The Crucible Act III

Act III opens in the Salem church, which has been converted into a courthouse. Immediately, this reminded me of McCarthyism when Congress was turned into a courtroom with HUAC and other Communist suspicion groups. In the courtroom, Martha Corey is being questioned under allegations that she is practicing witchcraft. Giles, Martha's husband, is pleading with the court that he has evidence of Martha not being a witch. John Proctor claims that Mary would like to speak to Danforth because she has some truthful pieces of information that would be helpful in the trials. Unfortunately for Proctor, Mary does not speak with enough conviction on her claim that all of the actions from the girls were pretense. Proctor simply claims that he is trying to save his wife, not overthrow the court. Elizabeth Proctor also claims that she is pregnant, but no one can find any evidence to back it up. When Mary is questioned, the act takes a bizarre turn. She claims that she had never seen the devil, and Abigail holds the assertion that she has. Angrily, Proctor confesses how he committed adultery with Abigail in order to prove the point that she is no child. Again, Mary denies that she ever saw the devil. However, Abigail and the girls all begin to shiver from a "wind" and claim it is Mary who is making them struggle. In a conversation with Danforth, Abigail begins to question his own integrity. She says, "Think you to be so mighty that the power of Hell may not turn your wits?" (100). This really struck me because it made Abigail look very similar to Joseph McCarthy, as she questions the purity of everyone, even a Governor Deputy. Frustrated, Proctor pulls Abigail to the ground and calls her a whore. After the altercation, Elizabeth is brought out. She claims that Proctor was fancying Abigail when she worked for them, but denied that he cheated. She was only trying to save him, but it ended up being much worse. Abigail begins to scream in the courthouse and claims that she sees a yellow bird in the beams. After prolonged chaos, Mary begins to join them in their panic. She then claims that Proctor works for the devil and that she will never hurt Abigail again. This reminded me of when people would do and say anything to save themselves in the time of McCarthyism. Proctor then confesses that God is, in fact, dead. This act had a ton of content with me, and all of it resonated with me in terms of the bizarre nature of McCarthyism. In a trial especially, I think it is much easier to pull connections between the two.

"The Crucible" Act I

Act I begins in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, as he is kneeling beside his daughter's bed, in the year 1692. She is lying in the bed and remains motionless. He is very paranoid and "He believed her was being persecuted wherever he went" (3). They are trying to figure out if his daughter Betty is in fact a victim of witchcraft. Abigail Williams is brought in, and it is revealed that she and Betty, along with Parris's slave Tituba, had been found to have been dancing in the woods very late at night. Abigail continues to deny any wrongdoing and says they were only dancing. Parris is concerned with his reputation within the community, and asks Abigail "And what shall I say to them? That my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?" (9). I thought it was interesting to see how preoccupied they were with maintaining a good reputation within the community. While he was concerned with his daughter's state, it very much centered around how it would affect him. Abigail continues to maintain that they never "conjured spirits" (10), but her uncle continues to question her. Later on the Putnams enter the room and it is revealed that their daughter Ruth is in a similar state to Betty. Eventually, Betty begins to somewhat wake up and as she does she begins to discuss how she wants her mother. With Mary Warren in the room Abigail says, "We danced. And Tatuba conjured Ruth Putnam's dead sisters. And that is all" (19). After, Betty goes back to lying motionless. As Act I goes on, the characters continue to discuss whether or not Betty has been a victim to witchcraft. An older woman, Rebecca, enters the room and eventually decides that the two girls will get over this. She says "A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back" (25). Proctor and Parris continue to have disputes, and Rebecca is worried that fears about witchcraft will make the disagreements worse. These arguments show how problems are dealt with in Salem and how people's problems are fought out in court. I thought it was interesting to see how that ties into how the witch-hunt was used as a "long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims", which was mentioned earlier on page 7. It was interesting to see people's motives and seeing how they affected their views on witchcraft during this Act. The Act ended with Abigail and Betty naming names to the list of the accused which was both a theme in the Salem witch trials and in McCarthyism.