Who Is Mary Warren In The Crucible

The Crucible is a study in how mass hysteria can quickly get out of control and become very harmful if not deadly. Mary Warren is a catalytic character in The Crucible as she is both a mirror and a foil for many characters, and her ever changing bravery, or lack thereof, is what ushers the story along. Mary is a very malleable character. At first, she is very obedient towards her employer, John Proctor, then very submissive towards the brutal character of Abigail. She enjoys the respect she receives from being an official of the court, and defying Proctor. After Goody Proctor is accused, she agrees to reveal Abigail to the court but once she is swept up in the hysteria Mary yet again shifts her allegiance back to Abigail leading to John Proctor’s
It is apparent that she is not the adult she claims to be as she demands respect which she clearly has not earned: “I am eighteen and a woman” (Miller 60). Mary Warren then attempts to assert her newfound authority by refusing to go to bed: “Mary Warren: I’ll not be ordered to bed no more, Mr. Proctor! … Proctor: Do you wish to sit up? Then sit up. Mary Warren: I wish to go to bed!” (Miller 60). This quote shows the superficiality of Mary’s power as she ends up doing as Proctor told her to in the end. Many other stage directions including: “not understanding the direction of this” (Miller 75), “bewildered” (Miller 75), “hardly audible” (Miller 95), “bursts into sobs” (Miller 98),“sobs once” (Miller 100), “weaker” (Miller 101), “almost inaudibly” (Miller 101), “she breaks into sobs” (Miller 102), “faintly” (Miller 103), and “very faintly” (Miller 106) all paint Mary Warren as a truly lost and childlike character. Although she enjoys the status and power she gains from partaking in the Witch Trials she quickly gets caught up in the whirlwind of