Theme Of Lies In The Crucible

Sai Mummalaneni
Mrs. Rickard
American Literature/ Composition
11 June 2015
The Lies of The Crucible One of the major themes in The Crucible is lying and Deceit. Some of the characters in The Crucible are lying and other characters lie to themselves. For example, Proctor cheats on his wife and doesn’t tell her about it; Abigail lies that she is able to see spirits, and the judge and ministers lie to themselves. There are many parts in the story where Abigail lies; for example, she says that some people are witches and she also lied about what she really does in the woods. Although Abigail is one of the main characters that lie, there are others like Elizabeth where she tells the court that her husband wasn’t having an affair with Abigail.
She goes on telling the story of what goes on after that but she doesn’t tell John that she drank a potion that would kill his wife. The reader knows when this happened because Betty says, “You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife” (Miller 19)! This tells the reader that Abigail is trying to kill John’s wife so that she can be his only woman. This also shows the reader that Abigail will do whatever it takes to get what she wants. Another quote that tells us that Abigail is a liar is, “Abigail: Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring you a pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (Miller 20). The background behind this is that Abigail wouldn’t let any of the other girls tell the truth about what was happening in the woods so she made up a lie that would cover the
DANFORTH, thinks, glances at Mary, then back to Abigail; Children, a very augur bit will now be turned into your souls until your honesty is proved. Will either of you change your positions now, or do you force me to hard questioning? ABIGAIL: I have naught to change, sir. She lies” (Miller 102). This quote means that the other girls in the woods were telling the truth about what happened but the court didn’t realize it so they gave all the power to Abigail to find out what happened in the woods. As we know Abigail abused that power and was telling lies about what really happened in the woods so she could get out of trouble. She also knows that if she tells the truth, she will get caught by John Proctor because she drank the potion that would kill his wife. She eventually tells John Proctor the truth but it doesn’t matter to John because he doesn’t know about the potion she