The Crucible Lies and Deceit Quotes

DANFORTH: What is it, child? (But Abigail, pointing with fear, is now raising up her frightened eyes, her awed face, toward the ceiling – the girls are doing the same – and now Hathorne, Hale, Putnam, Cheever, Herrick, and Danforth do the same.) What’s there? (He lowers his eyes from the ceiling, and now he is frightened; there is real tension in his voice.) Child! (She is transfixed – with all the girls, she is whimpering open-mouthed, agape at the ceiling.) Girls! Why do you – ?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. The "yellow bird" scene in the courtroom shows how easily mass hysteria can grip an entire community and wipe out rational thought and common sense. It also shows how Abigail Williams exercises power over the girls and court officials. At the centre of the illusion is master manipulator Abby. As she imagines and invents a demonic bird on the courtroom rafters, even the learned and experienced Judge Danforth is taken in and petrified.

PARRIS: Cast the Devil out! Look him in the face! Trample him! We’ll save you, Mary, only stand fast against him – .
ABIGAIL: Look out! She’s coming down!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. When the girls led by Abby pretend that Mary Warren’s spirit is attacking them in the form of a bird, Parris joins in. He acts as if he were with the forces of good fighting against evil. Like Abby, he too is manipulating the court to undermine Mary’s evidence that she and the girls lied about seeing witches and the Devil.

She and all the girls run to one wall, shielding their eyes. And now, as though cornered, they let out a gigantic scream, and Mary, as though infected, opens her mouth and screams with them. Gradually Abigail and the girls leave off, until only Mary is left there, staring up at the "bird," screaming madly. All watch her, horrified by this evident fit.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. The stage directions give a graphic portrayal of how Abigail Williams provokes mass hysteria and sets up a chain reaction in the witch trials courtroom. She is pretending to see an imaginary demonic bird in the rafters.

You’re the Devil’s man!…I’ll not hang with you! I love God, I love God.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Proctor’s pleading with Mary Warren to tell the truth because "God damns all liars" falls on deaf ears and she finally breaks. Under pressure from Abby’s gang of girls and Danforth’s questioning, she cracks and screams this at Proctor. As she returns to the fold of the accusers and their pretense of seeing spirits, she scapegoats John as a devil worshipper to save herself. Mary is weak-willed, morally ambiguous and easily manipulated, especially by Abigail. Mary’s switch back to the side of the girls follows the remarkable "yellow bird" scene in which Abby convinces the courtroom that Mary is attacking her in the shape of a demonic bird. After Abby’s scheming, Mary falsely outing Proctor as the Devil’s disciple proves to be the final nail in his coffin. As with many other instances in the play, the division between who is good and who is evil it not clear-cut, with the sides often getting mixed up.

He wake me every night, his eyes were like coals and his fingers claw my neck, and I sign, I sign.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Mary Warren goes from being servant to the Proctors to their mortal enemy as she provides false testimony that John Proctor is working for the Devil. She throws her employer under the bus, telling the court that he forced her to sign the Devil’s book. She uses demonic imagery and simile – "eyes were like coals," "fingers claw my neck" – to describe how Proctor woke her up every night until he got her to sign.

I come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves. There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head!!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. When Danforth asks Hale why he has returned to the court, he makes this sarcastic reply to the supervising judge. Using verbal irony, the clergyman says that he is doing the Devil’s work asking people to lie and confess to witchcraft to save their lives. The blood on Hale’s head is a metaphor for his feelings of guilt over the court condemning and hanging innocent people with his help. Now more outspoken and less respectful to the court, Hale is not the same enthusiastic witch-hunter who arrived to Salem with complete confidence in the justice system.
He is now more concerned with preserving life than with collaborating with the court to kill "witches." We see the strength of Hale’s moral integrity here.

HALE: Goody Proctor, I have gone this three month like our Lord into the wilderness. I have sought a Christian way, for damnation’s doubled on a minister who counsels men to lie.
HATHORNE: It is no lie, you cannot speak of lies.
HALE: It is a lie! They are innocent!
DANFORTH: I’ll hear no more of that!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Reverend Hale has undergone a spiritual metamorphosis after spending some time away from the frenzied atmosphere of Salem’s witch hunts. The allusion to Christ’s 40 days and nights in the desert is used by Miller to portray Hale’s period of reflection away from the madness of Salem. Hale tells Elizabeth that he is counseling the accused witches to lie and confess to witchcraft, which is ironic for a clergyman. He wants her to persuade husband John to do just that to escape hanging. Hale is telling the court that he now believes the witchcraft accusations are a complete fraud. Judges Hathorne and Danforth refuse to accept that.

