Mary Warren In The Crucible

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an elaborate play that tells the story of the village of Salem and how the community slowly falls apart because of a strategic witch hunt ploy. The fear of witchcraft turns the once peaceful village upside down and accusations destroy the lives and reputations of so many people. Different characters’ actions have different impacts on the community, but one character stands out the most. Abigail Williams from The Crucible is a clear representation of how impactful the power of manipulation and deception is in a vulnerable society to create mass hysteria.

In Arthur Miller 's The Crucible, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Abigail Williams remained a static character throughout the book. Abigail is a mean, deceitful and manipulative person who always wants her way; she has no remorse about who she hurts along her journey to get her want she wants.

In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail William's flaws-Immaturity, Lust, and Spitefulness- that led her to be most responsible for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem.

Mary Warren, a young woman living in Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials, shows no exception to differing viewpoints. Throughout The Crucible, in which Mary Warren is a character, the very children whom the town considers holy, appear also to perpetrate the vicious crime of murder through false allegations of witchcraft. Unable to recognize the children’s crime because of their innocent appearance, citizens of Salem conduct dozens of

The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the year of 1692 and during this time, the Salem witch-hunts began. The Salem witch-hunt was one of the oddest and most fearsome epochs in human history. The numerous amounts of people that were prosecuted were all innocent and their lives were taken away due to the fallacious accusations of the Puritan’s belief in superstition and their paranoia that witches had walked among them. One accuser that is the reason this all started was Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams is to blame because she possesses the evil qualities of being remorselessness, jealous, and also having the quality of vengefulness. These qualities that Abigail have are direct contributions to the murder of many people who were unjustly hanged to death.

The Salem Witch Trials: a time where the innocent were guilty and the guilty got away with murder. This horrendous event can be further explained through Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. Miller has won many awards in his time for writing many dramas that are very popular amongst the people and The Crucible just so happens to be one of them. It tells a story about a harsh time that many people faced when they were losing loved ones who were found guilty since they didn’t confess to a crime that they never committed. While reading the play, a person will find a theme of power. One specific character, Mary Warren, helps show this theme because as soon as she gains power, her character changes drastically. Throughout The Crucible, Mary Warren is portrayed as a very dynamic character since she begins as being very wimpy, then she gains confidence and becomes brave, and then she goes right back to being timid and controlled by Abigail.

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

Most people would not like to be known as a coward. Mary Warren was not aiming for that title, but that is what she ended up with. She gave herself this negative reputation. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play about the undergoing of the Salem Witchcraft Trials in 1692. A group of Salems girls, are caught dancing in the woods. To take allegation off of themselves, they accuse other innocent townspeople of practicing witchcraft. Multiple victims are murdered or imprisoned. Mary Warren, one of the accusers, plays a big role in this play. Mary Warren’s character changes from cowardly, to brave, and back to cowardly, throughout the story which shows how she evolved throughout The Crucible.

Abigail Williams is an evil, lying witch responsible for the deaths of innocent citizens in Salem, Massachusetts. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible the young, beautiful Abigail has an affair with married John Proctor. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants, including practicing witchcraft. Abigail is an obsessive, selfish, manipulative liar, who brings destruction wherever she goes.

There are various ways you can portray women throughout, The Crucible. Some are raised with high expectations, morals, and the majority are raised in a Christian household. And some are raised the complete opposite. In The Crucible, women are viewed in many different ways based on their actions and behavior. In Margaret Atwood’s poem, “Half-Hanged Mary,” she often views women the same way. The author in The Crucible, Arthur Miller, uses very important women to characterize the certain roles of women. The author of the poem, “Half-Hanged Mary also shows how women portray the roles of how women were treated in the poem, as well as the story, The Crucible. Both of these authors, Margaret and Arthur, compare the similar roles of women based on their well being and moral upbringings.

