國立交通大學
外國語文學系暨外國
文學與語言學研究所
碩士論文
亞瑟米勒《鎔爐》的變異女性情慾之能動性
與羨嫉
Witches in the Blood: the Dynamics and Ambivalence
of Deviant Female Sexuality in Arthur Miller’s
The Crucible
研究生：吳佳甄
指導教授：張靄珠 教授
亞瑟米勒《鎔爐》的變異女性情慾之能動性與羨嫉
Witches in the Blood: the Dynamics and Ambivalence of Deviant
Female Sexuality in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
研究生：吳佳甄 Student：Chia-Chen Wu
指導教授：張靄珠 Advisor：I-Chu Chang
國 立 交 通 大 學
外國語文學系暨外國文學與語言學研究所
碩士論文
A Thesis
Submitted to Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures
College of Humanities and Sciences
National Chiao Tung University
In partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Master
in
Foreign Languages & Literatures
December 2008
Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China
亞瑟米勒《鎔爐》的變異女性情欲之能動性與羨嫉 學生﹕吳佳甄 指導教授﹕張靄珠 教授 國立交通大學外國語文學系暨外國文學與語言研究所 碩士班 摘要 本論文主要以女性主義觀點來解讀在亞瑟米勒《鎔爐》劇中之女巫/女人在 父權社會的處境。本文由四個章節所組成，第一章介紹《鎔爐》的時空背景以 及探討女巫如何在男性社會中被型塑。第二章則是討論在劇中女孩們在森林中 的聚會與劇中兩名女性主角阿比蓋兒、蒂度帕在劇中所扮演的角色與位置。對 於劇中所出現的儀式，就像是一場由女孩轉變成為女人或女巫的成年儀式。因 為亞瑟米勒在麥卡錫事件中，被視為污名化的一員，因此他就將自身經歷過的 苦難投射於此劇中。不管是被指控與惡魔或撒旦有秘密契約的女巫們或是指控 他人為女巫的女孩們皆是父權社會下的犧牲者。第三章則著重於獵殺女巫以及 集體歇斯底里。這章節大略地描述了獵殺女巫的時空背景、歷史以及與性別的 關係。除此之外，也闡述了這些女孩們如何透過表演歇斯底里成為她們反抗父 權的自我保護機制。第四章，總結前三章的論述並重新界定女巫的身分，希望 在女巫污名化的稱謂下，重新找回女人專屬的能動性與情慾世界。 關鍵字：亞瑟米勒、鎔爐、阿比蓋兒、蒂度帕、普克特、女巫、獵殺女巫、女 性情慾、集體歇斯底里
Witches in the Blood:
The Dynamics and Ambivalence of Deviant
Female Sexuality in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
Student: Chia-Chen Wu Advisors: Dr. I-Chu Chang
Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures
National Chiao Tung University
ABSTRACT
This thesis is composed of four chapters. In chapter one, I will briefly deal with the background of The Crucible and investigates how those witches have been shaped by male dominators and how they have been viewed by the audience. Chapter Two discusses about a ritual in the forest and the two female protagonists Tituba and Abigail. The ritual or a group of female’s gathering in The Crucible is, in my view, like an initiation of being witches. Furthermore, I would elaborate the roles the Tituba and Abigail play in this play. Since Arthur Miller has been demonized in the 50’s Marcarthysim witch-hunt, he projects his own experience onto women/ girls in The Crucible: the women who have been accused of being witches and the girls who accuse them of having covenant with the Devil are both the victims under the patriarchal society. When encountering public terror, how people who are involved in this affair, such as Abigail and Tituba, balance the contention of parties, the patriarchal side and the women’s side? Which side would they choose to take? Chapter Three focuses on witch-hunt and mass hysteria. I would briefly describe background and history about witch-hunt and the relationship between gender and witch-hunt. More than that, I would illustrate how the girls play their game--mass hysteria, to prevent themselves from being convicted. In the last chapter, I will conclude my thesis and redefine what a witch is, and then, hopefully, retrieve the female dynamics and sexuality underneath the stigmatized “witches.”
Keyword: The Crucible, Arthur Miller, Abigail, John Proctor, Tituba, witch, witch-hunt, Sabbat, female sexuality, mass hysteria
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my dedicated supervisor, Prof. I-Chu Chang, with whose competent guidance I could have worked out this thesis. She offered me some valuable ideas, suggestions and criticisms with her profound knowledge in literature and rich research experience. Her patience and kindness are greatly appreciated. I learn a lot from her. I’m very much obliged to her efforts to help me complete the dissertation.
Secondly, I want to thank my some of my graduate friends, who never failed to give me great encouragement and suggestions. Special thanks should go to May, Ivan, Hang, Penny, Adair and Hannah for their brainstorming with me when I failed coming up with ideas. At last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their support all the way from the very beginning of my graduate study. I am thankful to all my family members for their thoughtfulness and encouragement.
Contents
Abstract ... ii
Acknowledgement ...iii
Contents ... iv
Chapter Ⅰ：Introduction ... 1
Chapter II：The Bewitched Ritual and the Dynamic of Female Sexuality
... 20
Chapter Ⅲ：Witch-Hunt and Mass Hysteria ... 50
Chapter Ⅳ：Conclusion ... 77
Chapter Ⅰ：Introduction
Background of The Crucible
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is based on a true historical event, which is
about witchcraft trials and witch-hunt of Salem Village in Massachusettes in 1692.
During the period from 1950 to 1954 when Miller wrote this play, America was
experiencing international conflicts from the Cold War and hence the force of
McCarthyism was growing strong within the states. The term was derived from a
Republican Senator Joseph Mccarthy who pushed the government to reinforce the
policies of anti-communism while persecuting political dissidents. On February 9th,
1950, he claimed that he had a list of 205 members of American Communist Party,
and he told the listed members that the only way to prove their innocence is to
identify other Communist members. In order to evade the crucifixion, those who had
been accused were forced to blame other members after admitting their commitment
of being a communist. During this period, thousands of Americans were accused of
being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subjects of
aggressive investigations and interrogations by government or private-industry
panels, committees and agencies. After the political torrent ended, Newsweek
broom.’
