Circle of Accusations

1. Who do you think is next? What’s in it for the girls? Tituba: confesses & names others How do the accusations spread? Sarah Good Goody Osburn Circle of Accusations

2. “Chilly” scene in Proctor’s house • Elizabeth begs John to go to Salem to stop the false accusations by Abigail and the girls • Proctor is reluctant because he has no witness who can corrobrate that Abigail told him the witchin’ in the woods and the sickness of Ruth and Betty “were just sport” • In telling Elizabeth this, he lets it slip that he was alone with Abigail, which only makes all of Elizabeth’s suspicions flare up anew

3. Mary Warren arrives • Has high and mighty opinion of herself as a member of the accusing girls. And why not? It is the first time in these girls’ lives anyone is paying them any attention… • Proctor is not happy that she (his servant, who is supposed to obey him unquestioningly) has sneaked off to Salem to participate in these absurd witch trials • We find out Goody Osburn is set to hang and that Sarah Good has confessed (to signing her name in the Devil’s book, making a compact [deal] with the devil, promising to worship Satan and torment Christians, etc.). Mary and the girls have all made up stories to get Good put in jail. (Mary suddenly remembers all the times Sarah Good supposedly tried to kill her…The mumbling curse, the choking in court, etc.) • Mary gives the poppet to Elizabeth. Abigail was seated next to her in court while Mary was making it… • As Mary is about to get whipped by Proctor, she lets it slip that Elizabeth has been “somewhat mentioned.”

4. Elizabeth insists John go to Salem to tell Abigail that the promise he made is not going to happen, that there is no hope that Abigail must realize she and John will never be together, and that she must not try to have Elizabeth accused. • John maintains he made no such promise, but agrees at last and gets his rifle to go. ELIZABETH: Then go and tell her she’s a whore. Whatever promise she may sense— break it, John, break it. PROCTOR, between his teeth: Good, then. I’ll go. He starts for his rifle. Exactly at this point, Hale arrives.

5. Hale • Clinging to his belief that the evidence against the innocent people is good, that the confessions are real, and that anyone is potentially a witch. • He conducts a lengthy inquisition of Proctors to see just how Christian they are • Why haven’t you been going to church? (You cannot pray at home) • Why haven’t you had your 3d son baptized? (It is not for you to decide if Parris is holy) • Name your ten commandments • Elizabeth makes John reveal that Abigail and the girls have no real power to tell who is a witch and who is not and that nothing went on in the woods. • Elizabeth goes against the Gospels and denies the existence of witches. • Enter Giles Corey and Francis Nurse

6. Corey and Nurse’s news: Their wives are accused. • Why is Rebecca twice as nice for the Putnams to accuse? (Both of the Putnams hate her) • Martha is taken partly due to Giles unfortunate comments and the ridiculous accusations of Walcott the pig farmer • Cheever comes to grab Elizabeth • No surprise who charges her. The poppet needle story is told and the doll is found

7. CHEEVER: “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 [Abigail] how she come to be so stabbed, she— to Proctor now— testify it wereyour wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in”

8. Act II Closes …with Proctor demanding that Mary Warren come clean about Abigail and the poppet so that his wife will not hang for his sins.