In Act 1 of the crucible, Mary Warren is seen as a shy, anxious girl who is just a servant working for the Proctor family but as the play continues, she changes into a manipulative liar. When we were introduced to Mary in Act 1, she was an innocent girl that realized her mistake was a sin and wanted to confess.

MARY WARREN. What’ll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farms; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be callin’ us witches, Abby!

MERCY. She means to tell, I know it.

MARY WARREN. Abby, we’ve got to tell. Witchery’s a hangin’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two years ago! We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things! (Miller 18)

Mary Warren was acting out of fear and understood that if they don’t tell the truth, the consequences will worsen. Abigail and the girls didn’t agree with her and threatened her to not confess. With Mary Warren’s weak personality, she is fearfully persuaded by Abigail. Later in Act 3, Mary Warren testifies for Proctor and his wife, as she confesses it doesn’t seem believable for the judges because she couldn’t prove her confession was true.

HATHORNE. You say you never saw no spirits, Mary, were never threatened or afflicted by any manifest of the Devil or the Devil’s agents.

MARY WARREN. No, sir.

HATHORNE. And yet, when people accused of witchery confronted you in court, you would faint, saying their spirits came out of their bodies and choked you-

MARY WARREN. That were pretense, sir. (Miller 98)

Her confession didn’t seem believable because she was unable to fake a faint for the judges but after the confession, there was peer pressure from the girls to continue with their lies. During Mary Warren’s testimony, Abigail realizes that it would expose her lies so she pretended to see a yellow bird in the sky. Mary Warren begs her to stop but it caused the rest of the girls to start repeating her words this was the peer pressure that made Mary Warren join the lies with the girls.

MARY WARREN. Don’t touch me- don’t touch me!

PROCTOR. Mary!

MARY WARREN, pointing at Proctor. You’re the Devil’s man! (Miller 110)

In the movie “The last song”, there were 2 boys that were responsible for a fire but they kept it a secret and didn’t the victims of the fire. One of the boys wanted to take responsibility and apologize to the victim but the other boy wanted it to stay a secret, this is a lot like Abigail and Marry Warren’s situation. Which is when one character wants to confess and the other doesn’t.

Photo on Visual hunt
” Rose In Open Book Photo – Visual Hunt.” Visualhunt.com.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.

word count: 455

In the crucible, Abigail Williams claims to be a good religious girl but her actions towards others show that she is a hypocrite. In the play, there have been several moments where Abigail’s actions portray herself as a manipulative and compulsive liar.

When Abigail and the girls were caught in the forest dancing, instead of confessing to the authorities, she blamed it on others in the village especially the people she disliked or are an easy target due to their social status. In the play, Tituba is a slave which is an easy target for Abigail because of her social status. “Abigail: I never sold myself! I’m a good girl! I’m a proper girl! Mrs. Putnam enters with Tituba, and instantly Abigail points at Tituba. Abigail: She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” (40) Right after claiming to be a “good girl”, Abigail uses the opportunity to make Tituba seem like the only guilty one.  “Abigail: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a-” (22) Abigail is a teenage that is attracted to an older grown man, her attraction to him made him desperate and eager for his attention. She is willing to go to great lengths to keep him only for himself. “Abigail, to the ceiling, in a genuine conversation with the “bird” as though trying to talk it out of attacking her: But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary.” (106) Abigail turns on the other girls just to save herself from punishment.

My personal connection to these hypocritical scenes is from the movie Frozen. In a scene where Anna met a boyfriend that she connected with and trusted but at the end of the movie he turns on her for his own benefit. He was a selfish and hypocritical character, similar to Abigail.

Work cited:
Le masque by Photo credit: Aldor on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Play In Four Acts, New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.