The Crucible Quotes

Reverend Parris quote from The Crucible

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

The Crucible, Act 1. We are provided with a snapshot of Reverend Samuel Parris’s character in this description at the beginning of the play. He comes across as intolerant and quick to take offense, selfish and self-centered, arrogant and prideful. A thoroughly dislikeable man, he thinks himself superior to others and wants them to ask permission before shutting the door, the narrator says.
The Puritans did not celebrate Christmas

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. It wasn’t much fun being a Puritan in Massachusetts, as we learn from the Act 1 Overture. Here Miller paints a vivid picture of the rigidity and intolerance of Puritan society, which had no time for enjoyment or pleasure. It is easy to understand how such a strict and unyielding human environment becomes the breeding ground for the notorious Salem witch trials.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Miller uses personification to describe the American wilderness in the new land that the Salem colonists have made home. The narrator compares it to a dangerous and threatening human being.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. The theme of good vs evil is found in the narrator’s description of the Salem Puritans’ failure to convert the forest Indians to Christianity. The Salem folk believed that the forest was the Devil’s demesne where evil thrived. But good reigned in the town where people paid homage to God.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. In the background information at the beginning of the play, we learn how the witch-hunt turned neighbor against neighbor. The trials were a vehicle for guilty people to purge themselves of their own sins by accusing and blaming others. Such conflicts between sinner and accused had tragic consequences, as in the case of John and Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Williams.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. There is more to the witch trials than the battle between Lucifer and the Lord, we are told in the play’s introduction. The trials were used to settle old scores between neighbors and adversaries, seek vengeance on others and satisfy the greed for land. Miller uses metaphorical language to describe the battle between good and evil – "plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord."

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. The theme of racism is found in these stage directions and description of Reverend Parris’s black slave from Barbados, Tituba. We are told how very frightened she is because any trouble in the house is always blamed on her. The language suggests her feelings of oppression and imprisonment, as in "can no longer bear to be barred." She represents inequality and powerlessness in a play where power and its abuse is a strong theme. Though the most socially inferior person, Tituba is an important character in the play. She is the first person to be accused of witchcraft, which is foreshadowed here. She is also the first to name other women as witches: Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn and Bridget Bishop.

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!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris shows itself to be a racist because of the way he treats his black slave Tituba. In the opening lines of the play he yells at her to get out of the room where ten-year-old Betty Parris lies ill. Tituba is genuinely concerned for Betty, but when she inquires about her health she is told by Parris to get out of his sight. The stage directions indicate Tituba stepping backwards even before Parris opens his mouth. This indicates that she is accustomed to being treated in this demeaning way by him.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Here we are introduced to the antagonist of the play, the 17-year-old niece of Reverend Parris, Abigail williams. Straight away we learn of her gift for deceiving others. She is said to have "an endless capacity for dissembling," or being deceitful and hiding under a false appearance. A striking beauty, it is easy to see why John Proctor has been attracted to her.

And what shall I say to them? That my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris worries what people will say after finding his daughter Betty and niece Abigail dancing in the forest with other girls. In a simile, he compares the girls’ antics to those of heathens, or uncivilized people who don’t worship the God of the Bible. With rumors of witchcraft circulating, he is concerned how any scandal might be used against him by his enemies. Dancing was a forbidden pleasure in the intolerant world of the Puritans.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. As talk of witchcraft swirls around Salem, Abigail defends the girls’ behavior in the woods to her uncle Reverend Parris. She denies that they were involved in witchcraft, but admits that they danced. She accepts that she will be punished for dancing, a practice frowned on by the intolerant Salem Puritans. Abigail assures Parris that his daughter Betty, who is in a comatose state, is not bewitched.

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?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris, quizzing Abigail about what happened earlier in the woods, is worried over his daughter falling sick. But he is even more worried about people thinking Betty’s illness is a result of witchcraft and possession by the Devil. Protecting his reputation is Parris’s number one priority here.

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!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris describes to Abigail the scene he witnessed in the woods, leading him to infer that the girls were engaging in witchcraft. Parris dehumanizes Tituba, his black slave from Barbados, by describing her in a racist animal simile as "swaying like a dumb beast."

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!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Parris tells Abigail that he cannot pretend he didn’t see what he saw in the woods with the girls, including one of them running naked. He is worried that his enemies will discover this and use it against him to harm his reputation and standing in the community. True to character, Abigail simply lies and says no one was naked.

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.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. An insecure Parris, who says this to his niece Abigail, is obsessed with being highly regarded by the people of Salem. For him his status and authority in the town is more of a priority than serving his parishioners and preaching the word of God. He is fearful that Abigail and his daughter’s involvement in a ritual in the woods may destroy his reputation.

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?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. For Reverend Parris, Abigail’s dancing in the woods has reignited suspicions about his niece’s behavior. He refers to rumors that she acted improperly when working in the Proctors’ service, with Mrs. Proctor not wanting to sit close to her in church. With Elizabeth avoiding being associated with something "soiled" or impure, this puts Abigail’s reputation under the spotlight.

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!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Abigail’s lies and deceit about Elizabeth Proctor begin, as she invents a story about why she lost her job with the Proctors. She claims that Elizabeth hated her because she refused to be her slave. But the truth is that Abigail was dismissed by Elizabeth because she had an affair with her husband John. It is Abigail’s intense jealousy of Elizabeth that drives the witch trials hysteria, leading to many innocent people being hanged. Her jealousy speaks loudly in this passage, where she mischaracterizes Elizabeth as "a bitter woman, a lying, cold sniveling woman." When we meet her in the play, Elizabeth turns out to be a kind, caring and honest woman.

PUTNAM: Why, her eyes is closed! Look you, Ann.
MRS. PUTNAM: Why, that’s strange. Ours is open.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Both Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam are in a comatose state in the opening scene. While Thomas Putnam observes that Betty has her eyes closed, his wife Ann comments that her Ruth has hers open. The Putnams leap to the conclusion that both girls are in some sort of strange stupor because of witchcraft they have been involved in in the forest. While Ruth Putnam does not speak any lines in the play, there are many quotes showing her involvement, including evidence of her accusing individuals of witchcraft.
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