Importance Of Respect In The Crucible

In a famous poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” he writes: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--/I took the one less traveled by, /And that has made all the difference.” Some people may argue that the roads less traveled are the ones taken by nonconformists while the easier, more traveled roads are taken by conformists. The metaphor of Robert Frost’s poem can be seen in Arthur Miller’s play about the Salem witchcraft trials, “The Crucible.” In the play the reader is introduced to characters that are non-conformist and other characters that are conformist. Through the actions taken by these characters, the reader can conclude that conformity is either a good thing or a bad thing.

In The Crucible a lot of stuff happens. A girl controls the whole village with her bad reputation. A families life gets messed up. Also alot, a lot of people die just because of this girls actions. Every bad thing leads to another and that is what happens in this play. In this play it shows who people really are when a person gets power they don't care about others they get what they want. Repetition is everything in that time.Reputation and integrity is a big role in this book just because everyone's reputation changes dramatically over and over again. With a bad reputation you can do bad things. If you have a powerful reputation you can get whatever you want and when you want it. In The Crucible By Arthur Miller, Reputation and integrity was shown by the characters actions.

This is later confirmed when she threatens to “come to [them] in the black of some terrible night and … bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder” (Pg.175) Mary Warren and Betty Parris if they dare to tell the truth. This shows her determination at killing Elizabeth Proctor and securing her own reputation. Unlike many naive villains in other literatures, Abigail sets out a meticulous scheme to frame Elizabeth. First, she witnesses Mary Warren leaving a needle in a doll. Then she “[sticks] two inches [of a needle] in the flesh of her belly”(pg. 203) to frame Elizabeth of performing witchcraft. So mendacious is Abigail that she is willing to injure herself to accomplish her plan. Under her beautiful appearance also lays a manipulative heart. She is capable of manipulating not only the girls into doing things her way, but also the members of the court to her advantage. When questioned by Danforth whether the spirits she has seen are illusion, Abigail steps it up a notch by making the members of the court feel sorry for her and madly refutes, “I have been near to murdered every day because I done my duty pointing out the Devil’s people—and this is my reward? To be mistrusted, denied, questioned like a—” (Pg.210) This, following by Elizabeth's failure to tell the truth and the girl’s verisimilar acting toward the “yellow bird”, further demonstrates her manipulative power which brings the court in her favor. Altogether, many

Abigail Williams struggles to show that she has a good reputation throughout The Crucible. On Pg 111, Danforth asks Abigail did you ever have a sexual relationship with John Proctor? “If I must answer that, I will leave and I will not come back again” (pg 111 Abigail). Everybody in Salem is starting to find out about Abigail and John, but when she is asked if it is true, she lies. It tarnishes her reputation because she is seen as a whore now. She doesn't want her name to be blackened in Salem. Once you have had sexual relationships with someone and your not married, it will be hard for Abigail to find someone else to love her because she has already been with someone else, so who would want to be with her? “ Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sister’s. And that is all. And do not speak of the other things” (pg 20 Abigail). Abigail and the other girls, were dancing in the woods, getting naked and making charms. The girls knew it was wrong but they blamed it on witchcraft rather than taking a punishment for it. This destroyed Abigail's reputation because she did not tell the full truth on what happened in the forest, but instead, she blamed it on witchcraft. She also threatened the other girls to go along with her to not make her look bad. Abigail does not take ownership of her downfalls and like to place the blame elsewhere.

Abigail wants to get rid of Elizabeth, who she describes as John Proctor’s “sniveling envious wife” (Optional scene Pg. 158)! One can infer how Abigail is jealous and is doing anything to steel Elizabeth’s place in Proctor’s bed. It reaches a degree were Abigail is lies so much she starts to believe her lies, and stabs herself in the stomach with a pin to blame Elizabeth for attempting to kill her. She later goes on trying to convince Proctor that “the jab your wife gave me’s not healed yet” (Optional scene Pg. 155). The revenge that Abigail is seeking to find is directly related to the theme of vengeance that is profound throughout the play. Additionally, other people in Salem, such as the Putnam’s, take advantage of the crisis to help achieve their

One of the final tests of Abigail’s character was to what degree of evil she really was. Although seeming innocent among the girls in court, Abigail was the source of all evil in the town at this time. Many times throughout the story, Abigail had opportunities to take her evil manipulating personality to a new high, and she always did. A good example of this is when Abigail had a chance to save Marry Warren, and confess to faking their behavior of fainting when a supposedly bewitched person was before them. Instead of taking a step towards goodness, she kept evil on her side and decided to show no remorse for Marry Warren.

