Abigail Warren In The Crucible

Fear helps determine who is powerful and powerless in a society. We may not know it but It is all around us. Although we may not be able to see it I’m sure we have all felt this happen to us at one point in our lives. Arthur Miller’s novel The Crucible helps portray this by creating many situations where power is either gained or lost within the book. One major character that uses to fear to gain power is Abigail Warren. She is the leader of her friend group which makes her the most powerful. Abby often inflicts fear on to others to ensure that she doesn’t lose her power and maintains her high social status.

Abigail causes her friend Mary Warren to experience fear when Abby and the girls accuse her of witchery to the court. “Children, a very augur bit will now be turned into

your souls until your honesty is proved. Will either of you change your positions now, or do you force me to hard questioning?” (Miller 102) Abby gains power from accusing Mary Warren because it takes the negative attention off of herself and puts it on to Mary. It also gives power to the girls because the people of the court believe everything they say. The girls want power over Mary so that they can increase their status in the group.
Another example is at the beginning of the novel, the girls went into the woods and did some forbidden things such as dancing and running naked. Abigail’s uncle Reverend Parris suspected their sinful behaviors and began to start asking questions about it. In response to that Abby decided to threaten the girls. She threatened them to keep quiet about their scandal in the woods on that day. “And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring you a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it.” (Miller 20) This quote is a prime example of how Abby inflicts fear on others to make herself seem more powerful. She does this by threatening the girls to come and hurt or kill them if they don’t do what she tells them to do.
Lastly, Abigail causes John Proctor to fear her.

Proctor tried to argue his case to the judge in hope that he could defend himself and turn the blame towards Abby. He tried to do that by admitting that he cheated on his wife with Abby in the past. Proctor admitted his affair because he thought it would help the judge to see that Abby was faking everything. “She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave!” (Miller 110) This shows that Abby causes John to fear her because he believes that she has the power to make his wife disappear. The concept of affairs relates to a previous article we read earlier in class, If You Want To Save Your Marriage After An Affair Read This by, Brittany Wong. In the article, it says to end all contact with your affair partner after the affair. “It should go without saying that you need to break off contact with the other woman or man. But you also need to ‘fess up if they reach out to you, said Madden.” (Wong 2) One reason John Proctor is having a lot of trouble with Abigail is because he did not end all contact with his affair partner; Abby. Although he did not directly reach out to her, Abby continued to talk to him and he was not honest with his wife about

it.
The idea of fear being associated with power is everywhere. In novels such as The Crucible and in the real world. Arthur Miller did a great job of proving this by exploring many situations where the characters in his book used fear to gain power. The main character in The Crucible, Abigail Warren caused others to fear her throughout the book, in result she became the most powerful character. When we are afraid we loose our power; when we set out to make others frightened we gain power. This is how fear plays a huge role in determining who is powerful and powerless in a society.