The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller, is centered in a small village in salem where there are numerous accusations of witchcraft. Those accusations later led to witch trials being held that resulted in deaths of all who were assumed to be witches. The three characters that were the most responsible for the trials that occurred were Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Tituba. In The Crucible, Abigail Williams would be seen as the biggest reason why the witch trials began in the first place. Since Abigail only seems to care about John Proctor after the affair she had with him, she seeks to hurt his wife, Elizabeth Proctor. When out in the woods with Tituba and the girls she conjured a spell that would kill Elizabeth, in spite of her bitterness. …show more content…
If it were not for him, I believe that the trials would not have happened at all. It was because of him that Abigail, conjured a spell that would kill his wife and she probably would not have even been in the woods in the first place and the hysteria in the village would be non-existent. It all began with him being in the wrong by cheating on his wife by deciding to have an affair with Abigail. He greatly took advantage of Abigail and his actions towards her gave off the wrong idea and he now wants her to forget it ever happened. After seeing how Abigail still had feelings for him he told her, “But I will cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched Abby”(Miller). Despite his wrong doings in the beginning he does try to make things right by proving his wife’s innocence when she was accused of witchcraft and was going to be hanged. He despised the idea of his wife dying and he even said to Mary that “My wife will not die for me… that goodness will not die for me” (Miller). That goes to show that he would do anything for her to not get killed and would feel extremely guilty if she did, being that it would be because of him. Even though John does what is right in the end, it does not erase the fact that he was the reason the witch trials even started by committed adultery by having an affair by