The Crucible – Fear, Lies and Accustions
During the time of the Salem witch trials, you were either motivated to believe the crazy made-up stories the girls told about the workings of the devil, or you were to naive to accept the fact that a child could ever do something so unholy as to lie about witchcraft. These would be the two biggest reasons that the girls go so far with their accusations of witchcraft at first without anyone questioning why. Later on in the play other reasons come to light as they usually do when light is shined on ignorance.

When the first group of people are convicted and ordered to hang, the girls then have a new reason to keep the lie going. Most of the girls continue to accuse people because they do not want the deaths to be their fault. Abigail does not want to be found out or blamed for the hangings. She just wants John Proctor to love her and John’s wife out of the picture. But to keep her secret, she has to strike fear in the other girls so they will not talk.


None of the girls however are completely without guilt. If any of them speak out they will all be accused of witchcraft and hung or made an example of like they did Mary. Fear has been the driving force of all the accusations. Fear of being found out, fear of being punished and fear of being exiled from the church and losing your name. Fear has motivated many tragic decisions.
Fear, lies and deception has caused the courts of Salem to be unreliable. We humans may be the most intelligent of God’s creations, but we also bring onto ourselves the great tragedy of ignorance. There is an undisputable irony to the Salem witch trials though. Not only did all the sins of the trials overtake the original crime, but there was no original crime to begin with. Now there is your ignorance. Sometimes you just have to look at the bigger picture and decide what you stand for. Are you motivated to believe or are you just naive?