Defense of Mary Warren When it comes to Arthur Miller’s allegorical work, The Crucible, very few characters can be deemed completely innocent. While just about every person in this story has a flaw of envy, pride, or selfishness, characters can often be sorted into the “accuser or accused” categories. One exception to this is Mary Warren. Throughout the story, her loyalties switch back and forth between these two sides. Due to this, she may seem like a selfish and unsympathetic character; that is not the case, however. Mary Warren is an abused and manipulated child, whose decisions in the story are certainly justified, given her situation. The first we see of Mary is when Betty falls ill after the the girls are caught congregating in the woods. Immediately, we see she is terrified, fully aware that them being accused of witchcraft would be “a hangin’ error” (1268). Abigail responds to her fear with an order to lie; she threatens them with violence should they not obey her. Abigail is one of Mary Warren’s main abusers in the story. John Proctor, Mary’s employer, enters the scene next. When he sees her away from his house, he scolds her in a humiliating fashion, even threatening to whip her. From the stage directions, we see she tries “to retain a shred of dignity” (1269), when this happens, leading to the belief that this reproach from Proctor is common in her life. We don’t hear from Mary again until the beginning of Act II. She

The townspeople of Salem feared that they would be called witches so they lied and blamed their family and friends. Mary Warren being one of those people feared being hung and Abigail’s vengeance. When John tells Mary to go to court and confess, Mary refuses, knowing that Abigail will act out of revenge and in court she faces what she had been avoiding “ABIGAIL. Her eyes fall on Mary Warren. MARY. Abby!”(101). Mary Warren knows that Abigail will claim she is a witch so Mary goes along with it to escape death and she blames John Proctor by saying “You’re the devil’s man!”, instead of possibly ending the trials once and for all.

Furthermore, many aspects of Mary's character contributed to the reasons behind her actions and therefore, why she is partly responsible. Accordingly, Mary Warren was not an intelligent character and this can be seen by the fact that she saw the accusations of witchcraft as "only a sport.” Arguably, this could be interpreted as a naivety for not realizing the sometimes fatal consequences of her actions. Meanwhile, some may also see elements of cowardice within Mary's character, a passage which demonstrates this in the play, "Don't touch me!" when Mary was about to re-confirm all the accused's innocence, yet suddenly changed her mind after had seen the threat of her own accusation by Abigail, who claimed to see Mary in the form of a bird. This cowardice then guides onto the main reason why Mary Warren is responsible for Proctor's death. Moreover, the author of “The Crucible” is trying to point out that her cowardice have got her reputation towards Proctor a let down. John Proctor’s death was not simply due to an affair, but the people he had conflict with, whereas himself. John Proctor, Mary Warren and Abigail Williams, all contributed to what ultimately ended his life, in which holds the blame for their actions, thus led to his

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail’s flaws- lust, jealousy, and mendacity- that led her to be responsible the most for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem. The Crucible focuses of the finding of young girls and a slave messing around in the woods, trying to conjure spirits from the dead. Rather than admit to their actions and face the consequences, the girls accuse everyone else of the crimes they were guilty of. Abigail Williams is the person who caused much of the drama in this story. She bears much responsibility for everyone meeting with Tituba in the woods. Once Parris discovers this meeting, Abigail attempts to keep her actions a secret because it would possibly reveal her affair with Proctor. Abigail lies to cover up her affair with proctor, and to stop the charges of witchcraft in order to prevent the terrible punishments that go along with the accusations.

Miller utilises Mary Warren's repeated refrain of "I cannot, I cannot" to reflect how crazy she has become. Despite Abigail's wrongdoings Mary states that she "cannot charge murder on Abigail" which shows how much Abigail has manipulated her. She then states that "they'll turn on [her]" which demonstrates the pressure placed upon Mary to lie to the court. Mary's mind has been twisted into believing that staying loyal to the girls is more important than saving the lives of innocent people accused of witchcraft and this gives the audience a glimpse of the absurd ideas implanted into the brains of the Salem community. The curtain falls on Mary repeatedly sobbing "I cannot, I cannot" and this tells the audience that the madness is not at an end but will continue into the scenes to come.