Judges Hathorne And Williams In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

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Arthur Miller wrote the classic play The Crucible in 1953 during the Red Scare to prove how much the Salem Witch Trials related to how the community was turning on each other to save themselves. Abigail Williams is a perfect example of a character that deceived her way into removing accusations of witchcraft on herself and reversing it to carry out her maniacal vengeance on other characters in the play. During the witch trials in 17th century Salem Massachusetts turned the town on its head when the conspiracy broke through when the town’s young women were found “dancing” in the woods. Judges Hathorne and Danforth were sent to Salem to exterminate all those who were accused of witchcraft and save the ones who admitted being with the Devil and …show more content…
Abigail threatens the other girls into protecting her from witchcraft accusations, While all the girls are alone with Abigail she stresses that “We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all”(Miller 19) and threatened them by saying that if anyone dare “breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” (Miller 19). Abigail is telling the girls the made up story in effort to have all the girls clear on what not to tell the adults about what had happened the night in the forest. Abigail is proving how she is manipulative, she is forcing the other girls into protecting her. More evidence can be found at Bloom’s Literature when the author Jackson Bryer states that Abigail “threatens and intimidates the other more naive girls when they are inclined to be honest with their elders … Abigail and the girls lead the court, which believes they must be telling the truth since they are children” (Bryer). The witchcraft conspiracy requires official Judges Hathorne and Danforth to come into Salem and watch over the court. John Proctor had once committed lechery with Abigail and Abigail had fell in love with the man. Proctor was married so …show more content…
In the court Abigail lies that she sees a yellow bird supposedly being controlled by Mary’s spirit, is on the rafters and Mary is sending it out on her to attack her. When Abigail first mentions her sight of the birds she questions uneasily . “Why do you come, yellow bird? Proctor: Where’s a bird? I see no bird! Abigail, to the ceiling: My face? My face?”(Miller 106). Abigail in reality is pretending to be seeing a bird and is just using her lies to get herself out of trouble. On the literary reference database on EBSCO the author of the article David Sundstrand agrees that “When Proctor brings Mary to court to recant, Abigail pretends to be possessed by the evil spirits brought by Mary. Proctor accuses the girls of lying and confesses to committing adultery with Abigail. Danforth refuses to believe that Abigail can be guilty of so great a sin”(Sundstrand). Abigail has immunity in the court with all her lies and manipulative abilities making Judge Danforth believe that she can’t be attracted to such concepts like the Devil at such a young age . Abigail recognizes this and lies more to have anything she

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