Since Miller was one of the falsely accused victims at that time, he projected
his own suffering experience together with controversial gender issues of 1692 witch
hunt in his play The Crucible. Yet, with self-contradiction, Miller once said that
“This play is not history.” From different references, such as the original records,
Marion Starkey’s book that was already mentioned, or the more recent Witchcraft at
Salem by Chadwick Hansen, we can see how closely Miller followed his sources.1
There is a medieval treatise on witchcraft and the witch-hunt --The Malleus
Maleficarum which was written by Heinrich Krammer and James Sprenger in 1486,
and its title means “The Hammer of Witches” in Latin. Basically, this handbook
encircles a saying of Bible, "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live."(Exodus 22:18). Why he made this kind of assertion that The Crucible is only a fiction? Does it leave
some space for the readers to reach their own conclusions? Did he repress himself
due to his own traumatic experience? Arthur Miller’s original intention in this play is
to highlight the “public terror.” However, by investigating this kind of attack on
women we could see how women fight against Puritan or patriarchal society
impotently. In fact, The Crucible not only represents a political allegory but also a
revelation of misogyny.
1
The authors declare that women and men can all be witches but women are more
susceptible to witchcraft due to sexual discrimination which claims women as lower
creatures than men, and there are some reasons for them to support this point, "Because the female sex is more concerned with things of the flesh than men"; being formed from a man's rib they are "only imperfect animals" and "crooked" whereas man belongs to a privileged sex from whose midst Christ emerged. The authors' main reason for the increase in witchcraft among women laid in the "vile contention between married and unmarried women." And, "They warned against the 'spitefulness of womankind.2
Being engaged in a feminist critique on those false accusation of dissident
women as “witches,” I would like to appropriate Simone de Beauvior’s famous
statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman, "
Additionally, what Heinrich Krammer and James Sprenger attack most is not about
witchcraft, but the wanton feminine sexuality.
3
” and then further state,
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a witch.” Are women acquiesced to be forced
in the ways the society has made for women? Do they have a way out? The more
recent works of socio-biologist such as Corinne Hutt, Robert Trivers and Edward O.
Wilson seem to further emphasize the biological differences between men and
women, which emphasizes male sexual domination over females.4
Some documentaries showed, during the witch-hunt of the Salem village in
Salem Trial
2
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/m/malleus_maleficarum.htm
3
Simon de Beauvior, The Second Sex, p. 267.
4
1692, nineteen women and two dogs were hanged for being accused of executing
witchcraft and one man died for refusing conviction. And it is said that the Salem
witch-trial disclosed one of the darkest pages of American history.5
5
http://www.salemwitchtrials.com/
That was a time
when the New England Puritan burdened their citizens with severe doctrines. In the
historical document, townspeople considered that several youngsters who had
exhibited grotesque behaviors were afflicted by the devil. And those who had been
regarded as been connecting to devil should be hung unless she or he identified other
confederates. Similarly, in the play of The Crucible, the whole society was pervaded
with stifling repression. The crucible of this trail began with a misty night, when
Abigail, Betty and other girls are dancing in the forest with a black slave. The Indian
slave Tituba’s appearance in this play deepens the gloomy color, especially when the
girls ask Tituba to make some rituals for them. It seems that Tituba is just like a
priest and the girls, of whom some are even naked, reveal their wishes or fantasies
around fire to tell the inner secrets which couldn’t be mentioned in normal lives.
Most interestingly, these fantasies are almost about “affairs,” especially Abigail’s
wish. Because there is a hidden adultery between John Proctor and Abigail, she
desperately wants to replace Elizabeth Proctor’s position. For the past centuries,
believe that the magic could enhance their personal magnetism to fascinate someone
they adore. All of a sudden they seem all growing up from little girls to women.
While the dancing party goes on, those girls are accidentally caught by Samuel
Parris who is the minister of religion in Salem. The next day, Betty, Samuel Parris’
daughter, lies on the bed and loses her consciousness and the townspeople begin to
conjecture that her unconsciousness is caused by witchcraft. Suddenly, the rumor
has spread all over the town.
There is a traditional hearsay that witches congregate around fire to dance in
the night, and their aspiration is to gain power by conspiring with Satan. As a
minister, Parris has the duty to calm the townspeople down and to repel any bad
thoughts, so he questions the leading girl Abigail about the real situation in the dark
forest. It is possible that Abigail is aware of that taboo, so she tells Parris the party is
just for fun without any profane meaning, and at the same time, she also warns other
girls from admitting anything or betraying the secret they talks about. The event
reaches a climax when Betty’s symptom gets worst. Reverend Hale who is an expert
on witchcraft begins to examine the source of the rumor. And then Abigail professes
that it’s Tituba’s trick to make her drink the blood in order to fight against Elizabeth
Proctor. After some cruel whipping, Tituba “confesses” that she indeed gets in
others in town also consort with the Devil. Unexpectedly, Abigail joins her to accuse
the townspeople with a “name list” in her mind, and Betty also joins them to name
other as witches. And then, other girls are involved in one after another. Thus, Salem
village is enveloped in a shroud of witch-hunt. Not only are the accused women/
witches suffering a sever test, but also the witch-finders and those residents as well.
With the burst of girls’ mysterious illness, the “fake aberration,” the town sunk
into a kind of “terrorist activity” immediately. In the eye of the Church, such
gathering of women is easily to be related to the devil. It is a common belief that an
uncontrolled woman can never threaten men, while organized women as a group
might do so. Most witches are hunted by public suspicions that they are eating
babies or indulging in orgies at the little secret community or Devil’s party.
In Chiung Wen Huang’s master thesis,The Oppressor and the Oppressed: A
Study of Arthur Miller’s "The Crucible," she cites Simone de Beauvoir’s point that
women are the Other and the second sex to argue that Abigail and Elizabeth are just
the epitome of the oppressed ones in this patriarchal society. With regard to the
human nature, Huang mentions that female desire and rebellion are intolerable to the
clergy and the normal people. In Hung Ting Lin’s master thesis, The Crucible and
Simone de Beauvoir’s the Self and the Other, she focuses on women’s situation of
both the oppressed “Other.” What is more, she discusses that the relationship
between the Self and the Other is, actually, destructive to each other. In some
respects, I do not agree with their viewpoint that Abigail and Elizabeth are both the
oppressed ones, since they are females in the Puritan society. On the contrary, in this
play, I believe that Abigail’s performance of witchcraft does dominate the
townspeople’s fate and, in fact, her performance transforms into a sort of “resistant
mechanism” in fighting against the invisible male power and hence saves Abigail
from stigmatization. She is not one of the victims but the perpetrator instead. As for
Elizabeth, in my view, she gains benefit from this event. Changing from an apathetic
wife to a gentle wife, she wins her husband’s heart after surviving the war of the
crucible and John Proctor also changes his attitude from aloofness to gratitude
toward Elizabeth. The dichotomy between male/ oppressors and female/ victim is
not the best answer.
In Puritan society in the 17th century, a wanton or liberal woman might be
stigmatized as a “witch” due to her active or excess female sexuality. Woman/
witch’s sexual power is a double-edged weapon which threatens male domination
and hence becomes one of the causes of male retribution. People at that time believe
that a woman/ witch’s power comes from her own sexuality.
