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The Crucible - Emnity and Distrust

Decent Essays

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village. John Proctor is very rarely involved in village affairs, preferring to spend time on his farm than getting involved in politics. He does however still have conflicts with others in the village, especially Parris, whom he mistrusts greatly. Proctor genuinely dislikes Parris and disagrees with all that he does. Proctor’s hatred of Parris causes him to rarely attend church …show more content…

Proctor vows to “cut off [his] hand before [he’ll] ever reach for [Abigail] again”. Abigail is devastated that Proctor is now loyal to his “sickly” wife. Abigail holds a grudge against Goody Proctor because she had her fired and is now “blackening” her name in the village. Although the original accusations of witchcraft were made to avoid a whipping, Abigail sees an opportunity to eliminate her competition, Elizabeth. The awkwardness between Abigail and Elizabeth is increased to hatred when Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft and devises a plan to frame her. When Elizabeth discovers that Abigail saw Mary Warren push the pin into her poppet and that she is willing to go to the extreme lengths of stabbing herself with a pin, her loathing of Abigail increases to the point where she exclaims that Abigail is “murder” and should be “ripped out of the world”. The hatred between the two has stemmed directly from the affair between Abigail and Proctor, thus adding to the hostility of Salem Village. Although Parris is the Minister of Salem Village, he is far from the most respected and decent man and has many grievances and conflicts during the play. Parris’ main conflicting personality is John Proctor but he has many other grievances that may seem insignificant to many, but to Parris, the threat that they provide appears enormous. The danger that Parris is concerned about most is the possibility that his reputation

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