The Crucible is a play written in 1952 by Arthur Miller. This book relates to what we have studied this semester because it is centered around the Salem Witchcraft Trials that occurred in Massachusetts in 1692. My junior year of high school, we were required to read both the play and the movie and it is something that I will never forget. The scene that always come to my mind when I think of The Crucible is when the opening scene where Tituba and some of the girls are practicing witchcraft around a fire late at night in the middle of the woods. I also think of the end scene in which 19 people were hanged. I don’t think there is a clearly defined thesis in The Crucible, but in my opinion, it shows how easy it is for fear to influence …show more content…
Abigail starts accusing everyone she doesn’t like of being involved in witchcraft, ultimately accusing Elizabeth Proctor. It is easy for the other girls who were there that night to follow along because of their fear that they would get in trouble if they owned up to what they did. Abigail was willing to let many harmless people die in order to save herself. She was so worried about being disgraced for casting charms with her friends in the forest that she put the blame on others. Having the story written as a novel would have been very helpful at this point because the only glimpse into Abigail’s point of view is the conversation that she had with John Proctor. In this conversation, Abigail seems entirely convinced that John’s wife was possessed by a devil: “God gave me strength to call them liars…Oh, John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again” (150). It is possible that Abigail truly believed that these people were involved with the devil and that she was helping mankind. Her fear could have been so great that she wasn’t able to see the difference between what was really going on and what she thought was going on. However, it is also possible that she was in fact faking it the whole time and knew that if she started telling the truth now it would lead …show more content…
John Proctor refused to admit that the devil was possessing him. This proved too much for Abigail to handle and she ran away, trying to escape her fears. One can only imagine the guilt that continued to follow her for the rest of her life. It is after this that the counsel realizes that they may have been wrong to accuse so many people of witchcraft. However, they knew that if they backed out the townspeople would learn that they had put innocent people to death and would revolt. They, therefore, continue to hang people who wouldn’t admit to being a witch. One of these people being John Proctor, who they tried to give a way out but he refused, not wanting to ruin his good