“The Church associated women with sex, and all pleasure in sex was condemned, because it could only come from the devil. Witches were supposed
to have gotten pleasure from copulation with the devil (despite the icy-cold organ he was reputed to possess) and they in turn infected men. Lust in either man or wife, then, was blamed on the female.”6
Sex is regarded as women/ witches’ ferocious trick or gimmick to degenerate
men little by little. Women/ witches’ with sexual power can be associated with the
subversive “wicked women” as mentioned by feminist critics. In Sandra Gilbert and
Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, they argue that the “wicked women” are
often utilized by major women writers since Jane Austen achieved a distinctive
female duplicitous voice by simultaneously conforming to and subverting
patriarchal literary standards. Consequently, the female stereotypes of “angel” and
“monster” are simultaneously reinforced and deconstructed. In order to follow
men’s principle, law and order, “the wicked woman” who skulks within her inner
body has to sleep. Once the sleeping inner self revives and begins to re-think the
“absurd,” women would try all ways to fulfill their true desire. In brief, if women
want to face their own desire throughout their lives they have no choice but to play
the card of bewitchment. It cannot be denied that Abigail possesses this kind of
seductive power. She bravely pursues the love she wants and claims loudly her
desire for John Proctor. Vacillating between meeting the traditional constraints and
fulfilling one’s own desire between conformity and betrayal, Proctor eventually
6
Ehrenreich Barbara and English Deirdre, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women
selects to hang himself for saving his name but Abigail would pretend to be a
“goddess” who receives the decree from God than stopping accusing others. And as
to this term” goddess,” it can be, in Starhawk’s words, extended into another
graduation. That is a saying about the goddess--“all acts of love and pleasure are her
rituals” which means that, in some sense, sexuality is not the only access for women
to get ecstasy; instead, women are blessed through all types of love. For example, in
The Crucible, the erotic love between Abigail and Proctor, the friendship between
the girls and the emancipation in the forest can be regarded as a transformation for
these girls to become goddesses.
Self-Protection
Somehow, when the girls were aware of that their “little girls’ game” has been
detected they broke up in a hubbub. Betty became ill in the following day and Parris
deeply believed Betty’s illness was caused by the previous night’s witchcraft. But
Parris did not realize her unconscious was a mechanism of self-protection. Moreover,
in order to protect themselves, other girls began switching on their mutinous
behaviors, and they used some gimmicks to let people believe the game at that night
looks like an “alpha girl7
sociopsychological
”playing a crucial part in the turning point of this play. She
threatens other girls to cooperate with her “performance” to escape from the
pressure of public opinions. The “performance” of escape has been enacted like
physical symptoms or a kind of aberration such as unconscious fainting and
hysterical fitts. Those hysterical fits are bombastically over-acted and their
symptoms will be aggravated when facing the crowd. In the very beginning of the
hysteria, Abigail’s performance is just a part of individual behavior, but in the
following section the affection of hysteria has spread to all of the girls who have met
in the forest. The individual hysteria becomes the “mass hysteria.” Mass hysteria,
also called collective hysteria or collective obsessional behavior, is the
phenomenon of the manifestation of the same or similar
hysterical symptoms by more than one person. A common manifestation of mass
hysteria occurs when people believe they are suffering from a similar disease or
ailment.8
7
The term “Alpha girl” means the dominant or primary girl in a group, esp. one who bullies. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/alpha%20girl
These physical fitts are the compensations for insatiable drive, when the
girls are seized with a cramp the painless expression on their faces are so insouciant.
There is a possibility that those sufferers try to escape from an uncomfortable reality
and hide into diseases by being “hysteria.”
8
This kind of digressed performance might be explained with Clement and
Cixous’s thinking, “sometimes privileged madness is fostered by marginalization, on
the wilderness out of which silenced women must finally find way to cry, shriek,
scream, and dance in impassioned dances of desire.9” And “woman must challenge
‘phallogocentric’ authority through an exploration of the continent of female
pleasure.” Why would authority/ men rather choose to believe that woman’s
symptoms of hysteria are a supernatural event while refusing to accept it as a release
of women’s body and will? Freud claims that when the repressed returns, it does
so as the uncanny (das Unheimliche), undomestic, unsettling. According to Freud,
he explains that the uncanny as “that species of the frightening that goes back to
what was once well known and had long been familiar.”10 Moreover, its return has
the power to unsettle the realm of the canny. Uncanny has another meaning, of
course: supernatural.11
9
Diane Purkiss. The Witch in History, p.3.
10
Sigmund Freud. “The Uncanny” in Phillips, p. 124.
11
Diane Purkiss. The Witch in History, pp.79-80.
In this sense, if we parallel women with the “uncanny
people”, it is easy to understand why these uncontrolled women have been treated as
the witches. As for the girls in this play, their behaviours are deeply believed as a
Even nowadays, men have complex and ambivalence about women’s bodies
which simultaneously project men’s horror and desire. For a long time, women have
been put down in the subordinate status and associated with dark power out of men’s
control in films and literary works. It is rumored that some particular women would
attend the Sabbat and then become Satan’s lovers. The particular woman here means
that she is the one who could hardly resist the temptation because of their weak will.
Why do men have serious misgivings about the invisible “force”? Sex is the primal
power to connect men and women while sex might deteriorate men’s sense of
superiority. The threat of women’s sexual power might explain why men have
“virgin” complex. Women should be “pure” and innocent, like Jack Nichols
explains why men stress virginity of their brides: “It assures them that their virgin
partner is ignorant of their prowess.”(Men’s Liberation, 1975)
In addition, the relationship between women and men is often compared to the
relationship between the colonized and the colonizer. Women are compared to an
uncivilized dark continent which needs the superior power, the reason, to bring the
light into it. And the way to civilize them is to intrude their bodies. But in The
Crucible, the situation is likely to be up side down. Abigail becomes a dominant to
bring light to John Proctor in the sexual aspect because she forces him to face the
feminine characters in this play – the amorous ladylove and the ramrod wife, and
these two kinds of female sexuality “test a man’s body, endanger his spirit, and
threaten his “natural” dominance or needs.” 12
Female sexuality projects male’s ambivalence towards female body as well as
male’s castration anxiety. The traditional stereotype of sex which emphasize male/
penetration/ aggression and female/ being penetrated/ passivity is subjugating
woman to man biologically and culturally. Among the pervasive myths projecting
male’s ambivalence towards female body, those about vagina, virginity, and
menstruation are common in North America. Psychoanalyst Mary Hays points out
that some aboriginal tribes of North America at least have twenty two mythologies
about “vagina dentate”, which means vagina has sharp tooth or knife. Therefore
women would castrate penis through having sex with them. Here is ambivalence, if
this kind of horror makes men impotent, why are men still indulging themselves in
the pleasure of making love with women? Taking another example, the common In regards with the relationship
between Proctor and Abigail, Proctor is the first one to invade Abigail’s body and
also the first one to initiate her into a “woman’s world.” His desire unlocks Abigail’s
female sexuality. When he explores Abigail, at the same time, her “woman’s desire”
is unleashed and hence her virgin’s blood is lost forever.
