...Research Analysis over Abigail Williams Arthur Miller said in an interview once, “ I took creative license with her character to make the connection between sexuality and politics more dramatic,” (Shmoop). This is one of the reasons Arthur Miller made Abigail Williams in The Crucible so different compared to the real Abigail. Abigail Williams was an 11-year -old girl who lived in Salem and worked for the Proctor family, John and Elizabeth, before the time of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Before the trails even started, Abigail and her cousin, Betty Parris, got into fortune telling their future like who they would marry and what their social status would be. After a while they got the other girls in town to start playing their fortune telling...
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...What are the characters like in The Crucible? There are two ways an author introduces a character: by using direct and or indirect characterization. When the author introduces characters directly, he or she is telling the audience. When the author introduces a character indirectly, he or she has the character tell the audience through their actions and dialogue. In the play ‘’ The Crucible’’ author Arthur Miller uses direct and indirect characterization to introduce Reverend Parris, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, and Mary Warren. Reverend Parris is the first character introduced in the play ‘’ The Crucible”. Directly, Arthur Miller tells us Reverend Parris is ‘’in his 40’s’’, he feels ‘’persecuted,’’ ‘’has no interest in children,’’ and was a merchant in Barbados. Reverend Parris dialogue includes ‘’I cannot blink what I saw… for my enemies will not blink it,’’ ‘’No No I, cannot have any. (enters Putnam) why, Goody Putnam come in,” ‘’Where is my wood… I am waiting since November…,’’ and ‘’ God help me”. These parts of Reverend Parris’s speech tells the audience he is more worried about himself. He’s influenced by money and power,...
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...The Crucible In the tragedy play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller there were a lot of characters involved with the Salem witch trials, but there were only three characters who were responsible for it. The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials who several young girls were supposedly afflicted by witchcraft. And so the girls accused innocent people in their town for witchcraft also mostly accusing people who they or their families dislike so they would be hanged. In total 20 people were killed due to the witch trials. The three characters who were responsible for the Salem witch trials are Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris, and Betty Parris. Abigail Williams has most part why the witch trials started because she knew this was all a...
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...Fabrication is looked at the same way lying is, wrong. Coming up with fiction when the truth needs to be told. John Proctor in The Crucible, is a farmer in a Puritan society. Proctor has a wife, Elizabeth, and three boys, but only two are baptized. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, John Proctor was a dishonest man by lying, being dishonest towards Reverend Hale, and betraying his family by being actively involved in adultery. John Proctor is a dishonorable man because he lies.This is an issue because his wife is becoming weary of him. In Act I, John Proctor was alone in a room with Abigail Williams. When Abigail asked how Proctor calls her a child, Proctor replies with, “...I may think of you softly from time to time” (Miller 146). This quote relates directly to Proctor; he states, to Elizabeth, that he does not think...
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...the same way lying is, wrong. Coming up with fiction when the truth needs to be told. John Proctor in The Crucible, is a farmer in a Puritan society. Proctor has a wife, Elizabeth, and three boys, but only two are baptized. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, John Proctor was a dishonest man by lying, being dishonest towards Reverend Hale, and betraying his family by being actively involved in adultery. John Proctor is a dishonorable man because he lies.This is an issue because his wife is becoming weary of him. In Act I, John Proctor was alone in a room with Abigail Williams. When Abigail asked how Proctor calls her a child, Proctor replies with. This quote relates directly to Proctor; he states, to Elizabeth, that he does not think of Abigail in that way anymore. Proctor told two different people two different things in the time frame. In Act II Proctor says that he...
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...Miller's The Crucible, Self-Preservation is very common in the town of Salem. Self-Preservation is when a person protects themselves or someone else, whether it be by telling the truth or a lie. In the town of Salem many people use Self-Preservation to protect themselves from the consequences of performing witchcraft. However, others may use Self-Preservation to protect their reputation or image in society, such as Reverend Parris. He himself started, what is called a chain of self-preservation when he reported Abigail Williams and the girls performing witchcraft. This led to Abigail having to use self-preservation to protect herself from the consequences of witchcraft which later on led Elizabeth Proctor to protect herself and her...
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...reputation is a widely dispersed theme throughout The Crucible. Its many different occurrences that are displayed from start to finish of this play, make this specific theme one of the most important. In The Crucible, the idea of one’s reputation and their social standings swayed the thoughts and actions of many individuals. When the witchcraft accusation was brought about in Salem, “it was the ideas of reputation that determined whether or not the accused individuals were actually guilty of the crime.” (Shoop Editorial Team). One of the occasions that the theme of reputation took place was in the very beginning of the play. In act 1, when Reverend Parris caught his daughter Betty and his niece Abigail dancing in the woods, he was worried about what the other people in the town were going to think. He was anxious to discover what the people of Salem were going to say about him when they discovered that his daughter and niece might have possibly been performing acts of witchcraft. This is proven when he said, “Now look you, child, your punishment will come in its time. But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it.”(The Crucible. Act 1. Scene 1.) Parris was also worried that the people who already disliked him were going to ruin his name further. His thoughts of action were to control the rumors to save himself. Doing so, he tried to get Abigail to admit playing with the devil, but she withheld information...
