Who should be indicted for a crime in The Crucible? Use pathos, ethos and logos to explain.

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In addition to Abigail Williams, Reverend Samuel Parris should also be indicted for a crime because his dishonesty led to the execution of more than one innocent person.  Parris purposely sought to cover up information pertaining to Betty's and Abigail's dancing in the forest with Tituba, which is extremely unethical. 

In act 1, he fears that his enemies will learn of their activities and "ruin [him] with it." In act 3, we learn that he has kept this information from Danforth, who is completely shocked. Hiding potential evidence of witchcraft must certainly undermine his credibility; he cares more about his reputation than he does his daughter. Obviously, this goes against the Puritan code of ethics, therefore incriminating him using ethos.

Parris attempts to indict others for witchcraft, knowing that it all began with his own daughter and niece and that Mrs. Putnam initiated it by sending her daughter, Ruth, to conjure the spirits of her dead babies. This should also lead to his own indictment, using logos and the logic of law. He slanders various people in the village it seems, in an attempt to retain authority and power, helping to convict people he knows to be innocent because they are his political enemies. His false testimony against them helps lead to their convictions and executions. He is therefore commits murder, indirectly at least.

Those people who he helps to hang are wives and mothers, husbands and fathers; they are all innocent, and they will all either leave behind loved ones or have been so changed by the trials that their lives will never be the same. Elizabeth Proctor will have to raise her four children—three living and one on the way—without their father, all alone. Francis Nurse will have to live out his final years without his dear wife. Giles Corey died knowing that he helped to condemn his own wife. Others, like Tituba and Sarah Good have basically gone crazy in jail and will likely never recover. Parris helped to ruin these lives, and their situations invokes pity, or pathos. Thus, he deserves indictment.

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Abigail should be indicted for a crime because her actions were instrumental in stirring the ashes of chaos into a conflagration. Using pathos, or emotional pursuits, to explain why Abigail should be indicted, one must look at the fallout from her actions.  People died.  People who were good, like Rebecca Nurse, were put to death for no other reason than the hysteria that was the result of Abigail's selfishness.  Abigail wanted to cover up her actions, along with those of the other girls who went into the woods that fateful night that Reverend Hale encounterd the girls and Tituba dancing around.  Abigail found that the cry of "Witch!" directed at Tituba in Act 1 directed people's attentions away from her and her actions.  As soon as Rev. Hale begins to accuse Abigail of hiding something, of leading the other girls in their actions in the forext, Tituba enters the scene and Abigail finds a scapegoat.  It is completely unethical (ethos) of Abigail to do this.  She is acting purely out of selfishness.  Furthermore, Abigail accuses many other people of witchery, including her rival for John Putnam's affections, his wife, Elizabeth.  Abigail does not believe that Elizabeth is guilty, she merely wants Elizabeth out of the picture so Abigail can have a better chance of getting John.  Also, Abigail threatens the other girls to get them to do as she wishes.  When Mary tells the court that she and the other girls were lying about being pestered by witches and Abigail points the finger at Mary, Mary changes her testitmony and sides with Abigail again, (Act 3).  Finally, logos, or logic, shows that Abigail should be indicted because her actions led directly to the deaths of others.  Logically, Abigail is guilty of murder, even though she did not commit the physical act of killing, her words as accusations, caused people to be sentenced to death as witches.

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