12
character of films or novels, “femme fatale,” is used to describe an attractive but
lethal woman that can send men to their doom. Here, women are demonized.
Similarly, in John Proctor’s mind, Abigail is not only a charming lover but also a
femme fatal or a witch. She has double identities, one is God’s herald who passes
the message to the townspeople via her body to debunk those who have kinship with
the Devil and the other, for John Proctor, is a witch who bewitches men. Many
critics have pointed out that the destructive she-evil arouse collective phobia within
the patriarchal community. Karen Newman notes, for example, “Witches threatened
hegemonic patriarchal structures……as cultural producers, as representatives of an
oppositional ‘femininity.13’” One taboo projecting male phobias of female sexuality
is menstruation. Some even consider that woman’s “blood” is the prototype of
human filth which would endanger men at most. Aristotle says that menstruation is
the residue of blood which is not used up in nourishment.14
13
Deborah Willis. Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern
England, p.9.
14
"the semen begins to appear in males and to be emitted at the same time of life that the catamenia begin to flow in females"--Aristotle
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/menstruation
Menstruation cannot be
compared to the ejaculation of semen, which is considered healthy blood, while
Witches
From feminist perspective, witches can be considered subversive female power
or the embodiment of a revival for feminism “lurking” in the shadows of the
patriarchy. As noted in Deborah Willis’ book, she mentions that "more polemical"
feminist accounts "are likely to portray the witch as a heroic proto feminist resisting
patriarchal oppression and a wholly innocent victim of a male-authored reign of
terror designed to keep women in their place."15
15
Deborah Willis. Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern
England, p.12.
What is more, according to some
documentary, witches do exist. One may assume that a witch is the one who
possesses psychic power, but it doesn’t mean that such supernatural power makes
woman a witch. What is a witch and who are witches? Do women choose to be
witches on their own? How do the men declare that women/witches are guilty and
then persecute them? Whether the witches are beautiful or ugly, they always enjoy
themselves having a good time with the demon. Moreover, the witches can
metamorphosize into different forms, which also means the women’s from is free,
flexible, and open. In other words, female sexuality is revolutionary, subversive, and
heterogeneous. In The Crucible Abigail is the prototype of being vigorous and
unrestrained. She had adultery with John Proctor and when he is about to leave
know that only she can bring him the passion. “I have a sense for heat, John and
yours has drawn me to my window, and I seen you looking up, burning in your
loneliness.” But it was in vain. Their breaking up triggers a chain of the witch-hunt.
During the witch-hunts, Abigail plays double roles in it: when she remains silent to
the whole adultery she is an angel; nevertheless, when she stood out to fight for her
own desire, she becomes a witch for John Proctor. It seems that Abigail was
dominated by an insatiable drive for love.
It is one of the curses afflicting the passionate woman that her generosity is soon converted into exigency. Having become identified with another, she wants to make up for her loss; she must take possession of that other person who has captured her. She gives herself to him entirely; but he must be completely available to receive this gift16
Here, let me go back to the girls’ party or we can say it is the women’s ritual.
The rhythm of the girls’ bodies, for example, dancing, screaming, and crying, seems
to reveal their anxiety to be women. What is more, they choose the place which is .
Apparently, the passionate woman, Abigail, turns her love into hatred and the
man who has captured her, John Proctor, does not receive this “gift.” Moreover, this
kind of announcement has evolved into a very personal and original self-awareness,
and her “speech” could be regarded as the precursor to unveil the myth of that
patriarchal Puritan society.
16
dark and private in order not to be found. Does it mean that female body and
sexuality should not be seen and touched? Can the party or the ritual be viewed as a
nascent of feminist movement? For girls, this kind of gathering is the only chance to
be emancipated from the social norms. Also, we should not forget that witches
possess brooms to fly away and the symbol of brooms may be extended by the
word – “voler17
Listen to a woman speak at a public gathering (if she hasn't painfully lost her wind). She doesn't 'speak', she throws her trembling body forward; she lets go of herself, she flies; all of her passes into her voice, and it's with her body that she vitally supports the 'logic' of her speech. Her flesh speaks true. She lays herself bare.
”which used by Helena Cixous as a term to elaborate the dualities of
women which are inherent inside their bodies. This carnival transforms those girls
from controlled girls into “abnormal” women, who have frenzied desire. As for
Abigail, her “speech” could freely disrobe all of the codes of Puritan society and, I
believe, her guiding principle is love. Abigail, in some way, lays herself bare in front
of Proctor.
18
The Crucible, in my view, is a play about women. Abigail is not only a director
who maps out the future of townspeople, but an actress who shows her versality and
dynamics. Sometimes she is artful and succeeds in getting what she wants, while
sometimes she is just like a docile lamb when facing Proctor. Of course, it is not
17
“voler” is a French verb which means to fly, to steal.
18
only Abigail’s story; it is the story about a woman who has confessed her sexuality.
The perpetrators, Abigail, and those suffering women who have been accused as
witches, are telling and creating a story with their blood.
In fact, she physically materializes what she's thinking; she signifies it with her body. In a certain way she inscribes what she's saying, because she doesn't deny her drives the intractable and impassioned part they have in speaking. Her speech, even when 'theoretical' or political, is never simple or linear or 'objectified', generalized: she draws her story into history.19
This thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter One: Introduction briefly
deals with the background of The Crucible and investigates how those witches have
been shaped by male dominators and how they have been viewed by the audience.
Chapter Two discusses about a ritual in the forest and the two female protagonists
Tituba and Abigail. The ritual or a group of female’s gathering in The Crucible is, in
my view, like an initiation of being witches. Once you get in, no matter what your
age is, you will find it hard to get rid of the devil’s name—a witch. Except for the
traditional saying, why is considered women’s ritual to be baleful? If it is baleful,
where does the ritual’s magic come from? Furthermore, I would elaborate the roles
the Tituba and Abigail play in this play. Since Arthur Miller has been demonized in
the 50’s Marcarthysim witch-hunt, he projects his own experience onto women/ girls
in The Crucible: the women who have been accused of being witches and the girls
19
who accuse them of having covenant with the Devil are both the victims under the
patriarchal society. There will be an analysis on how this kind of McCarthyism
pushes women against the wall. When encountering public terror, how people who
are involved in this affair, such as Abigail and Tituba, balance the contention of
parties, the patriarchal side and the women’s side? Which side would they choose to
take? And if someone comes to a compromise with the main stream, the patriarchal
side, does it mean that another kind of McCarthyism is arising among women?