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...or she will be hanged. One may be telling the truth in claiming innocence of witchcraft, but the court will not believe a person accused of witchcraft unless one has confessed. The assumption of the practice of witchcraft came about when Abigail’s Uncle Parris, caught her friends and her dancing around a fire in the woods conjuring spirits. As the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller goes on, some of the characters are found to be honest, jealous and full of pride. Honesty is said to be the best policy, however in The Crucible, the characters...
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...Abigail and the Crucible Throughout the crucible, the whole point of the story is to prove whether witchcraft is actually taking place, or if Abigail is just full of absolute lies. Abigail Williams was not the nicest of them all, but sometimes it seemed like she truly cared. In this situation, Abigail was absolutely a victim of her society because witchcraft was an excuse to show her mischievous behavior. It seemed as though Abigail was favored through the play. Abigail was a young girl who knew that she could win over the judge’s vote. There were times that he had no idea who was telling the truth and who was not. It did not seem to matter, whether he knew or not, he always ended up siding with Abigail. This caused many deaths that could have been prevented, if Abigail and her little friends learned to deal with what was given. Abigail was accusing people that she was mad at. In past events, John Proctor had seduced or taken advantage of...
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...People can better understand human nature from Studying The Crucible. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller there is a group of girls and one of them in Abigail who is the main antagonist in the story. The group of girls was seen in the woods doing “witchcraft”. Abigail and the girls are accused of witchcraft. The group of girls start to name other women in the town like John Proctor's wife. Abigail picks her mainly because she wants John Proctor for herself since John and Abigail had an affair previously. Now the girls accuse other people in the town to draw less attention to them and try to keep their names good. By studying The Crucible and other resources people can better understand that people are greedy and are quick to blame. In “The...
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...demonstrates this through his book The Crucible. The Crucible demonstrates a theme that when revenge determines justice, havoc ensues; this theme is displayed through the allegations that Abigail Williams makes against John and Elizabeth Proctor, and their servant Mary Warren, as well as through the Putnams’ willingness to implicate their neighbors. Abigail Williams is a narcissistic and manipulative character that is driven by her obsession with John Proctor. Henceforth, she tries to get...
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...Courtney Ruffini Mrs. Harris English 11 17 December 2015 Reputation over Truth Reputations are the beliefs or opinions generally held about someone or something. Throughout The Crucible a persistent theme is keeping ones reputation clean. The characters want to be perceived as a prestige character throughout the course of the book. Quite a few characters throughout the book do anything they can to save their reputation. Having a good name in the village is more important than telling the truth to these particular characters. One of the characters that want to protect his name is Reverend Parris. Throughout the acts of the play Parris makes comments that prove he is only about having a good name carried throughout the village. When Parris...
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...Deputy Governor Danforth: The “Savior” of Salem Village? In The Crucible, Deputy Governor Danforth plays a major role, seeing that he is the highest official that has been called in to officiate the Salem Village court. Danforth does his best to make everyone believe that he is like the “hero” of Salem Village. He acted like he could almost do no wrong, even though that is very incorrect. Danforth even keeps this attitude after the evidence is shown that the whole Salem Village Witch Trials were a sham. Danforth is not the “hero” of Salem Village, he is the destructor of Salem Village. There is much proof that shows that Danforth was not following his job of giving a fair trial to the accused people of Salem Village. Danforth has multiple...
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...three-act structure common today, calling the sections protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe. Famous authors like Shakespeare expanded the original divisions into a five-act structure comprised of an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. Although it was a four act play, Arthur Miller, author of The Crucible, utilized the five-act structure to further develop his plot. The exposition of a five-act structure introduces the setting, main characters, and conflict of a literary work. The audience gains critical information that is crucial for understanding the...
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...In The Crucible, set in the Puritan village of Salem, John Proctor is a conflicted man of varying emotions, and makes decisions which end up costing him dearly, unlikely for someone who goes out of his way to avoid trouble and being held accountable for it. One basis of Proctor’s guilty conscience is that he has had an affair with Abigail Williams, thus committing adultery because of his relationship with Elizabeth Proctor. Adultery, set is The Crucible, in the Puritan community of Salem, is more than a crime; it is a wrongdoing that has very serious implications and is punishable by death. With this guilty conscience, there are also witchcraft proceedings ongoing in Salem, and Proctor eventually will have to make decisions regarding taking the action that is morally fulfilling and telling the truth about the witchcraft trials to the judges. Although in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Proctor’s actions have led to his moral degradations and a heavy conscience, he makes the choices of telling the truth and doing what is right when he admit that he had committed lechery with Abigail, when he brought Mary Warren to the court with him to confess the truth, and by giving up his life in order to keep his name in good standing. Even as it goes against everything John Proctor strives for, he admits his secret to the court, just like he had done earlier with Elizabeth, thus subjecting himself to ridicule and punishment. Proctor admits to the court that he had sex with Abigail when he...
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