The Crucible Quotes
Parris was in his middle forties. In history he cut a villainous path, and there is very little good to be said for him. He believed he was being persecuted wherever he went, despite his best efforts to win people and God to his side. In meeting, he felt insulted if someone rose to shut the door without asking his permission.
– Arthur Miller
To the European world the whole province was a barbaric frontier inhabited by a sect of fanatics…They had no novelists – and would not have permitted anyone to read a novel if one were handy. Their creed forbade anything resembling a theater or “vain enjoyment.” They did not celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer.
The edge of the wilderness was close by. The American continent stretched endlessly west, and it was full of mystery for them. It stood, dark and threatening, over their shoulders night and day, for out of it Indian tribes marauded from time to time, and Reverend Parris had parishioners who had lost relatives to these heathen.
The parochial snobbery of these people was partly responsible for their failure to convert the Indians. Probably they also preferred to take land from heathens rather than from fellow Christians. At any rate, very few Indians were converted, and the Salem folk believed that the virgin forest was the Devil’s last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand. To the best of their knowledge the American forest was the last place on earth that was not paying homage to God.
So now they and their church found it necessary to deny any other sect its freedom, lest their New Jerusalem be defiled and corrupted by wrong and deceitful ideas.
The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.
Long-held hatreds of neighbors could now be openly expressed, and vengeance taken, despite the Bible’s charitable injunctions. Land-lust, which had been expressed by constant bickering over boundaries and deeds, could now be elevated to the arena of morality; one could cry witch against one’s neighbor and feel perfectly justified in the bargain. Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord; suspicions and the envy of the miserable toward the happy could and did burst out in the general revenge.
The door opens, and his Negro slave enters. Tituba is in her forties. Parris brought her with him from Barbados, where he spent some years as a merchant before entering the ministry. She enters as one does who can no longer bear to be barred from the sight of her beloved, but she is also very frightened because her slave sense has warned her that, as always, trouble in this house eventually lands on her back.
TITUBA (already taking a step backward): My Betty be hearty soon? PARRIS: Out of here! TITUBA (backing to the door): My Betty not goin’ die… PARRIS (scrambling to his feet in a fury): Out of my sight!
Abigail Williams, seventeen, enters – a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling. Now she is all worry and apprehension and propriety.
And what shall I say to them? That my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?
Uncle, we did dance; let you tell them I confessed it – and I’ll be whipped if I must be. But they’re speaking of witchcraft. Betty’s not witched.
Now look you, child, your punishment will come in its time. But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it.
But we never conjured spirits.
Then why can she not move herself since midnight? This child is desperate! It must come out – my enemies will bring it out. Let me know what you done there. Abigail, do you understand that I have many enemies?
There is a faction that is sworn to drive me from my pulpit. Do you understand that?
I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you. Why was she doing that? And I heard a screeching and gibberish coming from her mouth. She were swaying like a dumb beast over that fire!
PARRIS: I cannot blink what I saw, Abigail, for my enemies will not blink it. I saw a dress lying on the grass…Aye, a dress. And I thought I saw – someone naked running through the trees! ABIGAIL: No one was naked! You mistake yourself, uncle!
And I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you, for now my ministry’s at stake, my ministry and perhaps your cousin’s life.
I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character.
PARRIS: Your name in the town – it is entirely white, is it not? ABIGAIL: Why, I am sure it is, sir. There be no blush about my name.
Abigail, is there any other cause than you have told me, for your being discharged from Goody Proctor’s service? I have heard it said, and I tell you as I heard it, that she comes so rarely to the church this year for she will not sit so close to something soiled. What signified that remark?
She hates me, uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave. It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman!
They want slaves, not such as I. Let them send to Barbados for that. I will not black my face for any of them!
My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is soiled! Goody Proctor is a gossiping liar!
It is a marvel. It is surely a stroke of hell upon you.
How high did she fly, how high?
Mr. Collins saw her goin’ over Ingersoll’s barn, and come down light as bird, he says!
PUTNAM: Why, her eyes is closed! Look you, Ann. MRS. PUTNAM: Why, that’s strange. Ours is open.
I’d not call it sick; the Devil’s touch is heavier than sick. It’s death, y’know, it’s death drivin’ into them, forked and hoofed.