Abigail Williams Lies In The Crucible

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In the strict, religious, town of Salem, the court is in session. Danforth, Hathorne, and the other authorities are resistant to believing accusations against Abigail Williams and the other girls for lying. People believe witchcraft has come and is not of Gods work but the devil. Girls around the village begin to act strange and rumors say they danced in the woods with devil and spirits. After accusations have been made and innocent people have been charged, the men are too prideful to admit that they have fallen to the young girls' lies. They think childhood is a time of innocence and purity, so they do not believe that a child is capable of such deception. In Act 1 it tells of how Abigail Williams and the other girls danced in the woods…show more content…
Mary sticks with her claim that the girls are only pretending. Danforth's sympathy shifts again to Abigail during Hathorne’s cross-examination of Mary Warren. Hathorne makes a request and asks Mary Warren to repeat her fainting performance. If she pretended to faint the first time, then she should be able to do it again. She is not able to do it. Danforth figures out a way to trick it out of Mary warren. He says, “I will tell you this…you are either lying now, or you were lying in the court, and in either case you have committed perjury and you will go to jail for it. You cannot lightly say you lied, Mary. Do you know that?” Mary answers and said,” I cannot lie no more. I am with God, I am with God.” (256-263; 266-269) Mary tells that she is telling the truth, but without Abigail agreeing, it is one person’s word against another’s. The court had assumed all along that the girls were telling the truth, and now it has too much to take only one girl’s word over all the others. Its justice rests upon the fact that Abigail and the other girls are telling the truth. It gave over its power to Abigail. Proctor sacrifices his reputation in order to save his wife and stops the court from going

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