Seemingly, men control the whole situation; as a matter of fact, it is Tituba and
Abigail’s performance that “imprison” their eyes. When men fantasize their power
of judgment, at the same time, they all fall into the women’s trap unknowingly.
Chapter Three focuses on witch-hunt and mass hysteria. I would briefly describe
background and history about witch-hunt and the relationship between gender and
witch-hunt. More than that, I would illustrate how the girls play their game--mass
hysteria, to prevent themselves from being convicted. In the last chapter, I will
conclude my thesis and redefine what a witch is, and then, hopefully, retrieve the
Chapter II：The Bewitched Ritual and the Dynamic of Female Sexuality
There is a voice crying in the wilderness, Catherine Clement and Helena Cixous say—the voice of a body dancing, laughing, shrieking, crying. Whose is it? It is, they say, the voice of a woman, newborn and yet archaic, a voice of milk and blood, a voice silenced but savage.
The Newly Born Woman In this chapter, I will discuss the plot of the girls’ dancing-party in the forest
and probe in the relationship between female rituals and female sexuality. One of the
pivotal roles, Tituba the Indian slave, has an important part in the Sabbat, as her
racial identity heightens the fears and fantasies in Puritan society. Given the double
standard prevailing in that society, how could Tituba integrate her marginal status, a
marginal race and a marginal class, into an agency to save her from the time of
adversity? And as for Abigail, The Crucible is centered on her vengeance. How
could Abigail reveal her ambitions little by little and then imprison townspeople’s
eyes to carry out her evil plan?
Ritual of Initiation
The crucible of this trial begins on a misty night, when Abigail, a group of
girls and the black slave Tituba dances around a fire in the dark forest. As the
dancing-party goes on, they try to cast spells, or fantasies, on someone they obsess
with and it is likely that the shadowy moonlight has an effect upon the girls. The
what the spells are, she uses an unusual language, her native language, to perform
her “witchcraft”. Tituba is just like a witch who invokes demons, and the girls, of
whom some are even naked, reveal their wishes or fantasies around the fire, telling
the inner secrets which cannot be mentioned ordinarily. This kind of “non-linguistic”
system, including Tituba’s witchcraft, the girls’ crying, and the bodily performance,
the dance, unexpectedly, become a medium to release the girls from a personal
closet to a public stage. M. Bloch, in his Ritual, History, and Power, observes that
the linguistic aspects of rituals, especially singing and dancing, have played an
important role in communication. He points out that “There is some sense in saying
that bodily movements are a kind of language and that symbolic signals are
communicated through a variety of movements from one person to another”20
20
Maurice Bloch. Ritual, History and Power: Selected Papers in Anthropology, p34.
. In
normal life, the girls can rarely communicate with each other. They are all
admonished to discipline themselves to be normal people and anything beyond the
patriarchal system would never be allowed. As we know, men stand on an equal
place to voice in political sphere because Puritan society is extremely
male-dominated. Women have little voice in this domain. Once women make an
incursion into the almighty patriarchy, men would be anxious to obviate the forces
wonder that the girls’ gathering, which is demonized, is viewed as a kind of
conspiracy. Something lies in the liminal zone between the unknown and the
dangerous is to challenge and to disarrange the men’s law. Yet what the townspeople
fear most is not the devil’s power but spiritual power. Imagine that a group of
witches who assemble in the kitchen stand around a boiling pot to decoct some
magic medicine. And perhaps the medicine is made for a particular man. In the long
run, the kitchen, or the domestic space, has always been the particular space where
women can gossip freely and cook secretly. The exchange of knowledge and the
communication of private thinking are well to the fore in that space. Men never
know what women can do. In my view, the kitchen becomes a symbol and allows
men to fancy that conspiracy originates from the congregation of witches or women.
Female Body
Nevertheless, whenever we mention women’s rituals, we inevitably talk
about bodily movement, especially that of female bodies. Various female rituals
have different meanings. I will take two examples, the Greek rituals and the witches’
Sabbat, to elaborate the gender issue reflected in these rituals. One of Greek rituals
aims at celebrating the resurrection of Dionysus. Tradition has it that Dionysus is the
son of the god Zeus and the woman Semele. Zeus’ wife Hera, after discovering the
and rebirth Dionysus has gone through represent a lifecycle of birth, growth, decay,
death, and regeneration, and the four seasons, spring, summer, fall and winter. In
addition, Dionysus is the god of wine, fertility and agriculture. During the ritual
worshiping Dionysus, the dances and singing seem to symbolize the Dionysiac spirit
of enthusiasm and passion. Ritual taboos and preparations have endowed people
with the restraint of morality and the individual’s value. As the proceedings go on,
the power of the gathering and the strength of contagion deepen their collective
consciousness, and the ethnicity can be more closed and cohesive.
From this perspective, rituals tend more to religious belief, the divine, and it is
apparent that most participants are women. Generally speaking, the ritual is the only
avenue to enter public space from the oikos (house) and it is the only space to be
seen. In Citizen Bacchae. Women’s Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece, Barbara Goff
elaborates how women’s role in rituals is often related to their outstanding
contributions in the realm of the domestic, and owing to their particular ‘works’,
women play distinctive parts in birth, weddings and especially funerals.21
21
Barbara Goff. Citizen Bacchae. Women’s Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece, p25-p30.
This is
the tricky aspect. Men consider that childbirth and death are both polluted and dark.
An infant comes from the mother’s womb, the dark space, and a corpse goes back to
disorder,’ or that women, in essence, are uncanny in men’s eyes. Does ritual become
the medium of an intangible constraint on women’s activities in patriarchal society?
Does it imply that men, in fact, have the authority to control women’s matters of life
and death by emphasizing their subjectivity?
In some ways, ritual is a sort of demonstration. Through religious and official
sanctions in public, it demonstrates that the authority or the patriarchy has the
absolute power to control the corporal sphere, including, of course, women’s bodies
and desires. But from another perspective it could induce an effect of women’s
autonomy in a patriarchal/men’s world. “The roles women played in ritual also
taught them their identity in society.”22 Yet Barbara Goff explores her thoughts
about the funeral part with the statement, “True, women are prominent in such
important roles as mourning the dead but this prominence not only recognizes their
presence, agency, and cultural vale but also rehearses the justifications of their
marginal status.”23
If we consider the gender aspect of the rituals, the subject is complex and hard
to simplify. “In the delegation of real ritual responsibilities gender was often a
consideration; but gender is never a simple category, and the relationship between
22
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2005/2005-04-12.html.
