Tuesday, April 5, 2016

What is the fate of Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and John Hathorne?

In the play, as in real life, the fates of the guilty parties are not equal to what they truly deserve.  However, in the end of the play, Elizabeth (Betty) Parris presumably lives out her life in Salem.  She does tell her father that she'd overheard Abigail and Mercy Lewis talking about ships the week before, and that is how he comes to the conclusion that Abigail and Mercy have fled for good.  This is the last time we hear about Betty in the play.


Abigail Williams robs Parris of his life's savings and runs away from Salem with Mercy Lewis, presumably to board a ship and escape the hysteria she helped to create.  (This does not happen in real life.)


Sarah Good has confessed, and so the last we the audience sees her in the play is when she's sitting in jail with Tituba (who has also confessed).  She will hang because she confessed, but she has clearly become terribly ill and delusional (thinking that the Devil is coming for her and Tituba to take them back to Barbados with him; she even thinks that Herrick is the Devil when she first sees him).  


Goody Osburn, Mary Warren told Elizabeth Proctor in Act Two, would not confess, and because she was convicted, she was hanged (apparently prior to Act Four since she does not appear to be a part of the group scheduled to hang on that final morning).


Finally, in the last scene in which we see Hathorne, he is arguing with Hale about whether or not Hale should say that he is counseling the convicted to lie (and confess) to save their own lives.  Hathorne, obviously, does not want Hale telling people that he advised them to "lie," because it would call the confessions into question and hurt the court's -- and his own -- authority.  Finally, he tries to get Proctor to confess and rejoices when it seems that Proctor is going to.  Obviously, he has learned nothing over the course of the play and ends it in much the same way as he began it: pompous and proud (and wrong).

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