Love and Deception in Salem
By Zoey Simpson
It’s 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, and strange things have been happening in the town - or so it seems. The Crucible by Arthur Miller provides rich insight into the lives of many innocent townspeople accused of witchcraft, as well as those behind the supernatural accusations during the Salem witch trials. Abigail and the rest of the young women in the play claim to see supernatural visions because Abigail is in love with John Proctor, who is married to Elizabeth Proctor, and Abigail, wanting him to herself, realizes that she can have him to herself if she claims that Elizabeth is a witch, and the rest of the girls just go along with it, blaming others, too.
Abigail is in love with John Proctor, but he is married, so she wants to get his wife out of the way, even though John tries to discourage their relationship. John Proctor, trying to convince Abigail that he’s not going to ever be with her again, says, “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby,” (pg. 22), but she refuses to let it go. Abigail, clearly attacking Elizabeth, says, “Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be --” (pg. 22), and John cuts her off angrily. Abigail, in an attempt to convince John that Elizabeth is bad, says, “She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her!” (pg. 22). John then gets mad and tells Abigail that he will whip her if she continues to talk like this. John is ashamed to ever have touched her, and, to make up for it, tries to defend his wife as much as possible. Abigail still refuses to believe that they can’t be together, and thinks that the problem is only Elizabeth that is keeping them apart. John’s defense of Elizabeth irritates Abigail, who becomes jealous and realizes that she must take down Elizabeth in a different way.
Abigail and the girls, in an attempt to convince the adults that they aren’t guilty of witchcraft, blame other women of forcing them into witchcraft or say that other women have been with the Devil, too. Their stories also tend to be very inconsistent. For example, Abigail says that she was forced into the ‘sins’ by Tituba, and only five pages later says that she had in fact worshiped the Devil of her own accord. Hale, desperate to find out what ails Abigail’s younger cousin Betty, and suspicious that Abigail isn’t telling them the whole story, says, “Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying. Did you call the Devil last night?” (pg. 40). Abigail, stressed by the confrontation and looking for someone to blame, stutters Tituba’s name in an attempt to get the blame off of her. Parris and Hale demand to talk to Tituba, and Abigail is clear. However, a few pages later, on page 45, she starts saying that she wants to open herself to God and confess her sins, and says, “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osbourne with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” Betty conveniently wakes up, and starts to name other residents of Salem, saying “I saw George Jacobs with the devil!” and continues to accuse other townspeople. Parris and Hale are very excited that Betty is awake, and the girls keep yelling the names of different people until the end of the scene. Abigail changes her mind multiple times in this scene, first blaming Tituba, then deciding that she will “confess” herself to God and says that she saw many women with the Devil, as a way to “prove” herself to God and convince the men that she’s innocent and telling the truth.
It’s not just Abigail and her (probably unwilling) accomplice Betty who accuse other women of witchcraft; the rest of the girls are, too. Mary Warren has been going down to the court as an official. She says that fourteen women were going to be hanged, and that she was doing good work in the court. She comes back to the Proctors’ home, very upset, saying that Sarah Good had confessed to witchcraft in the court. Mary Warren then starts saying that Sarah Good had sent her spirit out and tried to choke her, and had tried to kill her many times in the past. Elizabeth doesn’t believe this, and questions her more, but Mary Warren is indignant, saying, “I never knew it before. I never knew anything before. When she came into court I say to myself. I must not accuse this woman, for she sleep in ditches, and so very old and poor. But then -- then she sit there, denying and denying, and I felt a misty coldness climbin’ up my back, and the skin on my skull begin to creep, and I feel a clamp around my neck and I cannot breathe air; and then -- entranced -- I hear a voice, a screamin’ voice, and it were my voice -- and all at once I remembered everything she done to me!” Elizabeth then asks what Goody Good had done to her, and Mary Warren says that sometimes Goody Good comes up to the door asking for food, and when Mary Warren turns her away hungry, she mumbles. This statement is ridiculous, because, as Elizabeth says next, if she’s hungry, she may mumble. Mary Warren seems very adamant that Goody Good had truly done this to her, and is very upset about it, as she is crying when she comes home. This could be because Abigail has convinced her that Goody Good has hurt her, or because she’s a suspicious person (as you can tell from her “muttering” claims) and has convinced herself that Goody Good has hurt her. This shows that Mary Warren may have been too caught up in the drama to determine whether she was telling the truth herself, or whether she had just been tricked.
Abigail claims that women from around the town are partaking in witchcraft because Abigail wants John Proctor to herself, which Elizabeth Proctor is in the way of, and when she starts getting accused, she and the rest of the girls just start blaming other women. This essay shows how people can be gullible when looking for an explanation. The girls deceive the townspeople into thinking that accused women in the town were actually partaking in supernatural activity. They trap the women, leading the women to confess themselves, even though they are almost always innocent. Abigail makes bad choices in this play. She starts off trying to get Mrs. Proctor out of the picture so she can have John, and when it doesn’t work and she starts getting accused of being a witch, she confesses, but blames it on other women in the town to clear her own name. When people like Abigail have a goal, it can start small, but spiral out of control, and when people like Reverend Parris are looking for an explanation to supernatural-seeming things, such as Betty Parris’s illness, they are more likely to believe what people tell them, even if it’s deceptive, which can get out of hand.
