The Motivations of Reverend Parris and their Impact on Justice and Hysteria

Abigail’s Manipulation and Vendetta:

People base their actions on morals and desires. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, hysteria overtakes the town of Salem, and many people accuse one another of witchcraft. A group of young girls pretends those accused have “attacked” them, while the accuser’s grudges and higher intentions drive them to seek personal equity. While some characters question the accusation’s credibility, the church condemns anyone who opposes it. The characters face tough decisions to either give into the hysteria and acquire personal justice or fight against it for moral justice.

In Arthur Miller’s Allegory, he demonstrates how individuals with high morals will sacrifice everything for justice, and individuals with a vengeance on their minds will do anything to accomplish it.

Reverend Parris’s Motivation for Self-Preservation:

Abigail Williams creates the issues that force Salem to cry for justice. She has an affair with John Proctor, a man whose house she works as a maid. When John’s wife, Elizabeth, finds out and fires Abigail, Abigail wants John all to herself. She meets in the woods with a group of girls, including her cousin and a slave named Tituba. Abigail’s uncle, who is also the town minister, Reverend Parris, walks by and sees what the girls are doing. Betty, Paris’s daughter, has a mental breakdown, which the town believes witchcraft has caused. Mary Warren, a girl among those who met in the woods, tells Abby that she “must tell the truth” and that the whole situation will be okay. Additionally, Betty awakens from her burnout and recalls that Abigail “drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor”. In response, Abigail threatens them and the other girls that if they don’t say that they just “danced” “And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters…”, then she will come to them “in the black of some terrible night and…bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder (them)”. Abigail is only thinking of wanting John Proctor, seeking vengeance on Elizabeth, and not soiling her name any more than she already has. When Reverend Hale, who specializes in witchcraft, questions Abby, she lies and blames the whole event on Tituba. This forces Tituba to lie that she works for the devil but does “not desire to work for him.”

As Abigail watches Tituba sacrifice her honesty by confessing to save herself, she takes this opportunity to lie to “save” herself, too. She accuses others, and soon, she and all the girls who “danced” are yelling out countless names of individuals they “saw with the devil.” When the adults believe all the girls, Abigail realizes she can manipulate the hysteria to complete her own vendetta. She thinks of a way to frame Elizabeth when she sees Mary Warren leave a need in a doll she made for Elizabeth. At dinner in Reverend Parris’s house that night, “Abigail…sat…and without a word nor warnin’ she (fell) to the floor”. She screamed, and “stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly…was a needle.” She blames Elizabeth, and sure enough, Elizabeth has the doll in her house from Mary Warren with a needle stuck in it.

Elizabeth is taken away, so John Proctor seeks Mary Warrens’s help to prove his wife’s innocence. Mary Warren tells John that Abby will kill her and “charge lechery on”, but John is willing to risk anything because he loves Elizabeth and knows the entire situation is wrong and must be brought to justice despite Abby’s fight for vengeance. Mary and John go to the court to say that Mary “never saw any spirits” and that she and the girls were in “pretense.” Abby denies lying, so John decides to admit that he “has known”  Abigail and is a “letcher” in order to discredit Abby and save his wife. However, Elizabeth also wants to save John and lies when she is asked about John’s affair, which discredits John, Mary, and Elizabeth. Abigail then seizes the moment so she will still get what she wants and scares Mary into backing her up.

The Putnams’ Grudges and Land Wars:

The Putnams accuse Rebecca Nurse of witchery because they blame her for the deaths of their children. She was Mrs.Putnam’s midwife for all seven of her children who died at birth. The grudge between the Nurses and Putnam started with “The land war” Francis Nurse “fought with his neighbors, one of whom was a Putnam.” It lasted for “two days.” “Edward and Jonathan Putnam, who signed the first complaint against Rebecca, and Thomas Putnam’s little daughter, was the one who fell into a fit at the hearing and pointed to Rebecca as her attacker”. Also, Mrs.Putnam, while staring at “bewitched Betty,” …” accused Rebecca’s spirit of ‘tempting her to iniquity.’ The Putnams also have a grudge against the Nurses because “Thomas Putnam’s man for the Salem minister was Bayley.

