The Crucible Vengeance Quotes

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."

His vindictive nature was demonstrated long before the witchcraft began. A former Salem minister, George Burroughs, had had to borrow money to pay for his wife’s funeral, and, since the parish was remiss in his salary, he was soon bankrupt. Thomas and his brother John had Burroughs jailed for debts the man did not owe. The incident is important only in that Burroughs succeeded in becoming minister where Bayley, Thomas Putnam’s brother-in-law, had been rejected; the motif of resentment is clear here. Thomas Putnam felt that his own name and the honor of his family had been smirched by the village, and he meant to right matters however he could.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. This explanation about Thomas Putnam reveals his vindictive and vengeful nature. When his brother-in-law was rejected for position of town minister in favor of another man, he ensured that the man was jailed for debts he didn’t owe. This was in retaliation for what he felt was a smirch on the family name.

So it is not surprising to find that so many accusations against people are in the handwriting of Thomas Putnam, or that his name is so often found as a witness corroborating the supernatural testimony, or that his daughter led the crying-out at the most opportune junctures of the trials, especially when – But we’ll speak of that when we come to it.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. This excerpt from an explanation of Thomas Putnam’s character shows how he was one of the leaders of the witch hunt and even recruited his daughter Ruth to name people as witches. It shows the kind of vindictive and vengeful person he is.

There are hurtful, vengeful spirits layin’ hands on these children.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. There is rising hysteria in the room, as Thomas Putnam leaps to the conclusion that evil spirits have possessed his daughter Ruth and Betty Parris. A powerful man, he is trying to persuade Parris to accept that there are vengeful witches in town and they are to blame for the girls’ strange illness. Stage directions says that he is "intent upon getting Parris, for whom he has only contempt, to move toward the abyss."

It was Edward and Jonathan Putnam who signed the first complaint against Rebecca; and Thomas Putnam’s little daughter was the one who fell into a fit at the hearing and pointed to Rebecca as her attacker. To top it all, Mrs. Putnam – who is now staring at the bewitched child on the bed – soon accused Rebecca’s spirit of "tempting her to iniquity," a charge that had more truth in it than Mrs. Putnam could know.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. The author tells us something of the history of the Nurses and Putnams. Rebecca Nurse became the target of vengeful neighbors, the Putnams, because they harbored a dislike for her and her husband. It was the Putnams’ daughter Ruth who pointed out Rebecca in the courtroom as her attacker. It becomes clear in the play that Rebecca, a virtuous and respected elderly woman, is accused of being a witch not because of the need to save Salem from the Devil, but to satisfy a desire for personal vengeance.

Think on it now, it’s a deep thing, and dark as a pit.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Giles Corey is talking about how people in Salem are not getting along with one another and suing their neighbors at an alarming rate. He himself confesses to being in court six times that year. Using a simile, he warns how people’s greed and hunger for vengeance are pulling them down into a black pit. This is foreshadowing of how the Salem community will be swallowed up by its own dark pit of destruction and Putitan intolerance, leading to many innocent lives being destroyed in the infamous witch trials.

You have a faulty understanding of young girls. There is a promise made in any bed…Spoke or silent, a promise is surely made. And she may dote on it now – I am sure she does – and thinks to kill me, then to take my place.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Elizabeth tells John that she believes their former servant Abigail has likely read more into her sexual affair with her husband that he did. John may see the affair as meaningless, but Elizabeth is acutely aware of Abigail’s jealousy and desire for vengeance because she fired Abigail over the affair. Abby plans to kill her and replace her, Elizabeth tells John. Abby’s plot and Elizabeth’s arrest for the hanging offense of witchcraft are foreshadowed here.

For murder, she’s charged! (Mockingly quoting the warrant:) "For the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies." What am I to do, Mr. Hale?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. A deeply upset Francis Nurse announces that his wife Rebecca has been charged with the unbelievable crime of the "supernatural murder" of Ann Putnam’s babies. The seven babies died on the day they were born and Mrs. Putnam became obsessed with finding who "murdered" them. She also resented the fact that all of Rebecca’s eleven children lived and only one of here did. Add to that the historic land disputes between the Nurse and Putnam families, and it becomes clear that motives of jealousy and vengeance are behind the Putnams instigating these charges. The accusations against Rebecca Nurse parallel the way Senator Joe McCarthy accused people of being communists without any substantial proof. In the McCarthy era false accusations based on the flimsiest of evidence was leveled against innocent Americans.

