What really happened in the woods If you

What really happened in the woods? If you believe what Abigail tells her Uncle Parris… What Parris saw/questions he has for Abigail • It was just Betty and I in the woods. We were just dancing. • I saw Tituba chanting and waving her arms over a fire. • I saw a dress. • I thought I saw someone running naked through the wood. What Goody Putnam discloses • I sent Ruth to Tituba to conjure the spirits of my seven murdered children. (She believes the reason Ruth can’t talk is that the devil has stilled her tongue to keep the deaths unexplained. )

In red = girls who are “sick” Putting it all together • Present in the woods: Ruth, Tituba, Abigail, Betty, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren (will be very important in the rest of the play) • Ruth Putnam is there on an errand from Goody Putnam to ask Tituba to conjure the spirits of her “murdered” children • Mercy Lewis: Running naked • Abigail Williams: Drinking blood to put a hex on Goody Proctor. • Betty Parris and Mary Warren: witnesses Abigail is the ring leader and oversees the others with threats and intimidation.

Enemies of Old Salemites The Proctors; The Nurses; The Coreys Old Salemites The Putnams Hathorne Outcasts Tituba Sarah Goody Osburn Bridget Bishop Isaac Ward Abigail rules over them with fear, manipulation, intimidation The young girls Abigail, Betty, Ruth, Mercy, Mary Susanna Authority Figures Danforth Hathorne (Cheever, Herrick) Outsiders Hale Boston Judges Parris

• John hates himself for having sinned and fallen for Abigail. He resents his wife for failing to forgive him. The rift in their relationship is obvious at the beginning of Act II. • Abigail and Elizabeth are mirrors of each other. Each hates the other, wishes the other would go away, or had never existed. • Abigail’s ace up her sleeve is the affair, and she’s just crazy enough to use it. Elizabeth Proctor John Proctor Abigail Williams Love Triangle “the most perfect shape in literature”