The Crucible 2

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into one of the ugliest moments in American History. Parris sparks this by firstly acting on his own paranoia, which the reader would find in the introduction “he believed he was being persecuted where ever he went”, and calling Reverend Hale in an attempt for self-preservation “….if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it.” This statement says a lot about the character of Reverend Parris: a greedy, power hungry man who is more concerned with his own reputation than the souls of his niece and daughter. He always acts on fear, a fear that he will lose his position of power in the community. Parris does not want the trials to end as a fraud because the scandal of having a lying daughter and niece would end his career in Salem.

Salem citizens in general were afraid of all ungodly things with their Puritan views. They had no trouble believing that, because Parris had ...

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and cries out] I want to open myself.” For the rest of Act I Betty and Abby in feverish ecstasy ‘cry out’ the names of their enemies. Here two young women, usually powerless in that day’s society, find the ability to grant life or death and what sprang from a want for revenge came to a frightening lust for power.


Abigail uses the fear within her community to cultivate and expose more and more of the conflicts in that town and the society loses itself to hysteria. If Abigail and her friends point at someone and go into hysterics, that person is arrested for bewitching the girls. The community fears the depravation of their names and standing, and ...

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