The Witch Trials In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

One day in Salem Massachusetts, a girl name Betty Parris became very ill. The night before she became very ill, she was caught dancing in the woods with her cousin, Abigail Williams and many other girls. Back in those days dancing, or any fun at all was frowned upon. So when Betty became ill after dancing and she had nothing wrong with her health, Parris and others thought that it was witchcraft. To save herself from getting in trouble, Abigail confessed that it was witchcraft.

Abigail masters many talents, but her best talent; scapegoating, has convinced many of the people around her to disregard and free herself from possibly being accused. Abigail is in court and somehow the accusing finger is shifting towards her, to derail herself from that she screams: “She made me do it! She made Betty do

In the play The Crucible there are many liars and people that know how to deceive others. The play, by Arthur Miller, is set in the year of 1692 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. There is a theocratic society in place, which helped spin the problem at hand way out of proportion. Suspicions of witchcraft grow when a young girl suddenly becomes inert. People believe that her soul has been taken by the Devil.

In the Crucible, grudges and personal problems play a key role in creating the witch trial hysteria. The very first event in the play was spurred on by a grudge. Abigail, wanting to be with John, slips out into the woods with her friends and drinks a charm to kill his wife. After being nearly caught, she accuses Tituba of doing witchcraft to save herself. Tituba then accuses two other women to save herself as well.

In the 1600s Puritans from England came to North America to start a new life where they could have religious freedom and practice their faith as they saw was best. Many of them settled in small towns in Massachusetts in which they started families, businesses, and close communities. They had very strong beliefs and ideals of how a good Puritan was supposed to be for example: they had to attend church regularly, consistently read the bible, and never disrespect God’s name or commit disrespectful acts, that are considered sins. The Crucible takes place in the late 1600s in Salem, Massachusetts. Reverend Parris was the Minister of the Salem church and he had an active role in the community.

Hale was banned from going to see Rebecca nurse, Proctor's wife, and martha corey, but he goes and prasy with them because it is the least he can do, now that they are going to get hung because of him. He tries to get them to confess because if they confess then they won't be

People in the town of Salem are all furious and upset with the current witch trial that are taking place. The prosecution that the court has provided is that Abigail, Mary, Danforth, and Hale all provided factual information and truthful evidence to those that have been accused of witchcraft. They are trying to prove that those accused are practicing and using witchcraft, and that the accusers are trustworthy, reliable people who have no reason to be doubted. The main problem with the previous trial were caused by Abigail, Mary, Danforth, and Hale. Abigail Williams is an unreliable and untrustworthy person.

In the beginning of the book, he feared that his reputation will be ruined if the town found out that Betty was under a curse of witchcraft: “I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character” (Miller 464). This shows that Parris realized that if the town found out that if his household contains any forms of witchcraft, then the people will run him out of the town. Because of that, he denied that Betty was cursed and called for Reverend Hale to find out what was happening. In addition, near the end of the book, he feared that someone would kill him if he doesn’t put an end to the witch trials: “Tonight, when I open my door to leave my house- a dagger clattered to the ground. You cannot hang this sort.

For example, they were screaming, throwing things, and put their bodies in different positions . The two girls went to the doctor and the doctor proclaimed that the cause of these actions was supernatural activity. The girls accused three women: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, claiming that they casted spells on them to cause them to act abnormally. The two girls were related to Reverend Parris who was the Puritan minister in Salem who was well known in the town. Furthermore, the accounts of the children would be taken more seriously than the women that were accused like Sarah Good (the town beggar), Sarah Osborne ( an impoverished woman), and Tituba (Reverend Parris’s slave).

The play The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the Puritan era and was written by Arthur Miller as a metaphor for McCarthyism in 1950. This play suggests that persecution can occur at anytime and anywhere as well as that the real tragedy lies in people who lose their integrity under societal pressure. Many citizens of Salem made decisions based on vendettas and personal gain which resulted in a lose of a sense of right and wrong which fueled the witch hysteria. Someone who acted out vengeance and personal gain was Abigail Williams. She was the original cause of the hysteria of the witch trials.

After Reverend Parris saw some girls including Tituba, an Indian woman that was helping in his house conjuring spirits in the woods, he called Hale to Salem These woods are forbidden; the dancing and magic are signs of the devil in the town, Hale's job is to search a town for any signs of devil. The al town believed in witchcraft being in town but upwards the end of the pay Reverend Hale believed in the devil or watches in Salem changer in thinking and tried to help John Proctor that was said to be a watch Reverend Hale's attitude changed a lot throughout the story. In the beginning Hale was just doing his job and passionate about purging this town of the devil, “what victory the Devil have to win soul already bad? It is the best the Devil want all who is better than

The Salem witch trials proved to be one of the most cruel and fear driven events to ever occur in history. Many innocent people were accused of witchcraft, and while some got out of the situation alive not everyone was as lucky. Arthur Miller the author of The Crucible conveys this horrific event in his book and demonstrates what fear can lead people to do. But the reason as to why Arthur Miller felt the need to write The Crucible in the first place was because the unfortunate reality that history seemed to have repeated itself again. In the article “Are You Now or Were You Ever”, Arthur Miller claims that the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trials were similar and he does this through his choice of diction, figurative language, and rhetorical questions.

Abigail and her friends would claim that the person who was on trial was doing things to them during the trial or around their town of Salem. Most of the people who were accused were there because of either Abigail, one of her friends, or the whole group. Abigail and her friends were the only ones who really ever did witchcraft, and it was with one of the servants they knew named Tituba. The girls had done bad things with and without the witchcraft, and the worst one was Abigail. Reverend John Hale also was a big cause in the hangings.

In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, Abigail Williams and her friends, along with Tituba, the slave of Reverend Parris are caught in the woods dancing around a fire. This event and rumors associated with it sparked a Salem-wide witch hunt, which resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent people. The theme of The Crucible can be summed up in a quote from the eighteenth century politician Edmund Burke, who says,¨When good men do nothing, evil triumphs.¨ Which is shown through The Red Scare, and the actions of the townspeople in Salem. After reading The Crucible the connection between the Red Scare and the events of the Salem witch trials becomes very prevalent.

At this point this shows the selfish side of Parris, After finding out that there was the possibility of witchcraft Parris wanted everyone to keep it a secret so the outbreak wouldn’t spread throughout the village an reckon his name. For someone that has the position of being a Reverend and having a child or family member convicted of witchcraft was a big deal that could result in mass rumors and even the loss of the position. For someone who was conceided an valued there name and position this was a big deal. This was exactly the person Parris was he only cared about his name and his position and not as much about his family and especially his