Marry Warren VS. Proctor

[olmobar35]

After being verbally tormented by Abigail and the other girls throughout Act 3, Marry Warren has a shocking outburst in which she falsely accuses Proctor of threatening to murder her if she did not help him overthrow the court. Not only has Marry now learned how to play the game, but this signifies the moment in which Proctor has reached his point of conflict as a tragic hero, and will struggle for the rest of the book to become closer to gaining entrance into the Consensus in which he was removed from. Why do you think that Marry blamed Proctor? Was it to save her life, or does she truly thing he was after her?

[lemoise35]

I agree that Proctor has reached his point of conflict as a tragic hero, but I do not feel he struggles for the rest of the play to rejoin the consensus. I think he was attempting to rejoin by bringing Mary to confess, but once Mary accuses him of working with the Devil Proctor realizes he has been completely cut off the the consensus. While Mary is trying to confess to Danforth and the others, Proctor seems very anxious for the men to believe her. For example on page 104, Proctor is "furious" when Parris makes an excuse for a poppet being in the Proctor household, claiming they could have been hidden. I think that Proctor is eager for people to believe Mary for three reasons: the first, Elizabeth will the able to return home, second, people may realize that this "witch hunt" is without real evidence, and third, he will not have to confess to what he and Abigail did together (his flaw--pride--makes him impatient for the truth to be known). Unfortunately for Proctor, he confesses to his act of adultery, even though his wife denies it and he is therefore "proven" to be a witch. Once this occurs, Proctors knows there is no possible way he is ever going to be able to rejoin the consensus.

[tihuber38]

In my opinion, Marry Warren is sincere about her confession of lying to the court. I believe that the reason she turned against Proctor was fear. From the beginning, Proctor kept telling her that God hates liars to keep her from turning back to Abigail and the court because she was genuinely scared that she would be hung for turning against it. When Abigail and the other girls begin pretending to see a bird and thereby pretending that Mary is bewitching them, Mary cracks. She turns against Proctor because she is extremely conflicted and scared. She knows that what the court is doing is wrong, but she is more afraid of execution. Under extreme emotional duress, she chooses the court and what she perceives as a stay of execution. As for Proctor, I believe he is trying to change the consensus rather than trying to gain entrance into it. The consensus of the court and the population inside of Salem is that there is witchcraft rampant in the town. Proctor is aligned with the farmers outside of Salem who are in a consensus that that there is no witchcraft, of that the court is dangerous at the very least. This outside consensus is evident in the 91 signatures Francis Nurse gathered. Proctor is trying to convince the deputy governor out of the current consensus that there is witchcraft in Salem.

[dacui38]

It's interesting to note that Proctor attempts to control Marry Warren because he is her master, and as the servant, she cannot refuse Proctor. Proctor seeks to condemn Abigail [and also Marry] in order to save his wife while maintaining his dignity [without revealing that he had slept with Abigail which both Elizabeth and Marry know] and to stop the witch hunt. We know that so far Marry Warren has been amassing power along with Abigail, as she is part of the court. Proctor needed Marry as she defended Elizabeth in the court. Already, we see a change in the social standings. Marry, clearly an outsider because she is unmarried and thus powerless now is of use and has power over her master Proctor, who is clearly very much in the circle. As Marry accuses Proctor, it shows the destruction of the "status quo"...certainly a servant blaming her master wouldn't be believed, but this is just how the Witch Hunts changed the status quo and the way of life for these characters.

[jiyang35]

To answer the original question, I also agree with many of the other responses in the aspect that Mary Warren only turned on Proctor due to the overwhelming role of fear. Going into Act 3, Mary was already dealing with many worrisome problems. She was warned by Abigail that if she ever tried to speak of what truly went on in the woods, she would have her head smashed in. This is why Mary was mostly quiet in the beginning of the act. She was facing pressure from two opposing sides and opposing Abigail was Proctor. This would then make her life much too difficult. In Act 3, Proctor repeatedly tries to convince Mary to tell the truth when he says, "Do that which is good, and no harm shall come to thee"(Miller 95). Now Mary was stuck between following morals or doing what was best for her own personal good. Trying to tell the truth turned out to be more troublesome than she thought. This was seen as Hathorne drilled Mary with questions about her fainting in church questioning how that was an act. She responds by saying it was the atmosphere of fear and others truly believing in the spirits that momentarily tricked her in believing that it was real. As readers, we can see this to be a reasonable explanation but in the context of the play, it was not sufficient enough. This led Mary to feel less willing about telling the truth and then it all went downhill when Abigail and the girls started to take advantage of others’ trust in them. Pretending Mary was sending a spirit after them, the girls forced Mary into a corner where she ultimately called out Proctor like the rest of the consensus. In her mind, if she had not done so, she would face a trial like the other accused witches and could without a doubt, lose her life.

[jiyang35]

In the context of the other replies, I would also like to comment about consensus and the shift of power. Clearly from class discussions, Proctor can be somewhat seen outside of the consensus as he is physically removed from the rest of the townspeople and ideologically as he make few appearances in church. (This was questioned when Mr. Hale paid a visit to Proctor trying to warn him of changing times and the new priorities that had to be undertaken. The consensus was stricter than ever due to the overhanging crisis). Like one of the replies, I also believe Proctor was trying to change the consensus by instilling his voice of reason, exactly what his role represents. On page 92, Danforth speaks about Elizabeth possibly being pregnant and that he will release her for one year. When given such an offer, Danforth thinks Proctor would drop his charges but Proctor actually responds by saying he cannot drop the charges. He is not only satisfied with the freedom of his wife but ultimately wants this period of false fear to end. Proctor knows the truth but also knows the danger in going against the majority of the town and trying to expose the lies. This leads to the role of power. Initially in Act 3, Proctor feels in a way confident. He has recently drawn up dispositions and had many “Christian” neighbors who would agree and support with his beliefs. He was also a respected citizen and thought he had Mary to back him up. Unfortunately, like a drama/ tragedy, nothing goes well for the tragic hero. Mary turns on him and immediately, Proctor’s trustworthiness decreases. To make matters worse, when Elizabeth is called in, she is hit with an unexpected question in which her answer disagrees with Proctor’s. By the end of Act 3, Proctor loses his reputation and any ability to change the town’s consensus. On the other hand, Mary who was once powerless is now a saint to the town as she “helped discover another witch”.

[bepindi35]

i believe this incident with marry demonstrates just how powerful Abigail has become,the idea that she is able to make well educated men believe that her friends spirit is a bird threatening to kill her shows that they will believe anything she says and once marry realizes this she knows she has no choice but to return to the girls and accuse the man who has been trying to help her

[aarubin35]

I agree with what the other people have been saying about why Mary blamed Proctor. Through that scene we can really tell how powerful fear is. Mary is scared that she will be sentenced to jail because of what Abigail and the other girls were doing. Similar to what Abigail did at the beginning of the play, Mary chose to lie in order to shift the blame from her to another character. All Mary wants is to be safe, and she uses the newly discovered fact that Proctor was a lecher to her advantage in order to make her blame more reasonable. I believe that the courtroom scene is the point in the play in which Mary cracked. she was lost and she didn't know what to do. The only reasonable thing that she could have done was to try and shift the focus away from her. Mary was scared and fear is a powerful thing.