manipulates her friends and the entire town, and eventually sends nineteen innocent people to their deaths. Throughout all of the hysteria, Abigail’s motivations are based off of a simple jealousy and a desire to have revenge on Elizabeth Proctor. There are a few background

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I'll murder you,' he says, 'if my wife hangs! We must go and overthrow the court,' he says!” (Miller,110). Because Mary is one of the accusers, her word is taken as valid. Her position in the community gives her power, as no one in the community questions her word.

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(Miller 18). Mary was afraid of Abigail Williams and didn’t tell the truth fearing that Abigail would hurt her. While, she developed as a character and made better choices for herself. Acts 3 and 4 she attempted to help John try to accuse Abigail Williams of lying about witchcraft in the court. “I-I promise you, Mr.Danforth, I only thought I saw them but I did not’.

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After continuous pressuring Mary Warren replies with ‘I cannot, they’ll turn on me— “showing us the mob has driven fear into people and how Marry is afraid to tell the truth in the case everyone will turn on her and blame her. Mary’s feeble attempt to recompense backfires, so when Abigail uses the poppet to blame it on Elizabeth, making Mary feel even worse thus she agrees to go with proctor to testify against Abigail in court. Later after agreeing to go to court to support Proctor Mary is asked who is at fault and in fear replies pointing to proctor “You’re the devil’s man!” (act three, page 119). This demonstrates how the fear of the mob and the overwhelming pressure from the Abigail makes her turn from the truth.

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Though she is portrayed as meek, even more so than Elizabeth, she attempts to stand up for herself throughout the play. However, this only leads to her being mistreated by John, Abigail, and various others. At one point she has to choose between listening to John, who had previously grabbed her by the throat (Miller 80) or Abigail and the rest of the girls who bullied her into silence (Miller 18-19). Mary exemplifies the reasons why women typically did not stand up for themselves, especially against men who were their most common

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