When people hear the words “disobey to authority”, often what might come to mind is a dog in an obedience class. Dogs are trained to obey the authority of a human owner, and when they disobey that authority they are often punished or chastised for their actions. With humans though, the process is somewhat different. “Disobedience to authority” could then mean almost anything. It could be disobedience to a rule in a board game, a law, a teacher, a boss, a government... It could be civil disobedience or classroom disobedience. No matter what “disobedience to authority” calls to mind, often times the disobedience to authority is a plausible case that can be allowed for its reasoning. Within the context of The Crucible and modern societal disobedience

Since Abigail is the Reverends niece and grew up with a pastor in the household it seems as if she should be very humble and a good person but her human nature took a toll making her greedy therefore making her dishonest and deceptive. She is afraid that people won’t agree with her, that motivates her to get people on her side. She then falsely accuses others of witchcraft and her being the victim. Witchcraft was taken very seriously back then and it ended up ripping apart the town and caused non stop fighting by almost everyone. Abigail’s main motive is John Proctor so she tries to lie to John about his wife to get him to fall for her “She is blackening my name in the village she is telling lies about me she’s a cold swiveling

To begin, Abigail’s background story must be explained for anybody to truly understand her character. Abigail is an orphan who witnessed her parents’ brutal murder as a young child and was taken in by her uncle Reverend Parris (148). Abigail has grown up without a proper mother and father figure to guide her through the trials of life. When Abigail is first introduced into the scene, the narrator uses an intriguing choice of words to describe her. Some literary analysts may argue that Abigail’s childhood living situation is the reason that she behaves the way she does; however this is not the case. Abigail has a tendency to victimize herself to gain and receive attention whenever she pleases. Throughout acts I and II, Abigail has made herself the victim in a multitude of different ways. For example, Reverend Parris accuses Abigail of having a blemished reputation around the town of Salem. She denies this statement; however, when Parris calls her bluff, she blames the

Abigail's deception toward the people is driven by her lust for power. Abigail begins to accuse others of being witches, so she can build up her power and reliability. She carefully selects defenseless targets at first to accuse, only those that would be believable when in court. Each of the innocent people that Abigail condemns to hang gives her more credibility, gaining her more power over the court and the people. Abigail continues to grow closer to the big picture every time she gains power. Abigail is viewed as a threat; since her lust for power made her into a ruthless person. Abigail in the manner of a leader convinces the other girls to follow her; those who are frightened by her are the ones who join her. She needs more people on her

. .”). The declaration of him having what would be monumental information caused his national popularity and recognition to soar faster than ever seen by any other politician before and helped to begin the period in the US known as McCarthyism. Mirroring this is the plan of Abigail to more or less overthrow and jail the wife of the man she committed an affair with, John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor, the wife in question, expresses this concern to John by saying “Spoke or silent, a promise is surely made. And she [Abigail] may dote on it -- I am sure she does -- and thinks to kill me, then to take my place.”(Miller 58). She is quite obviously not alleging crimes against people she actually saw committing witchery in the woods but rather has ulterior motives. In this case, she believes that eliminating her competition is the best way to get to John. Abigail has a clear and concise precision in which she charges crimes against members of the community of Salem who she dislikes. Additionally, placing the blame on other members of Salem helps to remove Abigail from being accused of working with the devil. These accusations help to separate her from the situation allowing her to appear as the victim. The two people who were the main impetus behind the crazes in both cases possess much deeper motives than it may appear at first.

Abigail Williams is a very complex character. She may not be as evil as everyone thinks she is. Abigail Williams is a victim in her own society because of outside forces upon her. Abigail can be pardoned because she just wants to be loved, society fails to help her recover from her parents death, and her society has left no room for her to have fun or be creative One reason Abigail is a victim in her society is because she just wants to be loved.

At first we can sense Abigails power when she developed a plan to acquire Proctor. . Abigail Williams manipulates the citizens of Salem in order to gain power over John Proctor and she will stop at nothing until she sees her plan succeed. The first step t her plan is to eliminate Elizabeth in the court, meaning that she wants to blame Elizabeth. She but also strives for Proctor to fall in love with her again. Abigail uses her ability and finds Proctors flaws and weaknesses in order to maneuver him into her own advantage and eventually gain power over him.

Further, there is example of authority in this novel when Abigail has full power over the girls as she manipulates them and the society to believe her act. She has the power to control and scare the girls into listening to what she says and this is shown when she says "let either of you breathe a word...I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you" (Pg 20). Further, she manipulates the town into thinking that she works for the Devil and is a witch. This gives her full power to blame innocent individuals and rule over a society where her opinion hardly mattered before. This can be seen at the end of act 1 when "Abigail rises. staring as through inspired" (Pg 48). These stage directions show that Abigail realizes the influence she has on the society and can use this power to her advantage. She also manipulates the court into believing her acting and has the power to blame individuals of witch

She then uses the power of being a religious child and proceeds to accuse other people in the village of witchcraft. Abigail then says, “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”(Miller 50). Abigail is able to convince everyone she is telling the truth through the use of manipulation. Manipulation is definitely a form of power and often one that is commonly abused for one's personal benefits. In this case Abigail uses her power to manipulate people into thinking people in the village are witches, and to ultimately shift any blame of suspicion off of herself and onto others. Even though it means the people who she accused could be hung for witchcraft. Abigail has lost her sense of what is wrong and what is right because she has accumulated a great deal of power, and she is abusing her power to manipulate the people within the village.