23
gender and ritual is not always transparent”.24 Greek convention meant that women
and men could not share the same space, for example, the incubation of the
Amphiareion at Oropos. The dormitory was divided into two regions. Women had to
sleep in the space to the west and men to the east of the altar. The distinction
between east and west signifies the dawn and the evening, the light and the darkness,
and life and death. Susan Guettel Cole writes that “women naturally belong to the
propitious place. In some rituals, women had no place at all” What is more, the
imagery of evening, darkness and death in some senses refer to the moon, the lunar
goddess, which is an emblem of metamorphic obscurity. The moon is linked to the
cosmic cycles and such correlation is most established in the field of nurture,
agriculture and fertility, times of birth and women’s menstrual cycles. Because of the
cycle of the moon, the menstrual periodicity of women is often considered to be part
of the lunar goddess. Women are the earthly moon. The moon goddess has three
aspects: as she waxes, she is the Maiden; full, she is the Mother; as she wanes, she is
the Crone.25
Another notable example is the witches’ Sabbat or the “witchcraft rituals” and
it is also one of the key features of demonology. Sabbat is a secret gathering for Women’s mystic power comes from the periodical change.
Sabbat
24
Susan Guettel Cole. Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: the Ancient Greek Experience, pp.94-95.
25
witches who ride on broomsticks, flying at night to worship demons or Satan and
indulging in diabolism, for example, eating roasted or boiled infants. The sites are
always located in quiet, secluded forests where they do what witches are supposed to
do, and they congregate around the bonfire in order to wait for the ritual’s coming.
In the course of the ritual, the covens drink, sing and dance naked and with curly
tresses. Here, the cycle or circle has a meaning of “between the worlds”. In theory, a
circle is a boundary to keep and concentrate the power within and to protect the
magician from any evil without.26
Has anyone ever witnessed the rituals of the witches’ Sabbat? The answer is
largely no, and most of the descriptions come from artists’ and historians’
fabrications. Baldung Grien Hans, a German painter before the Reformation,
produced thirteen paintings of witches between 1512 and 1517. One painting, the
Hexhensabbat, shows below
We do not know if the girls in The Crucible have
drawn a circle on the ground, but a circle sometimes separates space and time: inside
the circle is a space without time and space. Within the social milieu, women
automatically hide in this kind of construction, but once they become witches and
get rid of the traditional shackles, they can do a lot of things that ordinary women
and even men cannot.
27
26
Luhrmann, T. M. Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England, p.223.
As can been seen in this painting, there are three naked witches sitting around a
smoking cauldron preparing a revel for the demons at midnight. The triangle (the
way the three witches sit) symbolizes the bewitchment of sex. Another naked witch
sits on a goat’s back and holds a broomstick, flying into the sky. The basic elements
of the witches’ Sabbat are known to include nudity, broomsticks, and rituals for
conjuring demons. The following quotation is a vivid image of the Sabbat written by
John of Salisbury, a diplomat and the bishop of Chartres.
There are people who claim that a certain Herodias or Mistress of the Nights holds nocturnal gatherings and feasts, where she lords it over her various servants, and that witches there are offered babies, - some to be torn to bits and eaten, others to be laid back in their cradles. Who is so blind as not to see that this is all a mischievous illusion caused by demons? This is shown, if by nothing else, and those less firm in the faith, that believe these things.28
The demons in Sabbat are sometimes shown as androgynous beings whose sexuality
may reinforce men’s fears. Thus, the aspect of Sabbat which is most vilified is not
what they eat but the women’s sexuality and copulation. The inherent instincts of
28
women’s bodies and nature give birth to vicious demons and women who have sex
with the demons have cravings for improper desire or unnatural pregnancy. Sabbat is
a women’s or witches’ carnival of evil and degeneration. As for the unnatural
intercourse, it is, in my view, what men yearn to hear about, the description of
sexual intercourse between the witches and the demons or Satan. In fact, the devil is
just the incarnation for men to materialize their fancies and to accomplish their
excessive desires. And it is not hard to find out that the devils almost appear in an
image or a shape of men.
According to hearsay, women seduced by the demons make a compact to
exchange the soul, that is, women would give their soul to gain sexual jouissance. In
addition, the festival of Dionysus and the witches’ Sabbat have some similarities
with each other: for example, the aura of revelry, the emancipation of women or
witches’ bodies, and the floating sexuality in the Sabbat. Celebrating the superiority
of female body and ignoring earthly restrictions echo the unlimited Dionysus who
transcends the boundary. The demons and Dionysus, in some ways, invoke people’s
or women’s inner potency by destroying and reproducing it to awaken them.
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller arranges the gathering or ritual to be the curse
of the witch-hunt to emphasize the little girls’ devilish characters. These girls are
diabolized. Witchcraft is deeply believed by the townspeople to be the original cause
of Betty’s losing consciousness, and no matter what Abigail says, the gathering
rapidly assumes the mantle of a witches’ Sabbat. That is, this event has reference to
the repulsive issues of body and sexuality. The following dialogue takes place
between Samuel Parris and Abigail in Parris’s house after his daughter Betty
pretends she is in a coma. We can see how Parris firmly refuses to accept Abigail’s
statement.
Abigail: Uncle, the rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself. The parlor’s packed with people, sir. I’ll sit with her.
Parris, pressed, turns on her: And what shall I say to them? That my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?
Abigail: Uncle, we did dance, let you tell them I confessed it- and I’ll be whipped if I must be. But they’re speakin’ of witchcraft. Betty’s not witched.
Parris: Abigail, I cannot go before the congregation when I know you have not opened with me. What did you do with her in the forest?
Abigail: We did dance, uncle, and when leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it.29
According to Puritan law, dancing is a heathen practice which is strictly forbidden,
and that’s why Samuel Parris’s reaction is so strong. For example, Mercy Lewis,
who is “a fat, sly, merciless girl of eighteen,”30
29
Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, p.9.
30
Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, p.16.
takes her dress off to be naked.
From what Arthur Miller describes about her it is not hard to detect that Mercy
that night. The following dialogue occurs after Betty awakes and denounces Abigail
for drinking blood.
Betty: You drank blood, Abby! You didn’t tell him that! Abigail: Betty, you never say that again! You will never—
Betty: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!31
31
Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, p.18.
For the witches, drinking blood is not only a symbol of releasing the one’s power but
also of purification. Because the power of blood is the absolute purification, Abigail
drinks chicken’s blood to reinforce her self power to gain the faith. On the other
hand, the blood also signifies that the evil power enters Abigail’s body.
