Arthur Miller's 'the Crucible' | Arthur Miller's 'the Crucible'

The Crucible is a powerful and disturbing drama based on a true event from American history: The Salem Witch Trials of 1692. It shows how weak the human beings really are, and how greediness and a want for personal gain and power can become dangerous, out of control and can stretch human beings to their limits. A similar thing to the Salem Witch Trials happened again in the 1950's in the USA, when the Americans felt threatened by communism, and anyone suspected of left-wing (communist) views was arrested for taking part in `Un-American Activities'.

People in the 1600's believed that if you didn't go to church every week to worship God, then you must have been worshipping the devil. There was no half-way point. The accusations of witchcraft and dealing with the Devil in Salem were all started off by a group of girls who were caught dancing in the woods. Dancing and partying was forbidden under the strict rules of the theocracy that existed in the town. There was one girl in particular who really tried to stir up trouble, a seventeen-year-old girl called Abigail Williams. From her first appearance in the play, we already know that she is special in some way because in the very first scene direction where we first meet Abigail, Arthur Miller tells us that she is:

."..a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling..."

From this point onwards, Abigail's superiority over older, more respectable people is clearly shown. She has cleverly perfected the skill of adjusting her mood and attitude to whatever the current situation calls for. At the beginning of act one, she appears worried and concerned for Betty Parris, but as the scene progresses, her uncle, Reverend Samuel Parris becomes more and more interested in what the girls were doing in the woods. So, Abigail starts to get angry and starts to speak to her uncle as if he were her son, shouting at him, ordering him around, telling him what to do and giving him advice. But her uncle and his friends carry on questioning her, and she feels like he is cornering her into confessing. She knows that if she admits it or is found out she will be whipped and possibly hung, and she will do anything to stay alive, so she starts accusing other, innocent people of witchcraft instead. The other girls in the room (Betty Parris, Tituba [the Parris's slave-girl] and Mary Warren [the Proctor's slave]) follow her lead. This means that they already recognise her as being superior and a leader for them. They start accusing every person that comes into their heads: -. ...Goody Osborn....George Jacobs...Goody Howe...Goody Booth and some other people, who we don't hear of again throughout the play.

At the end of act three, we see what is definitely Abby's most dramatic and powerful scene, in the courtroom. We see Abby again instantly changing her mood to lay the blame on someone else. All the girls follow her lead as usual, and this

time their victim is John Proctor's slave - Mary Warren. She claims that she can see Mary's spirit taking form as a yellow bird, sitting on one of the rafters and staring at her, bewitching her. All the girls scream and stare at the `bird' Abby saying things like:

"Oh, Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it's God's work I do" & "Oh, please, Mary! Don't come down!"

I think it's obvious that Abigail knows she's gone too far with the accusations when she accuses John Proctor's wife, Elizabeth, of witchcraft. She used to work for the Proctors, but she had an affair with John, and he threw her out. Although she knows she has to stop, if she does stop, then she faces giving away that she was lying, effectively signing her own death warrant.

I think that Abigail is scared for her life and she will do absolutely anything to avoid being found guilty of witchcraft and adultery, two crimes for which she would certainly be hung. She knows she has done a terrible thing though, when John Proctor is accused of witchcraft, he refuses to confess and is therefore hung. People start to realise that they have been tricked and it has all got out of control, so Abigail runs away from Salem. That makes it easy to see that the tragedy occurred, she had fought to get her way no matter whom she hurt, and unfortunately in the end she got everything she wanted, but it all got out of hand and she was forced out of the town.