The Crucible

The Crucible is a book about the salem witch trials, in which many people were hung. Abagail Williams and some of her friends were dancing and running around naked in the woods one night, trying to conjure up spirits from the dead when Reverend Parris saw them and suspected them of witchcraft. Word got around salem about the "witchcraft" incident and people started to blame others so they wouldn't be blamed themselves. Trials were held and in counr judge Danforth found out that John Proctor and Abagail Williams have had sexual relations in the past. They bring John's wife Elizabeth into court, and don't let her speak to her husband or Abby, so she does not that he had already confessed to being an adultist. Elizabeth tells judge Danforth that she did not know that John has had sexual relations with Abby, so they arrested Elizabeth and John.



The Crucible is set in a theocratic society, in which the church and the state are one, and the religion is a strict, hard form of Protestantism known as Puritanism. Because of the theocratic nature of the society, moral laws and state laws are one and the same. Sin and the status of an individual’s soul are matters of public concern. There is no room for deviation from the society, since any individual whose private life doesn’t conform to the established moral laws represents a threat not only to the public good but also to the rule of God and true religion. In Salem, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the devil.