Examples Of Fear In The Crucible

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Fear usually influences you to make poorly thought out decisions, “The Crucible” claims that fear appears to lead the characters to act without thinking. A moment when this occurs is when the fear of the consequences leads Abigail and Betty to accuse others. In 1692, in Salem, seemingly paranormal events, like Putnam’s babies dying, increased and disturbed the inhabitants, who attributed these events to witchcraft. Due to local sightings of Abigail and Betty in the forest at midnight, they were interrogated since they thought it could be a possibility that they were involved in witchcraft. Being interrogated, the girls felt afraid because they knew the penalty was whipping, which led them to lie: “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil” Abigail said, in that way she started accusing others and Betty did …show more content…
Another example is presented in Act III as John Proctor did not consider the consequences of his decision to keep his affair hidden from the court. Abigail, accuses Elizabeth(one of the persons Abigail accused) of witchcraft to be able to marry her husband, John, who had an affair with her when she used to serve them, hence, Elizabeth and John were in court to be interrogated, and John had to decide whether reveal the actual reason of the accusation, which will damage his reputation, to save his wife from the witchcraft penalty, whipping, or to keep the affair in secret to maintain in good conditions his reputation, therefore, evidently he will decide to save the life of an important person for him over own reputation. Abigail's accusations against Elizabeth were supported because there was sufficient circumstantial evidence, like the needle found in his doll which is something very related to witchcraft and it made it seem that Elizabeth was guilty, so in the court Proctor was forced to confess and explain the affair as follows: “Are you a lecher? The judge, Dantforth, asked