The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Abigail Williams was a manipulative, vindictive, and somewhat crazy young girl. She lost her parents when she was a child and then lived with her uncle Reverend Parris and his family. At one point, she worked for John and Elizabeth Proctor but was later thrown out for having an affair with John. John was the only person that Abigail had real feelings for. She truly loved her and believed he loved her too even after he said he would never touch her again. Her deep love for John is what started the whole thing. She was in the woods trying to do a spell to kill his wife!

Abigail is major character who demonstrated the plays theme of revenge. Abigail is the niece of Reverend Parris, who is in charge in Salem. In the play, we found out the Abigail had an affair John Proctor. John Proctor is married to Elizabeth Proctor, Elizabeth is later accused of witch craft from Abigail. Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft because Abigail feels that she should be with John Proctor and Elizabeth was the only person standing in the way of that situation. By accusing Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft, she would no longer be in the picture, then Abigail could come in and marry John Proctor. Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft out of spite and jealousy because Abigail wants to be with John Proctor. As you can see through the course of Abigail's actions,

One of the main links between the two women is their love for John Proctor. This would create much animosity between the two women and would lead to much strife between the two. While Abigail Williams saw

Abigail is a highly jealous character, concentrating her jealousy on Elizabeth Proctor. This jealousy is driven by lust and her desire for John Proctor. Abigail served as a servant in the Proctor household and after an affair with her husband John, Elizabeth fired her. She still resents Elizabeth for this as she is still in love with John. She clearly says to John, "You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!" Abigail is still in love with John and she assumes the converse. Her love for John only causes her resentment for Elizabeth to strengthen. She hates John Proctor's wife and in her conniving ways she attempts to inspire the same views of Elizabeth in John's mind. Saying things to him such as, "She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me, She is a cold, sniveling woman." Abigail fabricates stories in attempt to steel John from Elizabeth. She is a manipulative liar that does and says as she pleases in order to get what she wants.

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

The Crucible, a novel/play by Arthur Miller displays the chaos of the witch trials within the small town of Salem, Mass. Of the many characters of the novel, John Proctor and Mary Warren are both characters that serve an importance to the novel. The two characters both interact in the stories in different ways. Even though both characters can be seen as minor characters because of their inferior power in the novel, Proctor and Mary Warren serve as important characters to the story line. One reason being the fact that they both bring about problems with and/or against antagonist Abigail Williams such as Mary Warren, who likes the feeling of have authority but gets into unwanted conflict often, and Proctor, who is an very aggressive person

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible show the hysteria that took place in Salem in 1692. Even though this play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on a real historical event which was McCarthyism in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. There’re many connection in The Crucible to be considered as an allegory due to similarities themes and how the characters are being portrayed. Miller does an excellent job of portraying numerals characters used fear for benefit and they showed selfishness and malfeasance. This is also similar to how Joseph McCarthy’s oppressive by using intense fear of the spread of the economic system called communism.

TV shows and Movies with a focus on cliques, either in high school or in the work force, are popular in our society today. For instance the movie Mean Girls is about a teenage girl moving to a new school and being recruited into a high school clique. In this clique, the members exhibit the behaviors of people experiencing the psychological phenomenon, Groupthink. Groupthink is the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. There are eight symptoms of Groupthink- Invulnerability, Rationale, Morality, Stereotypes, Pressure, Self-Censorship, Unanimity, and Mindguards. Groupthink has also taken place in our history a a country. The play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller is about a the real-life Salem Witch Trials that happened in 1692 - 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts. Some symptoms of Groupthink found in the Crucible are Rationale, Pressure, and Self-Censorship.

Opening Statement: Abigail Williams vs. Elizabeth Proctor May it please the court, counsel, members of the jury; this is a case of conspiracy of the murder of Elizabeth Proctor. You are here because in the spring of 1692, the defendant, Abigail Williams, committed the crime of conspiring to murder Elizabeth Proctor. It is the burden of the prosecution to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Abigail Williams is guilty of plotting the murder of Elizabeth Proctor.

Fictionalizing the historically famous event of the sixteenth century, Arthur Miller retells The Salem Witch Trials in his dramatized play, The Crucible. Interpreting the horrific witch trials through the play’s characters and actions, Miller is successfully able to scrutinize the hysteria that took place in Salem Massachusetts while synonymously demonstrating the devastating effects of a theocratic government. Although the trials were filled with paranoia and injustice, Miller simply publicized the trials for what they were: a series of hearings and prosecutions. By relaying the accusations and trials that occurred in The Salem Witch Trials, Miller expresses the posing dangers of combining church and state into one supreme power. Given the [ By receiving] power through religious and governmental means, a theocratic government’s ecclesiastical authorities were able to interpret sins and crimes as one [one what?]. Although Salem was supposed to be a very honest and religious Puritan community, multiple sources say otherwise. There was said to be many disputes within Salem, those of which involved animosity over church positions, bitterness over grazing rights, as well as arguments regarding property lines. “Despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions” Miller writes, “long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly expressed, and vengeance taken” (Miller 1129). Abusing this power found between the thin lines of religion and government, the residents of Salem blamed witch

When the girls and Abigail were dancing in the woods, Abigail did some strange and dark things. She drank a charm to kill Elizabeth Proctor because she wanted John all to herself. She wanted to get Elizabeth killed because she is the reason that Abigail could not be with John and she wanted Elizabeth out of the way.

By the standards of virtually any society, lying is an act that is almost certain to result in some form of contempt, hatred, or even ostracism. However, not all liars are regarded in the same way- there is an obvious difference of morality between a fraudulent politician and one lying to protect his own life. In his play The Crucible, Arthur Miller demonstrates the moral and societal differences between and consequences of different types of lies: A liar’s virtue is determined primarily by intention, and while some forms of dishonesty are more acceptable than others, truth under all circumstances is vital to true morality. Miller’s stance is a rational and realistic one and can be seen not only in his play,

Abigail Williams is motivated by her love for John Proctor, and her decisions to lie accuse people cause chaos in the village. Abigail's love for John motivates her in the play to do many terrible things. “I have a sense for heat John, and yours draws me to my window…” -Abigail (Pg.1037).

Abigail, who was madly in love with Proctor, would do whatever it takes to be with him, including having innocent people murdered. While working for, and living with the Proctors, it is noted that Abigail and John may have engaged in physical relations. This causes Abigail to fall in love with

The theme of persecution in The Crucible by Arthur Miller is the convictions of numerous members of a village in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. During this time God was very prominent and they had a strong desire to convert everyone to Puritanism and if one did not believe in God or practice religion, that one had chosen to bind oneself to the Devil. “The people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies” (Miller, 1953, p. 7). The play opens in the house of Reverend Parris’ in the bedroom of his daughter, Betty Parris. She had become ill and her father was unable to wake her. Betty was in the forest with her cousin, Abigail Williams and her fathers’ slave who was called Tituba. He had discovered them dancing by a fire, while Tituba sang and danced in her foreign tongue from Barbados; which is where Reverend Parris had spent some years as a merchant before entering into ministry and where he had met Tituba and decided to bring her with him. It is because of what he saw, combined with the fact that the doctor could not find anything in his medical book related to the symptoms that Betty was experiencing, that it was her condition was deemed “unnatural”. The Crucible was set in 1692 and in those times, an unnatural cause was thought to be associated with the practice of witchcraft. Reverend