"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.