Moments later the authorities come and take away Elizabeth. He's soon followed by Giles Corey and Francis Nurse, whose wives have been accused of witchcraft and imprisoned. As Proctor angrily denies it, Hale arrives to investigate the Proctors. Elizabeth wants Proctor to expose Abigail as a fraud, but she suspects Proctor may still have feelings for the girl. They learn from their servant Mary Warren, one of the girls accusing people in the town of witchcraft, that Elizabeth is herself accused. Betty wakes and joins in.Įight days later, Proctor and his wife Elizabeth discuss the many people who have been charged with witchcraft by a court presided over by the deputy governor of the province. Abigail, seeing that she'll be punished unless she joins Tituba in naming names, leaps up and begins to name more witches.

She begins to name other witches in the town. Under threat of punishment if she refuses to confess, Tituba breaks down and admits she communed with the devil. Just then, Reverend Hale, a noted investigator of witchcraft, arrives, and Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey leave.

An argument about whether witchcraft led to Betty's condition soon transforms into an argument about other local political issues. As the crowd downstairs begins to sing a hymn, Betty starts screaming and Parris, Thomas Putnam, Ann Putnam, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey come running into the room. Proctor, guilt-ridden over the affair, tells her it's over. Abigail tells Proctor there was no witchcraft, and insists Proctor still loves her. While Abigail was a servant in the Proctor household, she and Proctor had an affair. Parris runs off to calm the crowd, and a local farmer named John Proctor winds up alone with Abigail. Abigail says they were just dancing, though it soon comes out that Tituba was trying to conjure dead spirits. Rumors of witchcraft spread through the town and a crowd gathers at Parris's house while Parris, nervous about his reputation, questions Abigail about what the girls were doing in the forest. Betty faints in fright at being discovered, and will not wake. In the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, the town minister, Reverend Parris, discovers his daughter Betty, niece Abigail, and other girls dancing in the forest with his slave Tituba.

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