Hysteria in Salem

The Crucible is a play that was written by Arthur Miller in 1952. The play first opens with Reverend Parris catching his daughter(Betty), his niece (Abigail), and their friends conjuring up spirits in the Virgin Forest. The spirits they conjured up were those of Ruth’s deceased siblings. Reverend Parris was stressed about what to do with his daughter, Betty, that lay inert in bed. The town slowly fell into hysteria when words of witchcraft are spread throughout the town. The girls remorselessly accuse anyone they dislike of performing witchcraft as a way to deceive the people of Salem. Abigail had exhibited licentious behavior towards John Proctor. Even though, they did have an affair a while back, Proctor refused Abigail this time. This caused Abigail to become the antagonist of the play because of her starting to accuse innocent people of witchcraft. When Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of sending spirits out to get her, Proctor becomes indignant when learning about it. Elizabeth’s execution had been reprieved when the news of her being pregnant come out. Mary Warren and John Proctor end up going to the courthouse to speak with Danforth about the girls’ calumnies. As well as them not really seeing any spirits manifest themselves in front of them. It comes to the point where Proctor confesses his affair with Abigail. When Elizabeth was called upon to testify about Proctor’s affair, she denies the indictment. Proctor is then arrested. When the townspeople started to disapprove the hangings it leads to less people showing up. This ultimately ended the Salem Witch Trials.

The evidence that the court relied on to convict and/or execute someone who was accused relied heavily on the group of girls that claimed to have been bewitched by the souls of witches. The only way to not hang in the Trials was to plead guilty of witchcraft and name others that practiced witchcraft or was pregnant. This anarchy led to numerous people being accused and later hanged. If you were accused your reputation would take damage. Those who were utterly powerless before the trials, were now able to fulfill themselves by harming others, because of this, the townspeople became more hysterical. They would accuse

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