HALE: Life, woman, life is God’s most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie. Quail not before God’s judgment in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride. Will you plead with him? I cannot think he will listen to another.
ELIZABETH: I think that be the Devil’s argument.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Reverend John Hale has undergone a profound transformation from saving souls from witchery to saving lives. Once a staunch believer in Salem’s court justice, he is no longer. It is ironic for an ordained miniser of the church to ask that upright people lie to the court. But his priority now is the preservation of life. He wants Elizabeth to save her husband’s by getting him to put aside his pride and falsely confess to witchcraft. In the eyes of God it is a greater sin to die because of pride than telling a lie in order to live, Hale argues. He is challenging the rigid good vs evil, God vs Devil belief system of Puritanism as it applies to witchcraft. No longer are the divisions between what is right and what is wrong as clear-cut for Hale. Elizabeth describes what he is saying as the "Devil’s argument."

I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man. My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. At the end of the play John Proctor is faced with a moral dilemma. He can lie and falsely confess to witchcraft to save his life. Or he can choose to die a martyr, "like a saint," as he tells Elizabeth in a simile. Since he is already an adulterer with a "rotten" soul, he feels that he can’t damage it any further with this lie. The greater fraud, he believes, would be to die on the scaffold alongside sinless people like the saintly Rebecca Nurse. He doesn’t feel worthy of joining the ranks of such martyrs. John shows his honesty and integrity here.

I’d have you see some honesty in it. Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls. It is pretense for me, a vanity that will not blind God nor keep my children out of the wind.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. John Proctor agonizes over whether to falsely confess to witchcraft to save himself from the gallows. For a sinner like him to choose to die alongside the other blameless accused would be pretense or vanity, he feels. So he tries to calm his pride as he moves towards his decision to confess. Proctor is a sinner and deceiver who has cheated on his wife. He feels it more dishonest for him to die alongside those who never lied, like Rebecca Nurse. His speech about the importance of honesty and integrity is his last conversation with Elizabeth.

God in Heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor? I think it is honest, I think so; I am no saint. Let Rebecca go like a saint; for me it is fraud!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Proctor, wrestling with his conscience and guilt, is persuaded to make a false confession to witchcraft to avoid the gallows. With some irony he describes agreeing this lie as being "honest." But he believes it would be an even greater lie for a lecher and sinner like him to go to the gallows with sinless people like Rebecca Nurse. In a simile, he compares her to a saint.

They think to go like saints. I like not to spoil their names.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Proctor refuses Danforth’s demand that he name other people he saw with the Devil, including Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty and Martha Corey. While Proctor is willing to lie that he took part in witchcraft to save his own life, he is not prepared to blacken his innocent friends’ good names and lie about them. Using a simile, he says they believe that they are going to their death "like saints." The demand to name names was a feature of the McCarthy political witch hunt of the 1950s. At the time Miller wrote the play America was in the middle of the McCarthyism Red Scare.

Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. As John Proctor faces hanging on a trumped up charge of witchcraft, this proud man realizes that his reputation and integrity mean more to him than his life. Having been pressured to sign a false confession, he refuses Danforth’s demand to allow his confession be nailed to the church door for all to see. This refusal will lead to his execution. To confess to a lie in order to live would be to dishonor his fellow prisoners who go to their deaths for staying silent, he believes. In the new moments he will tear up his confession, signing his death warrant but with his integrity intact.

PARRIS: Proctor, Proctor!
HALE: Man, you will hang! You cannot!
PROCTOR: I can. And there’s your first marvel, that I can. You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. John Proctor goes to the gallows refusing to falsely confess to witchcraft. In doing so he preserves his integrity and finds his "shred of goodness." He chooses not to live a lie. Instead he decides to die with honor with the other good people who will not make a false confession to save their lives. Having initially signed the confession, he tears it up before a horrified Hale and Parris. They cannot believe his refusal to permit it to be publicly posted on the church door as "proof." John’s last speech before being hanged shows that, having been racked with guilt over his lechery, he has at last forgiven himself for his sins. The animal metaphor "dogs" are the figures of authority in the court trying to get John to confess to the bogus charge of witchcraft. Proctor also uses a weaving metaphor in his final dramatic speech.
Close