Theme Of Adultery In The Crucible

Improved Essays
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor has commit adultery with a seventeen year old girl named Abigail. John confessed his sin to his wife and for seven months tried to gain her trust and forget Abigail. Abigail, on the other side, only dreams of being with John again, and he has given her signs that he wants her back too even though he is a married man. Even Elizabeth, John’s wife, is suspicious about them committing adultery again. Abigail is not in any way delusional about rekindling her relationship with John Proctor.
In act two, John and Abigail conversed alone in a room in a flirtatious way when in Salem. While talking alone, Abigail reaches to touch him and says “I’d almost forgotten how strong you are, John Proctor!” (838),

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    After her affair with John Proctor, Abigail, is sure the John loves her and this desire to become his wife and to win his love drives her to the extreme, going against all the Puritan beliefs and the norms of the society. “John—I am waitin’ for you every night” (22). Her affair with John is one of the biggest sins that she could commit in the Puritan beliefs and yet she continues to act upon the feelings that she has built for John and what she thought they had. Abigail goes…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abigail Williams Jealousy

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Abigail told John Proctor “I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near!... I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now!” (Miller 23). Abigail tried to get John to accept her and have feelings towards her because of their affair. John denied her and told her to forget him.…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Happy Wife or Cheating Life Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor, thou shalt not commit adultery. For Puritan in the 1690s, the 10 Commandments were to be followed as law. It was shamed upon to lie in Puritan society. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the characters choosing to not follow the 10 Commandments was partly the cause of possibly innocent lives being accused of witchcraft and executed.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Because of Abigail’s character flaws dishonesty, lust, and jealousy she is the most responsible for Salem witch trials. Abigail loves John Proctor she lusts for him. She loves grabbing him, talking to him, and her face lights up with excitement she sees him something like a blush. In the Crucible Abigail said “John I am waitin’ for you every night” (miller 23).…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If Proctor would have been open and honest with the judges about Abigail, all the accusations would have been prevented. Also, John’s lust can be seen when he talks to his wife after his return home from Salem. Elizabeth faintly remarked, “You were alone with her?” John replies, “For a moment alone, aye” (167). Here, the reader can see that Proctor still has feelings for Abigail even though he knew the trouble it would cause.…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout The Crucible by Arthur Miller sex and sexual repression are a constant theme behind the main character's actions. This play takes place in the 17th century which, means being Puritan was the way of life in the colony Massachusetts. Puritans were expected to be very modest and only have sex when they were married. John Proctor and Abigail Williams did not live this pure and modest lifestyle, but succumbed to their sexual desire for each other and had an affair. The repression of sexual desire and sexual identity was the driving force behind John and Abigail's affair and the witch trials.…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In a severe lapse of judgments he commits adultery with his servant Abigail. Proctor squashes Abigail’s hopes, “Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more.”(21).…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Love can triumph over everything: hate, selfishness, and tragedy; or it can cause these kinds of things like selfishness and self-doubt. In the In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible three types of love can be found, self-love, love for others and obstructive love. The characters Abby, John and Mary portray these feelings. Mary Warren is conflicted between helping herself or her other friends by telling the truth about witch craft. Mary is accused of being a witch and can either admit and go to jail or don’t admit and get hung.…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, expressed many different characters with dissimilar intentions and motivations in great length. These dramatic emotions tied along with greed and desire allowed this playwright to come to life and create an overall exhilarating read for the audience. Most characters in this play have important roles that demonstrate their true incentive in what they will get out of this huge mess of hysteria. The character of Abigail is very interesting to touch upon.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Miller continues to define Proctor’s ethical and moral considerations by including him discussing Abigail with his wife. When Elizabeth finds out John was alone with Abigail she grows upset because he had not told her this previously. Recoiling her reaction, he says, “You will not judge me more, Elizabeth… Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day I confessed my affair with Abigail. But you're not, you're not, and let you remember it!…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Breaking of Charity Many times in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible there were instances where characters would break charity with one another. Although this play is mainly about McCarthyism in the 1950’s and how that is seen during the Puritan times. However, Arthur Miller also shows the idea of how individuals of Salem simply broke charities among each other.…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Deceitful Actions of a Young Girl In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, a seventeen-year-old girl named Abigail Williams leads a group of girls to wrongfully accuse innocent people and have them killed just because they disliked them. These trials were later known as the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Abigail Williams was deceitful and dishonest with her false accusations. She accuses Elizabeth Proctor out of lust and greed to take her place as partner of John Proctor.…

    • 1082 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Crucible The most evident theme in The Crucible is that selfishness interferes with morality. The witch trials in Salem show that people will do or say anything to get something for themselves. If they wanted something, they would say anything to get it.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In Act 2 Elizabeth confronts rumors and suspicion that Abigail wants to kill her and aims to replace her place as John Proctor's wife. The Author of this article, David Palmer also sees this and further analyses their discussion, "The first detailed discussion of the adultery and its effect on Proctor's sense of self is at the beginning of act 2, and the problem here is Proctor's confusion concerning differences between regret, guilt, and shame. At first, Proctor seems to have wanted to view his act as a merely regrettable event… That seems to be what he means when he means when he says to Elizabeth that he made no promise in his sexual engagement with Abigail... he was overcome by lust; that happens to people occasionally; it is unimportant"(Palmer 32-33).…

    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    America was built by the dreams of people hoping for better lives. The dream for a better life is now engraved into american society, and because of this authors like Arthur Miller and John Steinbeck explore the ideology of the “American dream” in their books. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Crucible both share a common theme with John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men; They all follow characters who dream of better lives that they never attain. In Death of a Salesman Willy Loman never had the selling skills to make it big as a salesman. In The Crucible Abigail williams’s attempts her dream of being with the married John Proctor but only gets John killed in the process.…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays