The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can
come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to
The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem,
Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and
shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out
of this fear and ignorance. Also important to the play is how Arthur Miller depicts how one
selfish, evil person like Abigail Williams can bring others down and make others follow her
to commit evil acts. These evil acts affect even the most honest people in the town like
John and Elizabeth Proctor, and Rebecca Nurse who cannot fight the accusations made
against them by those following Abigail. Those following Abigail are considered to be holy
men that are full of honesty and justice, but the play shows that even those who are
thought to be respectable and right, like people of government or community leaders can
bring death to innocent people if they are driven by something wrong.
The plot begins with the inciting incident where Rev. Parris finds his niece Abigail Williams
and his daughter Betty along with his slave Tituba doing some dance in the forest. Right
when he finds them, Betty becomes sick and won't talk or open her eyes, about this time
other people's daughters become sick too. Rumors spread that witch craft is involved in
Betty's illness and the development of the plot begins. Important to the major development
of the plot is the fact that in the forest, Abigail and the others were just playing like
witches. But they were following Abigail because she wanted to try to put a curse on a
...