As we know, the cauldron is the basic tool for witches to make magical
medicine, and in The Crucible the tool appears in their little games. When Hale
diagnoses Betty’s symptoms and then asks Abigail about the Sabbat for more
evidence, Parris tells him that he found some soup near them.
Hale: Does someone afflict you, child? It need not be a woman, mind you, or a man. Perhaps some birds invisible to others come to you—perhaps a pig, a mouse, or any beast at all. Is there some figure bids you fly? The child remains limp in his hands. In silence he lays her back on the pillow. Now, holding out his hands toward her, he intones: In nomine Domini Sabaoth sui filiique ite ad infernos. She does not stir. He returns to Abigail, his eyes narrowing. Abigail, what sort of dancing were you doing with her in the forest?
Abigail: Why— common dancing is all.
Parris: I think I ought to say that – I saw a kettle in the grass where they were dancing.
Abigail: That were only soup.
Abigail: Why, it were beans—and lentils, I think, and ---
Hale: Mr. Parris, you did not notice, did you, any living thing in the kettle? A mouse, perhaps, a spider, a frog—
Parris, fearfully: I—do believe there were some movement—in the soup. Abigail: That, jumped in, we never put it in!
Hale, quickly: What jumped in?
Abigail: Why, a very little frog jumped— Parris: A frog! Abby!32
frog. And if we extend the parallel to becoming witches, women also experience
“evolution” to become witches. Under social and economic constraints, women have
to adapt to the repressive situation, so they have imbued their nature with binary
opposites: good versus evil, sweet versus savage, pure versus variable. Abigail and
the other girls allege that they are the messengers sent by God to help the
townspeople to wipe out the evil power. They are, at their age, sweet but dangerous,
innocent but shrewd. As for the spider, it is notorious for its poison, yet its web
symbolizes an image of women’s weaving. Women weave their dreams to
compensate for the drawbacks in their lives and the spider’s web circulates the Parris mentions a mouse, a spider and a frog because they are traditional witches’
pets believed to be the witches’ familiars, friends and servants. For example, the frog
is amphibian, living on land and water, which implies that it can exist in both
darkness and light.
Furthermore, it is born in the form of a tadpole which needs to evolve to be a
32
unique experiences among women. It is also a web, just like the one spun by Fates,
in which Abigail and the other girls weave their fate, revenge and death.
From the girls’ perspective, it is merely a frolic with madcap behaviors. In
their small world, it is not necessary to take any responsibility for the things they do
and the words they speak, and everything seems to be upside down. On the other
hand, from the religious and authoritative perspectives, the dancing-party which is
just like the witches’ Sabbat is a provocation to diverge from the norm. As Mikehail
Bakhtin says in Rabelais and His World, "The carnival offers the chance to have a
new outlook on the world, to realize the relative nature of all that exists, and to enter
a completely new order of things"33
33
Mikehail Bakhtin. Rabelais and His World, p.34.
Abigail and the other girls transgress the
existing social order and then create a world of madness, which will be discussed in
the following chapter. Somehow, their “new orders” are imbued with liminal status,
liminal time and space. We can say that witches live on this kind of boundary. What
does the word “liminal” mean? It comes from the Latin word limen, which means a
threshold or a border. For example, the girls’ party is held in the wild forest near the
civilized village at midnight. The liminal space takes place in-between two worlds,
the unknown wilderness and the civilized culture. Midnight is just on the cusp of
With similar ambiguity, women’s bodies and sexuality are in some manner
liminal and uncertain, abundant with fluid of female desire. Victor Turner describes
the “antistructure” elements of rituals:
…ritual as the affirmation of communal unity in contrast to the frictions, constraints, and competitiveness of social life and organization. Rite affords a creative “antistructure” that is distinguished from the rigid maintenance of social orders, hierarchies, and traditional forms.34
The girls’ festival in the forest is imbued with what Turner calls “antistructure”,
which means that everything is upside down and a taboo is being transgressed. The
girls’ carnival strikes and blurs the subsistent boundary to dissociate it to be more
vitality. What is more, the girls can be, in some respects, deemed as “liminal
entities” termed by Victor Tuner. He argues that the so-called liminal entities stand
in a blurry space because they do not belong to a normal status or states in a
classified organization. And in some initiations “they may be disguised as monsters,
wear only a strip of clothing, or even go naked, to demonstrate that as liminal beings
they have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing indicating rank or role,
position in a kinship system.
35
34
Catherine, Bell. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, pp.20 -21.
35
Victor Tuner. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, p.95.
” As mentioned, the girls somehow dress themselves
loosely, such as disheveled hair and pajamas, in abnormal way in the eyes of Puritan
society. However, it is also this kind of unlimited condition that furnishes them the
possibilities of being new selves. According to Richard Schechner, performers can
be transformed through performing36
What is interesting is that Arthur Miller increases Abigail’s age from twelve to
seventeen, noting that it is only for dramatic effect, not for some special reason. We
may not learn his intention, but one possible reason, I think, is that Abigail in the
actual Salem witch-hunt was too young to commit adultery with John Proctor. In the
document of real events in Salem village, the sexual aspect is implicit, yet, in Arthur
Miller’s version, he reinforces the sexual roles and exaggerates the flowing desires
of the girls, especially the audacious Abigail. He adds to the event the love triangles
between Abigail, John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor to rationalize the reason why
Abigail purposely circumvents Elizabeth. In the historical document, there is no . In The Crucible, the girls’ ritual is, in my view,
just like a transformative performance and the forest is their secret stage. By acting,
the girls/ performers feel more intimate with one another than before and are
liberated from the ordinary life. For the girls, this adventurous ritual allowing them
for nakedness does create a transient moment for them to strip off the fixed fetters of
a rigid society. What is important is that they re-build new identities in this liminal
status.
The Dynamic and Ambivalence of Female Sexuality
36
story of love and revenge. Under the rigid disciplines of the Puritans, Abigail’s
words and behaviors as described in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible have no place in
puritan patriarchal society. In Puritan society, the individual should repress his/her
ecstasy and freedom for social solidarity, particularly female sexuality and lust. Is it
Arthur Miller’s intention to increase the tension between the two sexes in this play?
By any reckoning, he wants to promote an upright imagery, whereby even a man
abides by the results of his own mistakes, by shaping Abigail as a jade, a skittish
female. Besides, Proctor has sexual fantasy of women, but is also terrified with the
invisible and immense power that might tear men to shreds, just like Abigail does to
John Proctor. She brings him to Heaven and then dooms him to Hell.
