More handpicked essays just for you.
Abigails character a victim in the crucible
Abigail's character in the crucible
How was abigail in the crucible
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the book The Crucible many characters go mad with power. One of this person is Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris niece. Abigail is the president or leader of a group of girls that start accusing people of being witches. Abigail went Mad with Power when she starts to accuse Tituba and Sarah Osborne of being a witch. “She made me do it! She made betty do it!” (Act 1 pg 847). Abigail first tells Hale about the “witches” when Betty, Parris’s daughter, fell into a deep sleep and wouldn’t wake up. She first accused Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn. Later in Act II Abigail goes completely mad with power. In Act II Abigail accuses Mary Proctor of have sent her spirit upon her and stab her with a pin. “Why, Abigail Williams charged her” (Act II
The first reason Abigail is to blame for the deaths of the innocent Puritans is her lustful personal ambition to be John Proctor’s wife. John and Abigail previously had an affair, which basically began the hysteria. An exasperated John attempted to tell Abigail the affair is a thing of the past, by saying, “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again.” Abigail, however, relentlessly strives to keep their “romance” alive. Because of this intense jealousy of John’s wife, there is an enormous amount of tension between Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail even goes as far as to consume a potion with the intent to murder Elizabeth, which Betty confronts her about by saying, “You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” Abigail is so envious of Elizabeth, she does the unthinkable by accusing her of witchcraft. She claims that Goody Proctor’s spirit came to her and stabbed her with a needle. She felt that if she could dispose of Elizabeth Proctor, she could take her rightful position as John’s wife.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail William’s flaws – mendacity, lust, and arrogance – that led her to be responsible the most for the tragedy of the witch hunt in Salem, Massachusetts. Driven by lust, Abigail was able to lie to the Salem community in hopes of covering her and her friends’ deeds and gaining the attention of John Proctor. Her arrogance enabled her t0 advance her deceit.
Abigail's necessity for revenge makes her threaten the young ladies into following her idea of deception. “Let either of you breathe a word,” Abigail threatens, “or the edge of a word about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you”(835). Abigail knows that all the girls in the woods fear her to death. Which made the witch trials easier for her to get by. Another thing is that Abigail ends her affair with John Proctor to try to get revenge on him. “A man may think God
Throughout the many acts of the play, we sense the anger rolling off Abigail’s words. “I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” By these words, we know that Abigail Williams is angry. She’s angry at John Proctor for trying to hide the crime he committed with her, and for the lack of closure she
Abigail Williams is manipulative and wants everything to go her way. She is the main character and causes trouble everywhere she goes. The Salem Witch Trials is about hearings and prosecutions of people who were accused of witchcraft. In The Crucible Abigail is a no good villain. Abigail first commits adultery with Elizabeth’s husband. Later on Abigail begins to accuse innocent people of doing witchcraft which causes them to die. Abigail Williams uses the Salem Witch Trials to put out all the resentment she has toward everyone.
Her ability to lie, her outspokenness and developing sexuality, is unlawful against the Puritan views and deemed as evil. If convicted of the acts she has committed, including her apparent interaction with the Devil, she would face severe consequences. But to avoid this, Abigail realizes that through deceiving innocence she can control and manipulate murderous acts to save herself and her reputation. This was a new opportunity for her to expand her rule over the town. Controlling the young girls around her, Abigail uses her newfound sense of power to manipulate the group in fear. Driving them to aid her accusations, she uses them in the court to prove her claims. Abigail quickly strikes fear into the girls when she begins to hit and threaten the girls screaming, “And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of 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” (Miller 19). By threatening the girls, Abigail easily frightens them enough to do her bidding. Using fear to her advantage is evil and this act of manipulation only furthers her antagonism. Abigail now has the ability to use facades and delusion with the loyalty of the other girls, to convince the people that it is not her conjuring spirits, but others in the town attacking
A motivation can be described as a character having a reason to behave or act in a particular way. Someone or something can be someone's motivation. A child obeys its parents to avoid punishment or a clerk works overtime so that he can afford a better car are examples of motivation. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, characters illustrate several types of motivations. Throughout the play, Abigail is motivated by jealousy, power, and attention.
"Power tends to corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord Action. In "The Crucible" composed by Arthur Miller control, power, fear and greed were the main factors that began the Salem witch trails. Power brings out the true nature of a person and we see that happening to Abigail throughout the play. That brings me to my next point fear, Abigail used the fear of accusing people of being witches to gain power and control. It all started with Abigail misunderstanding lust for love. John Proctor thought softly of her and she began dreaming of replacing his wife willing to go to any needs necessary.
