Abigail Williams! Yes, Sir, often. Does she bring the book to you? What would she have you do with it? To write in it and I shall be well. Proctor Dear Child, it is not so. There is another judgement, dear child. Then Abigail and Ann had fits. By and by they cried out, look you there is Goody Procter upon the beam. By and by, both of them cried out of Goodman Procter himself, and said he was a wizard.
Immediately, many, if not all of the bewitched, had grievous fits. Ann Putman! Goodman Procter and his wife too. What do you say Goodman Proctor to these things? I know not, I am innocent. Abigail Williams cried out, there is Goodman Procter going to Mrs. Pope , and immediately, said Pope fell into a fit.
I would advise you to repentance, for the devil is bringing you out. There was the like of Mary Walcot, and divers others. Elizabeth Hubbard was in a trance during the whole examination.
Immediately Abigail cried out, her fingers, her fingers, burned, and Ann Putman took on most greviously, of her head, and sunk down. It is unlikely this affair even occurred since Proctor was 60 years old and Williams was 11 at the time of the witch trials and there is no evidence that they even knew each other before the trial.
Nonetheless, in an essay Miller wrote for the New Yorker in , he stated that he fully believed John Proctor had a relationship with Williams and based his entire play on the idea after he read in the court records about the moment Williams tried to strike Elizabeth Proctor during her examination:. By this time, I was sure, John Proctor had bedded Abigail, who had to be dismissed most likely to appease Elizabeth.
There was bad blood between the two women now. That Abigail started, in effect, to condemn Elizabeth to death with her touch, then stopped her hand, then went through with it, was quite suddenly the human center of all this turmoil.
John Proctor was officially indicted on April 11, on three charges of witchcraft against Mary Walcott, Mary Warren and Mercy Lewis and was examined in court that same day. There is no record of this examination but many of the afflicted girls, including Elizabeth Hubbard, Ann Putnam, Jr. While John and Elizabeth Proctor sat in jail in Boston, many of their friends came to their defense and signed a petition asking for them to be released:.
Unfortunately, the petition did nothing to sway the court and John and Elizabeth Proctor remained imprisoned. The Proctor family and their in-laws were accused by many of the same people. According to court records, the jury decided not to indict William Proctor or Sarah Bassett due to a lack of evidence and there are no court records indicating that Sarah Proctor, Benjamin Proctor or Mary Basset DeRich were indicted either.
During their conversation, Proctor, who lived on the outskirts of Salem Village in what is now modern day Peabody, said he was on his way to Salem to retrieve Warren so he could take her home and beat her and also said the afflicted girls should be whipped and hanged for lying, according to court records:.
He answered he heard they were very bad last night but he had heard nothing this morning. Parris would let him have his Indian he the said Proctor would soon drive the devil out of him and father saith not. On July 23, Proctor wrote a letter to the clergy of Boston pleading with them to appoint different judges or move the trials to Boston where he felt they would get a fair trial.
In his letter, he described the torture used against the prisoners, particularly against his son William, and declared that the accused were innocent victims:.
Here are five persons who have lately confessed themselves to be witches, and do accuse some of us being along with them at a sacrament, since we were committed into close prison, which we know to be lies. And another five weeks my son William Proctor, when he was examined, because he would not confess that he was guilty, when he was innocent, they tied him neck and heels till the blood gushed out at his nose, and would have kept him so twenty-four hours, if one, more merciful than the rest, had not taken pity on him, and caused him to be unbound.
These actions are very like the popish cruelties. They have already undone us in our estates, and that will not serve their turns without our innocent blood. Miller read historical accounts but intentionally changed details. He made Proctor younger and more attractive than he was at the time of the trials and invented an adulterous relationship between Proctor and Abigail Williams, whose age he changed from eleven to seventeen years.
In real life Proctor may or may not have had relationships out of wedlock, but they were not what he was accused of doing. More important, perhaps, was the fact that the Proctors were almost certainly openly contemptuous of the proceedings. Not so, replied Goody Ingersoll, or she would have heard of it. Ingersoll was one of the semiofficial complaint makers, and he surely would have known and told his wife.
The mockers then made jest of what had been, but moments before, the very sort of performance that was sending people to jail. The first accusations fell not on Elizabeth Proctor alone, as some historians have written, but on both John and Elizabeth. He did not come to her examination unbidden and come under fire for his loyalty, as the common story reports, but had already been denounced by Abigail and Ann Putnam Jr.
Despite this religious belief, Proctor maintains his bravery in making this claim by refusing to conceal his negative opinion on Parris. It is clear that Proctor does not absent-mindedly conform to Puritan traditions, and he even overtly denounces the minister of the church, which explains why the Christian character of his household would come under suspicion.
This suspicion combined with the hysteria that was running rampant in the town explains why Proctor would ultimately be accused of witchcraft. At this point, John interrupts them and accuses Abigail of being a whore.
John admits to having an affair with her, thus indicting himself and blackening his own name in the interest of bringing justice to those whom Abby is accusing. John repeatedly encourages Mary to tell the truth, but she inevitably succumbs to the pressure of the court officials and the other girls, and she falsely confesses to witchcraft and shifts the blame to John Proctor, saying that his spirit forced her to tell this lie in order to overthrow the court.
If Proctor had never forced Mary to give her deposition in order to liberate those who are accused, Proctor himself never would have been accused of witchcraft. Proctor even forfeits his own good name and admits to the sin of lechery in order to achieve justice for those who are condemned.
This confession alone shows his bravery and high sense of morality, since he risked not only his own good name, but also his life in order to gain justice for those accused. This is particularly evident when Proctor refuses to drop his charge even after Deputy Governor Danforth has assured him that his wife would be safe from the gallows for a year.
This explains why Mary ultimately accuses Proctor of witchcraft. The question of why Parris insists that Proctor held contempt for the court, however, is yet to be considered. Obviously, Proctor never did anything to harm Parris or to physically threaten him in any way, yet one must consider the fact that Parris felt threatened by Proctor nonetheless. Parris knows that such a scandal might very well oust him from the pulpit, so he goes to great lengths to protect Abby—even by lying in court and saying that he never saw anyone naked dancing in the woods Parris also knows that Proctor is a well-respected man, whose opinion will be taken seriously.
The first suspicions come upon Proctor as a result of his church-going habits, which are a product of his bold beliefs about Reverend Parris. This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers. You can order our professional work here.
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