Abigail
I would further argue that Abigail, as the subordinate maiden who chooses to
fight for her own desire, represents a precursor in this play. Arthur Miller glorifies
John Proctor for having the faith to resist authority and to take responsibility for his
adultery while he puts down Abigail for her lust. Similar to Arthur Miller, some
critics also criticize Abigail’s evil nature. For example, Leonard Moss in 1967 notes
that Abigail is a malicious and unstable individual and William Hawkins says that
Proctor says to Abigail: “How do you call Heaven! Whore! Whore!”37
37
Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, p.109.
“Not long
after the fever died, Parris was voted from office, walked out on the highroad, and
was never heard of again. Some may say that Abigail and other women in the play
are the repressed victims of the patriarchy. In Chiung Wen Huang’s master thesis
The Oppressor and the Oppressed: A Study of Arthur Miller’s "The Crucible," she
notes that “The radical feminists think that woman is oppressed under the patriarchal
system. The symbols of this system are power, dominance, hierarchy, and
competition. And there is no way to change this social bias except for rising a
revolution.” It is true that the women have been oppressed for a long time, and we
cannot deny that the suppression of the women’s revolt puts them in a lower position.
Excessive female sexuality is always associated with evil, violent, and vengeance.
For example, Medea in Greek mythology is an exact parallel to Abigail. Medea
betrays her father, kills her brothers and steals the golden fleece because of her love
for Jason. Jason abandons Medea to marry another woman. She swears vengeance.
She kills her own sons and poisons Jason’s new lover, and so on. If we compare
Abigail and Medea, they both have wild tempers. Abigail is angelic when John
Proctor becomes enamoured of her; Abigail becomes a witch when he tries to leave
find their way through an irregular “orbit.” Simon de Beauvoir says “If, on the other
hand, woman evades the rules of society, she returns to Nature and to the demon, she
looses uncontrollable and evil forces in the collective midst. Fear is always mixed
with the blame attached to women’s licentious conduct.”38
Abigail: Why, you taught me goodness, therefore you are good. It were a fire you walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away. It were a fire, John, we lay in fire. And from that night no woman dare call me wicked any more but I knew my answer. I used to weep for my sins when the wind lifted up my skirts; and blushed for shame because some old Rebecca called me loose. And then you burned my ignorance away. As bare as some December tree I saw them all- walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts! And God gave me strength to call them liars, and God made men to listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! Oh, John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again! She kisses his hand. You will be amazed to see me every day, a light of heaven in your house, a—He rises, backs In the play, Abigail has changed from a coy virgin to a wanton woman, from a
passing object of male desire to an active desiring female subject. Abigail knows
that she is beautiful and charming, which are enough to usurp Elizabeth’s position.
The following is how Abigail confesses her love to John Proctor. The location is in
the wood where they meet.
Proctor: Abby- you mean to cry out still others?
Abigail: If I live, if I am not murdered, I surely will, until the last hypocrite is dead.
Proctor: Then there is no good?
Abigail: Aye, there is one. You are good. Proctor: Am I! How am I good?
38
away, amazed. Why are you so cold?
has already lost her virginity. If she was a wife, the sexual desire would be
rationalized, and, what is important, Abigail could attach herself to her husband
without drifting. Because she is a servant, what she has to do is to deal with some
domestic trifle. The “fixed space” for her is meaningful. “Her home is thus her
earthly lot, the expression of her social value and of her truest self. Because she does
nothing, she eagerly seeks self-realization in what she has.”
In this “soliloquy,” Abigail shows her subjectivity because of John
Proctor’s civilization. Lovemaking for her is just like a watershed which divides
the past, her girlhood, and the present, her womanhood. She is standing in a blurring
space. She is aggressive but compromising. She is the angel but the witch. She is
pathetic but abominable. She is beautiful but coquettish. She could be a wife but
40
time. He finds that Abigail asks for more, and then he ends their relationship. He
wants to possess her, but he never figures out that he is the one who is possessed by
Abigail. “Man is delighted by this very complexity of woman: a wonderful servant
who is capable of dazzling him—and not too expensive. Is she angel or demon? The
uncertainty makes her a Sphinx.”
It cannot be denied that John Proctor is indeed obsessed with Abigail for a short
41
39
Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, p.141.
40
Simon de Beauvoir. The Second Sex, pp.450-451.
41
Simon de Beauvoir. The Second Sex, p.192.
answer is that she is a femme fatale, who causes his misgivings. The term “femme
fatale,” the fatal woman, means women who are seductive and alluring, but evil and
mysterious. Or the women that men thirst for but should not command.
Anima and Animus
Moreover, Carl Jung gives it a different meaning: in Anima he mentions that the
femme fatale is the dark anima who evokes destructive power and symbolizes a
dangerous illusion. And he creates two terms, the animus and the anima to illustrate
archetypes of feminine and masculine. He suggests that every individual has a
psychological hybrid, that everyone has either a masculine or feminine side within
their unconsciousness.
The Anima is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies within a man, the archetypal feminine symbolism within a man's unconscious. The Animus is the personification of all masculine psychological tendencies within a woman, the archetypal masculine symbolism within a woman’s unconsciousness.42
Yet, the anima and the animus both have negative and positive influences on a
person. If a negative animus is strongly present, the woman is more ruthless,
destructive and aggressive. John Proctor’s cold-heartedness makes a great impact on
Abigail and motivates her to do away with her role of a passive, feminine woman
but learn to be more masculine and aggressive in order to grab what she wants. She
has to be more logical, ambitious and assertive. Consequently, Abigail has
42
developed the animus or the masculine energy within her unconsciousness. She is a
masculine woman.
The disorder of Abigail/ the woman/ the witch whose boundless body has
threatened patriarchal norms. She always finds a way to protect herself with the
atypical bewitchment. She has made men in town submit to her “oracle.” She
indirectly murders John Proctor to let Elizabeth Proctor lose her husband yet, at the
same time, Abigail is certainly losing him. Abigail confronts the phallogocentrism
by exploring her “dark continent” of female pleasure and challenges God and the
patriarchal authority by performing her flexible and malleable body. Is Abigail a
victim? The answer, definitely, is negative. Ritual for Abigail is not just a fantasy,
but a meaningful tactic. Because of her adultery with John Proctor, she desperately
wants to be more attractive and fascinating.
Rituals do create a free space where transformation could occur, thus the
unknown consequence is powerful. It breaks through the swirling thoughts chasing
each other around and around in the mind by taking us out of that mind, down into
the body and through the heart.43
43
And this kind of psychic transformation resonates
with self-awareness, being and consciousness. Sometimes it is also an autohypnosis
isolating us to reconstruct a new order beyond the official system. As for the girls’
