The Crucible Summary And Analysis

The film opens with a group of young girls and a slave named Tituba dancing around a fire in the woods of salem, massachusetts. A man sees the girls dancing; he startles them and they scatter but the 2 youngest girls are scared so much so that they pass out and enter a coma like state. The man we later find out is a reverend, one of the younger girl 's father, and the uncle of the ring leader of this dancing party. His daughter betty was one of the comatose girls. Reverend Parris called in an expert in witchcraft, Reverend Hale, to look at the comatose girls, because he suspected the girls of witchcraft. Abigail, the ringleader of the group, admits to dancing but nothing more beyond that. The town gathers in and around the home of reverend …show more content…
They begin to argue about her being bewitched, another argument ensued between proctor, parris, the wealthy thomas putnam and, the argument-loving giles corey. This foreshadows how the town will split when the trials begin. While the men argue proctor leaves and reverend hale arrives to examine betty. Hale begins to interrogate abigail about the girls activities in the woods and she blames tituba. Hale demands to see tituba to interrogate her, after harsh interrogation she admits to speaking with the devil. Scared for her life she begins to blame other towns people of conspiring with the devil, the other girls begin to shout out names of witches and devil conspirators, this throws the crowd into a panic. The accused are sent to trials to determine whether they are witches or to let them admit to seeing someone with the devil that persuaded them to join in. a week into the trials john and elizabeth, his wife, discuss the growing number of accused people. Elizabeth urges proctor to denounce abigail as a fraud, he refuses to do so and she accuses him of having feelings for abigail since their affair. The proctors servant mary warren, also one of the original girls who danced in the woods, returns from town with news that elizabeth had been accused. Reverend hale soon comes to discuss the case with john they are interrupted by giles corey and francis nurse coming with news of their innocent wives arrest. Not …show more content…
Judge danforth is suspicious of proctor and his motives so he tells him his wife 's life will be spared due to her pregnancy. Proctor mind isn 't changed and he convinces danforth to allow mary to testify, mary proceeds to tell the court all the girls are liars but when the girls are brought in they accuse mary of bewitching them. Feeling like he had no other choice proctor confesses to the affair between him and abigail saying this is her motive for accusing elizabeth. Danforth calls in elizabeth to test proctor and see if elizabeth would agree with proctor of lie to protect her husband 's good name. Despite her natural good honesty she lies for her husband causing danforth to denounce proctor as a liar. The girls again pretend that mary is bewitching them, frantically mary accuses john proctor himself of being a witch. This infuriates proctor causing him to burst out against the court. He then is arrested and hale quits the proceedings. The trials and hangings continue through the summer and into the fall causing unrest in salem and the surrounding colonial towns, even the judge danforth grows nervous about the number of people being sent to the gallows. Soon before john is set to be hanged abigail runs away, taking parris’s savings, not wanting to see her love killed from her own actions. Hale lost all faith