Reverend Parris 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.

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.

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.

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.

Thomas, Thomas, I pray you, leap not to witchcraft. I know that you – you least of all, Thomas, would ever wish so disastrous a charge laid upon me. We cannot leap to witchcraft. They will howl me out of Salem for such a corruption in my house.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Parris knows that he cannot have his household associated with witchcraft. Otherwise he will be driven out of Salem and lose his career as a minister. He pleads with Thomas Putnam not to jump to conclusions about witchcraft being the cause of their children’s illness. Parris is trying desperately to preserve his reputation, but doesn’t seem over-concerned about his daughter.

PUTNAM: Now look you, sir. Let you strike out against the Devil, and the village will bless you for it! Come down, speak to them – pray with them. They’re thirsting for your word, Mister! Surely you’ll pray with them.
PARRIS: I’ll lead them in a psalm, but let you say nothing of witchcraft yet. I will not discuss it. The cause is yet unknown. I have had enough contention since I came; I want no more.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Thomas Putnam exerts his considerable power in the community to persuade Parris to take spiritual charge and lead the battle against Lucifer. A cautious Parris, worried for his reputation, agrees to lead everyone in prayer and a psalm but refuses to accept any mention of witchcraft.

PARRIS: A wide opinion’s running in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong.
PROCTOR: Then let you come out and call them wrong. Did you consult the wardens before you called this minister to look for devils?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. John Proctor challenges Parris’s authority for the decision to bring witchcraft expert Reverend John Hale into Salem to investigate. Proctor accuses him of going about things the wrong way and failing to consult the local community. Many locals believe that evil in the form the Devil is among them, Parris explains, and by bringing in Hale he hopes to prove them wrong. But the cowardly Salem minister did not himself speak out and declare them wrong, Proctor points out. The hysteria in Salem is greatly encouraged by Parris’s decision.

Where is my wood? My contract provides I be supplied with all my firewood. I am waiting since November for a stick, and even in November I had to show my frostbitten hands like some London beggar!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris, arguing with Giles Corey, is complaining about having to pay for his firewood. He uses a simile to suggest he is being treated like a London beggar. This shows a greedy Parris who is more concerned with his material comforts than with matters of God.

The salary is sixty-six pound, Mr. Proctor! I am not some preaching farmer with a book under my arm; I am a graduate of Harvard College.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Parris is involved in an undignified argument with Giles Corey and Proctor about his salary. Here he disputes Proctor’s claim that his salary is sixty pounds, plus six for firewood. He insists that his pay is sixty-six pounds, and the firewood is provided free. This is an example of greed by the head of the church in Salem. It also shows him consumed with pride, boasting that having a degree from the prestigious Harvard University should command a higher salary. Parris sees himself at a higher level than the typical Massachusetts farmer or craftsman.

Mr. Corey, you will look far for a man of my kind at sixty pounds a year! I am not used to this poverty; I left a thrifty business in the Barbados to serve the Lord. I do not fathom it, why am I persecuted here? I cannot offer one proposition but there be a howling riot of argument. I have often wondered if the Devil be in it somewhere; I cannot understand you people otherwise.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris is very concerned with material wealth, as shown by this speech. But as well as being a man of greed, this passage tells us also that he suffers from the sin of pride.

PROCTOR: Mr. Parris, you are the first minister ever did demand the deed to this house.
PARRIS: Man! Don’t a minister deserve a house to live in?
PROCTOR: To live in, yes. But to ask ownership is like you shall own the meeting house itself; the last meeting I were at you spoke so long on deeds and mortgages I thought it were an auction.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. For a man of the cloth Reverend Parris is unusually greedy. He demands that the deed of the home provided for him by the parish should belong to him and not the church. Proctor argues that Parris is more concerned with ownership of his house than his ministerial duties.

PARRIS: Will you look at my daughter, sir? She has tried to leap out the window; we discovered her this morning on the highroad, waving her arms as though she’d fly.
HALE: Tries to fly.
PUTNAM: She cannot bear to hear the Lord’s name, Mr. Hale; that’s a sure sign of witchcraft afloat.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. In this exchange we heard of a child trying to fly who cannot listen to the Lord’s name, and claims of witchcraft in Salem! A worried Parris looks at his ill daughter, while Thomas Putnam continues to stoke the fires of hysteria.

HALE: When did you compact with the Devil?
TITUBA: I don’t compact with no Devil!
PARRIS: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!
PUTNAM: This woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged!
TITUBA: No, no, don’t hang Tituba! I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. The perversion of justice in the Salem witch investigations and trials is perfectly illustrated by this passage. Hale, Parris and Putnam repreatedly press Tituba to confess to communicating with the Devil. At first she declares her innocence to the charge, but then she is given a "confess or die" ultimatum. When they threaten to hang her a terrified Tituba falls down on on her knees and out of fear admits to a crime she did not commit. Salem-style justice means that in the eyes of the officials you are guilty before any trial or hearing of defense evidence. The abusive way the people of authority treat Tituba, a black slave, has a strong element of racism in it.

PARRIS: Do you read the Gospel, Mr. Proctor?
PROCTOR: I read the Gospel.
PARRIS: I think not, or you should surely know that Cain were an upright man, and yet he did kill Abel.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Proctor has been trying to persuade the court to consider the upright reputations of the people being accused of witchcraft. But Reverend Parris tries to undermine John’s argument with an allusion to the Bible story of brothers Cain and Abel. Cain may have been an honorable man, but that didn’t stop him from committing the terrible deed of killing his brother. Parris is making the case that even seemingly good people who lead a blameless life are capable of doing evil.
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