Judge Danforth’s Reluctance to Admit Error:

The Nurse clan had been in the faction that prevented Bayley’s taking office.” Rebecca is charged “‘For the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies.” The Putnams also accuse George Jacobs because they want to steal his land. Giles is told how the Putnam “prompted” their “daughter to cry witchery upon George Jacob’s,” giving Thomas Putnam “a fair gift of land” and presenting his evidence to the court. Unfortunately, when Judge Danforth asks Giles which “honest man..heard Putnam say it”, Giles will not tell because he knows the man will wrongfully go to jail. Since Giles “would not answer aye or nay to his indictment, for if he denied the charge, they’d hang him surely and auction out his property. So he stands mute, and died Christian under the law so his sons will have his farm.” The church lay “great stones…upon his chest until” he answered them, but he gave “them but two words. ‘More Weight’” and died.

Reverend Parris feels he is “being persecuted wherever he” goes and longs for a sense of authority and power in the town. When he sees Abigail and the girls dancing in the woods in the beginning, he is only worried about his reputation. He feels he deserves more because he “fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to (himself), and now, just now, when some good respect is rising for (him) in the parish” , he feels Abigail is compromising his “very character.” When the Proctor comes to defend Elizabeth, Parris accuses him of trying to “overthrow this court.”

Parris will not believe any defenses for those accused because he sees them as “attack(s) upon the court” and an attack upon his authority. In order to keep his reputation, Parris lies to shut down suspicion of Abigail and says he “never saw any of (the girls) naked”in the woods, even though he did. When Giles Corey, Francis Nurse, and John Proctor attempt to present evidence in support of their wives, Parris accuses them of trying to destroy the court. He is busy protecting his own self-interests, one of which is to preserve the court and its integrity so he doesn’t get condemned himself. Parris commands Herrick to let Reverend Hale work to get confessions out of the remaining prisoners who are left. He claims it’s because they’re doing God’s work, but later, he lets it slip that his motivation is self-preservation, as he has received threats of his life from angry townspeople. When Parris realizes the accused are innocent, he still wants to lie to the town and tells the church that if they can get one of the accused to confess, it will “damn the others in the public eye, and none may doubt that they are linked to Hell.” Therefore, Parris and the court will manipulate the town to maintain power and credibility.

When Judge Danforth realizes the accused are innocent, he will still not serve them justice. Hale urges Danforth to pardon those who are accused, but Danforth says he “cannot pardon these when twelve are already hanged for the same crime” because he does not want to admit to “a floundering” on his part. Hale then insists to Elizabeth Proctor that he knows her and the others are innocent and that he has “sought a Christian way, for damnation’s doubled on a minister who counsels men to lie.” Then Hale begs Elizabeth to get John to confess and says that it is okay for him to wrongly confess because “God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride.” John confesses but will not sign his name because it would “blacken all of (the accused) when (it) is nailed to the church the very day they hang for their silence.” Judge Danforth will not take the confession and declares Proctor to hang. John does not save his own life, but he saves the town from hysteria.

The town believed in the good citizens who did not confess but were hanged that day, preventing further unjust actions and accusations. Arthur Miller shows how characters with stronger moral compasses sacrifice everything for justice, and those who contain selfish intentions will do whatever it takes to acquire them. Miller shows the extreme measures Abigail went to because of her intentions of being with John and keeping her name clean. He conveys how Danforth and Parris, both characters of some authority, go through corrupt measures to keep their power and credibility. The Putnams accusing Rebecca and others show their hunger for land and mission to blame their children’s deaths on Rebecca. Miller also introduces John’s struggle and sacrifices to save his wife, his morality, and the town’s view of those accused. Although he cannot do much to save the innocent people, Hale’s morals open his eyes to the unjust situation, and he does what he can. Giles lets himself be crushed by rocks because he wants to protect the man who gave him his evidence and does not want his land to go to Putnam. Anyone will do anything for what he or she wants, no matter if it is good or bad.

References:

1. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Penguin Classics, 1976.

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