The Crucible 2

Question 1

Who’s one of the most chilling and magnetic villains in all of literature?

Answer 1

Abigail Williams

Question 2

If Proctor had admitted to the adultery earlier …

Answer 2

… The whole witch hunt could have been averted.

Question 3

What does Proctor finally find at the end of the play?

Answer 3

His goodness
Self-respect
Integrity

Question 4

What TV character is Abigail like?

Answer 4

Joffrey from Game of Thrones

Question 5

Abigail has an amazing ability to…

Answer 5

… Manipulate others and gain control over them.

Question 6

What is extra horrible about Abigail?

Answer 6

How she asks Tituba to help her put a curse on Elizabeth then turns around and says Tituba made her do it because she’s been chillin with the devil!

Question 7

What’s ironic about Abigail?

Answer 7

How she was the only one engaging in witchcraft and becomes the person who accuses everyone else of being a witch.

Question 8

Abigail riles up what?

Answer 8

The village’s hatred of witches - just like Senator McArthy riled up America’s hatred of Communists.

Question 9

When does Abigail lose her last shred of humanity?

Answer 9

When she frames John Proctor whom she says she loves.

Question 10

What makes Abigail seem less inhumanly diabolical?

Answer 10

She saw her parents murdered by Indians as a child - heads smashed by rocks!

Question 11

What else might account for Abigail’s ruthlessness?

Answer 11

Low social standing - orphan
Unmarried teenager
Female

Question 12

How are Elizabeth’s positive qualities also her negative ones?

Answer 12

She’s so virtuous that she gives off an air of coldness, moral superiority. The little warmth she once may have had has diminished due to her husband’s infidelity.

Question 13

What is Elizabeth struggling with throughout the play?

Answer 13

To forgive her husband and let go of anger.

Question 14

What are the three weapons in John Proctor’s arsenal when he goes to court in Act 3?

Answer 14

Abigail’s admission there was no witchcraft

Mary warren’s testimony - girls faking

Prepared to admit the adultery

Question 15

What’s the only sin we see Elizabeth commit?

Answer 15

When she lies in court to try to save her husband. Bad timing - ends up damning him.

Question 16

What realisation does Elizabeth come to after her time in jail?

Answer 16

That she was a cold wife. It was because she didn’t love herself that she was unable to receive her husband’s love.

Question 17

What does Elizabeth say to John at the end of the play regarding what she’s realised about herself?

Answer 17

I have read my heart this three month, John. I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery.

Question 18

What is Elizabeth’s noblest act?

Answer 18

When she helps the tortured John to forgive himself just before his death.

Question 19

What Lord of the Rings characters are Abigail and Parris like?

Answer 19

Abigail’s kind of like magnetic, blatantly evil Saruman and Parris is like wormy, despicable Wormtongue.

Question 20

What are three examples of Parris’ greed?

Answer 20

Quibbling over firewood
Insisting on exorbitantly expensive golden candlesticks for the church
Demanding (against tradition) that he have the deed to the house he lives in

Question 21

What is Parris most worried about at the beginning?

Answer 21

Not his daughter Betty but his reputation!

Question 22

What does Parris do in Act 3 to perjure himself?

Answer 22

He says he saw no naked dancing in the woods when we know that he did - he says so in Act 1.

Question 23

Why does Parris cry at the end?

Answer 23

Not because of all the people he’s helped to senselessly murder, but because Abigail has stolen all his money and he is broke. We see him for the snivelling parasite that he is.

Question 24

What is a redeeming quality of Mary Warren?

Answer 24

She makes a poppet for Elizabeth because she feels bad about going along with Abigail’s accusations.
She is willing to testify against the lying girls.

Question 25

Why is Mary Warren spineless?

Answer 25

She starts to enjoy the power trip of being involved in the court proceedings.
When under pressure of being hanged she changes her tune - accusing John of witchcraft and Devil-worship.

Question 26

What is Reverend Hale’s character arc?

Answer 26

He starts out with a vendetta against witches and ends up a broken, cynical man.

Question 27

In Act 2, how do we know that Hale’s former confidence is eroding?

Answer 27

He shows up at the Proctor house without the court’s knowledge.

Question 28

When is Hale’s confidence shattered?

Answer 28

In Act 3 when Proctor is convicted due to Abigail’s transparent machinations.

Question 29

What does Hale do in Act 4 after his total disillusionment?

Answer 29

He knowingly counsels people to lie to save themselves from being hanged. He has lost all faith in the law and his faith in God seems to be shaky as well.

Question 30

What does Hale plead to Elizabeth to try and get her to change her husband’s mind?

Answer 30

What profit him to bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth?

Question 31

What quote shows highlights the extreme prejudice against Tituba in the way she is treated?

Answer 31

“Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados … It’s you folks-you riles him up round here … he freeze his soul in Massachussetts, but in Barbados he just as sweet.”

Question 32

What’s ironic about Tituba’s treatment?

Answer 32

The Puritans, who came to America to escape religious persecution, would practice such deliberate, cruel, and ignorant persecution themselves.

Question 33

What is Giles Corey’s big blunder in the play?

Answer 33

When he mentions that his wife reads strange books.

Question 34

Why does Giles Corey neither confess to nor deny the charges of witchcraft against him?

Answer 34

To ensure that his sons can legally inherit his property.

Question 35

When did Arthur Miller pull a ‘Giles Corey’ of his own?

Answer 35

When he was called to testify before McCarthy’s Un-American Activities Committee. Despite tremendous pressure, Miller refused to name names of suspected Communists.

Question 36

Why is Danforth disturbed and angered when he finds out that people fear the court.

Answer 36

Because he feels that he is fair-minded and guided by God, so no one could possibly be accused unjustly.

Question 37

What’s wrong with Danforth thinking that he is guided by God?

Answer 37

He fails to examine evidence critically or to act to stop the hysteria.

Question 38

What does Danforth refuse to see at the end.

Answer 38

The role that the witchcraft trials and the hangings have had on the disintegrating society.

Question 39

What idea does Danforth embody?

Answer 39

That people should be protected from knowledge, rather than be allowed access to it - an idea that Miller characterised as ‘evil is good’ (the idea of evil is good because it prevents good people from doing evil things).

Question 40

What does Thomas Putnam do that shows his callous greed?

Answer 40

He uses his daughter to accuse people whose property he covets.