Salem is a hierarchical, a strict and patriarchy society. Not only by law but also by the sanction of God the men rule is buttress and the men of the men of the town have all of the political power. In their society the young is the lower rung of the social ladder. Unmarried girls like Abigail, Mary Warren, and Mercy fall into these social class. They are powerless during the daily life so they find a source of power when they get possessed by the devil and by what the townsfolks were telling them. The girl’s parents and the minister were Gods representatives on earth but because of the witch trials the girls are treated like they have a connection to the divine. An accusation from one Abigail’s troop is enough to do tremendous work like, influence the
For the case of Abigail Williams, she made use of the paranoia of the witchcraft trials to her advantage to carry out personal vengeance against Elizabeth Proctor. Firstly, she amplifies the townsfolk’s’ fear of the supernatural by pretending she was being attacked by witches. By pretending she was being attacked by an invisible bird sent out by Mary Warren (“why do you come, yellow bird?”) and accusing countless people of witchcraft, Abigail sows discord and fear amongst the staunch Puritian villagers, by making them suspicious of one another and addressing their fear of the unknown. She then manipulates their fear and paranoia to work to her advantage. Since act 1, the author has shown that Abigail has harboured a hatred of Elizabeth Proctor (“It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman”) partly because she was fired from the Proctors’ service, and maybe also because she wants John...
The play erupted near the beginning with many people getting ill and the accusations of people being witches beginning. Though many may not see this, I personally view Abigail Williams being the one mainly at fault. She is responsible for the young girls getting together with Tituba to conjure up spirits. To put her further at fault, though not quite so much as being a witch, she had an affair with the respected citizen John Proctor. This affair however causes her to make many brash decisions which condemn many people. She feels that Proctor loves her and wants to be with her, but can’t do so because of Elizabeth, so Abigail plots to get rid of Elizabeth in an attempt to get Proctor to marry her so she can fulfill her crazy hallucinations. When she talks to Proctor, she tries to make him see that his wife is an evil woman. “That jab your wife gave me’s not healed yet, y’know… I think sometimes she pricks it open again while I sleep” (P...
The hysteria in Salem during the Witch trials was fueled by Abigail Williams egotistical nature, disputes already going on in Salem that were attributed to witchcraft, and Reverend Hale’s vulnerability to manipulation. Abigail starts a majority of the hysteria when she is found by Reverend Parris with some of the other girls and Tituba dancing naked in the woods. Abigail does not want to be punished for dancing so she blames Tituba for witching her. Abigail and the other girls send the town into a panic when they selfishly accuse Tituba and many others of witchcraft “I want to open myself . . . I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil”
In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the 1692 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Abigail is a mean and vindictive person who always wants her way, no matter who she hurts. Through out the play her accusations and lies cause many people pain and suffering, but she seemed to never care for any of them except John Proctor, whom she had an affair with seven months prior to the beginning of the play. John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth used to employ Abigail, until Elizabeth found out the affair and threw Abigail out. Although John told Abigail that the affair was over and he would never touch her again, she tried desperately to rekindle their romance. "Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I'll ever reach for you again." (Page 23) She claimed that she loved John and that he loved her. Before the play began, Abigail tried to kill Elizabeth with a curse. She thought that if Elizabeth were dead John would marry her. Further into the play, Abigail accused Elizabeth of witchcraft. She saw Marry Warren, the Proctor's servant, making a poppet. Mary put a needle into the doll, and Abigail used that for her accusation. She stabbed herself with a needle and claimed that Elizabeth's soul had done it. Although Abigail claimed she loved John, she may have just loved the care and attention he gave her. John cared for her like no one else had. In a way he could be described as somewhat of a father figure to her. When Abigail was just a child, she witnessed her parents' brutal murders. "I saw Indians smash my dear parent's heads on the pillow next to mine..." (page 20) After her traumatic experience, she was raised by her uncle, Reverend Parris, who is somewhat of a villain. In the play it was written, "He (Parris) was a widower with no interest in children, or talent with them." (Page 3) Parris regarded children as young adults who should be "thankful for being permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly lowered, arms at the sides, and mouths shut until bidden to speak." (Page 4) Therefore, it is obvious to see that Abigail grew up without any love or nurturing.
Abigail Williams is accused of witchcraft early on. In order to avoid conviction she confesses to witchcraft, accuses Tituba of forcing her to drink blood and do witchcraft, and accuses Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Good, Goody Osburn, Bridget Bishop, Goody Sibber, Goody Hawkins, Goody Booth, and countless other innocent people in court. She throws herself down in the court and does other dramatic actions in order to convince the court that a person is in fact a witch. This leads to people being falsely accused of witchcraft and forced to accuse others in order to live. Because of Abigail's growing power in the court, people become fearful of her. One of the most important people who begins to fear her is Elizabeth Proctor. Elizabeth is afraid that Abigail will accuse her of witchcraft. She also gives more insight into Abigail's behavior in court. She states that Abigail will “scream and howl and fall to the floor” when the accused are brought forth (50). The people and the court begin to believe that Abigail can see who the witches are. Her words and actions become the deciding factors in a defendants fate.
To summarize, abigail williams in the crucible is to implicate for the lunacy of salem population. Because of her self-worship, and her ease in using other. This is still a popular occurrence in today's society. For instance the U.S been affected by the action of one or a small group like in the crucibles salem being controlled by the actions of one. Humanity has allowed one person to scare the rest of the population to follow despite the negative outcomes. Even though this has been recognized as a popular recurrence within history, it still occurs in today's world with no sign of stopping or