In “The Crucible,” the play begins with Betty Parris lying on the bed. She is not moving, and her uncle is having a conversation with cousin Abigail about why not. Though Abigail denies any wrongdoing, we soon learn that what was going on in the woods was far from “harmless fun.” In fact, the girls are out in the woods with the slave from Barbados, Tituba, casting spells, drinking blood, and dancing. Dancing would have been prohibited in this early American Puritan society, and dancing in the woods even more so. It would have been viewed as literally “dancing with the devil,” as Arthur Miller points out that the forest is considered “the devil’s last preserve.” In the conversation between Abigail Parris, it is revealed that not only was there dancing; there was naked dancing. Parris accuses Abigail: “I cannot blink what I saw, Abigail-for my enemies will not blink it. And I thought I saw a….someone naked running through the trees! ABIGAIL: No one was naked! You mistake yourself, Uncle! (Act I) . Later on, we find out who was dancing naked when the girls gather to get their story straight. “ABIGAIL: Now look you, if they be questioning us tell them we danced—I told him as much already. MERCY: And what more? ABIGAIL: He saw you naked. MERCY: Oh, Jesus! (Falls back on bed.)” (Act I). Mercy Lewis, the Putnam’s servant, is the girl who danced naked in the woods.
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