The Crucible
Throughout Act 1 of The Crucible, Abigail has shown to be a liar who accuses and blames others for her own wrongdoings. She is the niece of the minister, Reverend Parris who holds authority and voice in the village. While in reality, Abigail drank blood and killed Elizabeth in the forest, she shamelessly claimed her name to be white in front of Mr. Parris. “My name is good in the village! I will not have said it my name is soiled!” (Miller 12). Even after Mr. Hale, the minister of Beverly came to resolve the mystery of Betty’s death, Abigail continued to claim herself innocence. “I never sold myself! I’m a good girl! I’m a proper girl!” (Miller 40). When more truth started to reveal, Abigail then turned against Tituba, accusing her of all the wrongdoings that were actually done by her, despite knowing how Tituba was never part of it. “She made me do it! She made Betty do it… She comes to me every night to go and drink blood!” (Miller 40~41). However, these blatant lies of Abigail were hardly questioned by the others as she holds a higher social status being the niece of the minister, in contrast to Tituba’s low social status as a slave, which is really frustrating and unfair.
“The Crucible”
THE CRUCIBLE NOW AND THEN: THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY via Playmakers Repertory Company
Personal Experience
I recall a similar experience of this kind of situation in my sophomore year of highschool. There was only one month left until a competition our club is participating, and we had to make sure to have as much time to practice as possible to prepare ourselves for it. However, some members of the club occasionally finds random excuses to skip the practices over the break, and sometimes even simply skip the practices without notifying at all. Knowing what they’re actually up to from my friend who is not in the club, it deeply frustrated me by how uninterested and indifferent towards our goal.
February 18, 2019 at 12:26 pm
Hi Curie, I admire your concise description of how Abigail was being a liar in The Crucible, especially how you analyze the unfair treatment between Abigail the niece of minister and Tituba when receiving the blames from others after knowing the truth of witchcraft rumor. Abigail was telling blatant lies in the story. However, rely on her identity, everyone chose to believe she was innocent. This development makes me feel super frustrated and feel like it would also happen in reality due to people’s realistic humanity. Last but not least, I can feel your anger on the injustice of how the members in your club are being irresponsible for not participating and telling the truth, which is a really suitable connection between your personal experience and the story The Crucible.
February 19, 2019 at 12:00 am
Hi Curie! I really like the way you connected the characters in The Crucible to your real life experience. As a sophomore who also has a lot of group activities, I have a lot of connections with what you mentioned in your blog post. I also get really frustrated when team members skip their meetings and disobey our mutual goals. However, I think not participating does not mean lying, because sometimes people have different reasonings and sometimes it’s not on purpose, while Abigail seems to be lying because she was trying to cover up the truth. Would you agree with such a point?