The Crucible Thesis Paper Fear
Thesis Paper
In The Crucible people are constantly paranoid. People are paranoid about the “witchery” that is going on in Salem. They don’t know who to trust or who to believe. Ultimately a hero is sentenced to death due to paranoia.
It all starts when a couple of girls start dancing in the woods and Parris spots them and thinks they are talking to the devil. Parris has a daughter, Betty, and a niece, Abigail, who are involved in the woods. At the start of the play Parris is praying at Betty’s bedside because she is “possessed” by the devil. She is really faking it but Parris has no idea and thinks the devil has possessed her. Parris orders Reverend Hale to come and take a look at her. While Mr. Hale is checking Betty out, a crowd of people gather outside Parris’s house due to the hysteria of her supposedly being bewitched. Parris allows several people come in and check Betty out to see what was wrong but only Proctor and Rebecca see through Betty’s lies know she is lying.
An old man named Giles states that he was trying to pray but couldn’t focus and when his wife left the area he was able to pray easily. He only notices this when he learns about Betty and becomes paranoid. Reverend Hale interviews Abigail about the incident in the woods and she claims that they weren’t doing anything that involved witchcraft but a slave, named Tituba, made her drink blood.
The town holds a trial for the fourteen girls that were in the woods. The girls’ only options are to name other witches in the town or be hanged. They immediately started naming other people that had nothing to do with it. Two men, Giles and Francis, have their wives accused of witchery. A man bought a pig from Martha Corey and it died not long afterward. The man wanted his money back, but she refused stating that he didn’t know how to care for his pig. Every pig he purchased thereafter died, and soon the man became paranoid and accused her of witchery.
John Proctors wife is charged with witchery...
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