That bloody mongrel Walcott charge her. Y’see, he buy a pig of my wife four or five year ago, and the pig died soon after. So he come dancin’ in for his money back. So my Martha, she says to him, "Walcott, if you haven’t the wit to feed a pig properly, you’ll not live to own many," she says. Now he goes to court and claims that from that day to this he cannot keep a pig alive for more than four weeks because my Martha bewitch them with her books!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Giles Corey explains how his wife Martha was charged with witchcraft because an unhappy pig buyer accused her out of a desire to seek revenge. When she refused to give Mr. Walcott his money back for a pig that died from his poor care, he claimed that she was a witch.

The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris’s house tonight, and without word nor warnin’ she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Abigail launches her diabolical plan to get vengeance on Elizabeth for putting her out on the street. Ezekiel Cheever gives a graphic account of how Abby is stabbed in the belly with a needle while at dinner in Parris’s house. Abby blames Elizabeth Proctor’s spirit for pushing the needle in. Cheever uses a vivid animal simile to describe the horror of the attack, comparing Abby to a struck beast. Of course Abigail is lying, having stabbed herself so she could accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft. Earlier that day in court Abby saw Mary Warren make a poppet doll and stick a needle in it, and the poppet is now in Elizabeth’s house. Abigail seizes the opportunity provided by the poppet to frame Elizabeth.

Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor in this speech is the voice of common sense who rails at the injustice of the Puritan church and court system. He speaks out against the perversion of justice and climate of hysteria that exists. He criticizes the unquestioning acceptance of whatever Reverend Parris, Abigail and her band of child accusers say. In a metaphor “jangling the keys of the kingdom” he describes how power is now in the hands of “little crazy children” led by Abby. With Elizabeth arrested, Proctor personifies vengeance to claim that it is walking Salem and writing the law – his wife is being targeted by Abby out of a motive of revenge. The passage also features an example of a simile: “as clean as God’s fingers.”

Charity, Proctor, charity. What I have heard in her favor, I will not fear to testify in court. God help me, I cannot judge her guilty or innocent – I know not. Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profits nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. Reverend Hale attempts to calm John Proctor down, after Cheever arrives to his home to arrest Elizabeth for witchcraft. He cautions John that blaming the witch trials on Abigail’s thirst for vengeance won’t help his case. Hale doesn’t believe that Abigail and the other girls are faking and takes the accusations of witchcraft seriously. At this stage he still has confidence in the court and that justice will be done. He shows himself to be naive here.

A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you – see her what she is…She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. John Proctor exposes the chief witness in the witch trials court as a spurned young woman seeking vengeance on his wife. His angry outburst comes when he becomes frustrated with the lies Abigail Williams is telling the judges. A person of high standing in the community, Proctor sacrifices his respectability to confess to a lustful liason with former servant Abby. Hoping to save his wife Elizabeth from Abby’s witch accusations, he comes clean and outs Abby as a vengeful and jealous fraud wishing to be the next Mrs. Proctor. John has at last honored Elizabeth’s wish to reclaim his integrity by letting Abigail know that their affair is over for good. But he is a little late, Elizabeth has been arrested for witchcraft and her fate lies in the hands of the court.

Excellency, it is a natural lie to tell; I beg you, stop now before another is condemned! I may shut my conscience to it no more – private vengeance is working through this testimony! From the beginning this man has struck me true. By my oath to Heaven, I believe him now, and I pray you call back his wife before we – .

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 3. Hale realizes now what John Proctor had known all along, that Abigail’s witchcraft accusations are nothing but lies driven by a desire for vengeance. The witch-hunter, misguided and naive at first, is riddled with guilt and seeks redemption for wrongly condemning people to die. He shows his moral integrity in this plea to Danforth by trying to put a stop to the witchcraft court proceedings. The "natural lie" referred to is Elizabeth’s lie that John is not a lecher.

Judge Hathorne – it were another sort that hanged till now. Rebecca Nurse is no Bridget that lived three year with Bishop before she married him. John Proctor is not Isaac Ward that drank his family to ruin. (To Danforth:) I would to God it were not so, Excellency, but these people have great weight yet in the town. Let Rebecca stand upon the gibbet and send up some righteous prayer, and I fear she’ll wake a vengeance on you.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. Parris warns the judges against continuing with the witch trial hangings. Up until now those executed were the less respected members of the community. But Parris cautions that hanging the virtuous Rebecca Nurse and well respected John Proctor could provoke a vengeance on the court. His warning sums up the growing hysteria and corruption of the witch hunt, with people lower down the social ladder the first to be accused, followed by those with more upstanding reputations.
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