Crucible

The Crucible started out in the woods with the girls dancing with the slave Tituba. When Reverend Parris catches them, the girls scatter. Betty, his daughter, becomes suddenly “sick.” Soon, other girls start to become sick. It is obvious that the girls are faking so as to keep themselves out of trouble. However, the town claims there is witchcraft occurring because they cannot explain the sudden illness that has struck their young daughters. Many townspeople come to visit the young, sick Betty who was the first to become ill. One of those includes John Proctor. While he is there, he and Abigail are left alone. During this period, Abigail admits that there is no witchcraft going on. Then, she proceeds to seduce John. John, who has already felt grief for making the mistake of adultery with Abigail once, denies her. This angers Abigail. Just as Abigail and John’s conversation ends the others enter with Tituba. Tituba is threatened and thrown around until she finally admits she has committed the crime of witchcraft. She also claims to have seen many women of the town with the devil when he came for her name. Later, women begin to be accused of witchcraft and they must face the court; the court of which Mary Warren is a part of. Mary Warren returns from court one day, with a poppet she made and gave it to Elizabeth Proctor. Not long after, Elizabeth is taken away for witchcraft. She was accused by Abigail who claimed Elizabeth stuck her in the side with a needle. After many hangings of women, John shows up to court with Mary Warren and documents stating that many people of Salem are against killing any more women and they don’t believe in what is going on anymore, that Giles Corey does not think his wife is a witch, that he just wants to know why she reads so much, and that he thinks Putnam is just trying to accuse someone so he can have their land, and the final document states that Mary Warren admits the girls were just pretending. It is obvious that people in the town are just accusing one another for revenge.
Arthur Miller does a wonderful job of showing just how ludicrous people can be. The Crucible showed more than just people being crazy, it also showed about how religion can affect people’s lives in a big way. For example, when Elizabeth was accused, the Proctors are questioned about their Christianity. They were looked down upon because they did not attend Sabbath like they were supposed to. When John said it was because his wife was sick, he was asked why he did not come alone. John’s response was that the days he did not come, he prayed at home. The fact that John’s youngest was not baptized was also questioned. John told them it was because Reverend Parris only spoke of what the devil could do and warned them harshly about evil instead of preaching god like they should and the he made the members pay until they could afford gold candle sticks instead of pewter and he did not want his son to be baptized by a preacher like that. When that did not do, John went on to recite the Ten Commandments as proof of their Christianity. Everything that happened in the play revolved around their religion, their creeds, codes, cultuses, and the community. For example, the bible said there was such thing as witchcraft so if one did not believe in witchcraft they did not believe in the bible. If one did not know the Ten Commandments, as shown in John’s circumstance, they were not Christian. John also provides the perfect example of cultuses; he did not attend Sabbath like he was supposed to so he was questioned. The Crucible shows how the puritan community was so closely linked and how it was so strongly based off of their religious beliefs.