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Now and then character analysis
The stronger character analysis
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Abigail Williams is a young manipulative woman who has a deep desire for John Proctor, but her actions affect everyone else for her own selfish deeds. After being fired, by Elizabeth Proctor, Abby’s love for John grew ever stronger from their affair. Love is a mere aspect that describes Abby, but manipulative, selfishness, and audacious are only a few words which describe her. Abby may be a selfish, cunning young lady, but what she truly stands for in the play is manipulation. She has made false accusations which she brought before the court to cover up what has happened during that night. Abby also fakes that Mary is using a spirit to attack her during a proceeding because she feels threatened by Mary’s testimony, which potentially could blow …show more content…
John Proctor, whom Abby wants to herself, is actually the opposite of her because he knew Abby’s plan from the very beginning about taking out Elizabeth from the picture. Even though John and Abby had an affair behind Elizabeth’s back, he truly doesn’t want Abby’s love not quite as bad as Abby wanting his love. Abby remains static throughout the story, but she also has ties with the end of the play because she is the main cause of John’s death. Abby is connected to his death because she is point of source for people accusing others for witchcraft, which led to John’s demise. Yet, Abigail is actually teaching two lessons in the story, the first one is hysteria, because when she starts the accusations for a cover up, then everyone turns on each other, “neighbor versus neighbor.” She also taught us the dangers of ideology, the reason why she taught us this because she used the court against the accused, their judicial system is related to their religion and any protest would show you’re against God. The main reason why she is using this method is because she will do anything to protect herself, at the least. That reasoning really shows when Abby mentioned with great intention, “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
As the play starts off, and John Proctor is introduced, it becomes know that he committed adultery with Abigail, the antagonist of the play. At this point, the play tells that John has gone against his own values by committing adultery, as well as the town’s values. He starts off seeming as though he is a very confused man and does not know what to think about his relationship with Abigail. “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.” (22). This is showing how he still likes her, but he feels he cannot commit adultery with her again.
When faced with all the false accusations, she also exhibited grace, good judgment, and dignified behavior. Her case involves a love triangle between her, Abigail Williams and John Proctor. I couldn't imagine being in her shoes where you are forced to face both your internal dilemma of whether to forgive your husband and an external one. The jealousy and wickedness of a young girl who used to be Elizabeth’s husband’s mistress is the main reason why she is accused and charged. Abigail Williams childishly refuses to accept the truth when she was rejected by John Proctor. She plotted against his wife, Elizabeth, in a desperate attempt to take her husband and also, her place in the society as a mistress of a prospering home. Elizabeth Proctor bravely replies, “I cannot think the Devil may own a woman's soul, Mr. Hale, when she keeps an upright way as I have. I am a good woman, I know it; and if you believe I may do only good work in the world, and yet be secretly bound to Satan, then I must tell you I do not believe it.” when questioned by Reverend Hale. Furthermore, she exhibits a much greater strength and courage than her husband, despite her gentle and meek appearance. Elizabeth is the one who is not afraid to speak her mind openly and plainly and is not afraid to stand up to the judges. At one point she inspired her husband to act in a similar way when she openly challenged the doctrine. Elizabeth was the
One of the major conflicts between Proctor and Abigail, deals with Abigail’s intense love for Proctor. For instance, Abigail tells Proctor, “John—I am waitin’ for you every night.” (pg. 21). Abigail doesn’t want their affair to end, so she believes John Proctor will come back for her. She also believes John Proctor has the same feelings for her, just like she does for him. For example, “You come five mile to see a silly girl fly? I know you better.” (pg. 21). Abigail wants their relationship to continue, and does not understand why Proctor shows his regret towards her. Abigail begins to greed over Proctor because she adores him so much and wants him to
In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible Abigail Williams, an unmarried orphan in the Massachusetts town of Salem, incessantly grows more jealous, her desire for vengeance only grows stronger, and her selfishness escalates. She repeatedly lies to save herself by denying her involvement in witchcraft. Abigail's Jealousy of Elizabeth Proctor intensifies in attempt to realize her desire for Elizabeth's husband John Proctor. In order to save herself she accuses the innocent, without any sense of ethical violation. Abigail proves to be a selfish antagonist in The Crucible that shows no sense of right and wrong.
Throughout the play John Proctor is considered an honorable man to the townspeople. However though, unbenounced to the others John constantly struggles with the urges and temptations of his affair with Abigail Williams. Due to the affair with John, Abigail becomes increasingly jealous of John’s wife Elizabeth Proctor. Due to her jealousy Abigail starts making false witch accusations towards the women of Salem. In the beginning of The Crucible John realizes the only way to prove Abigail is lying is to admit to the affair, which would ruin his good name in the town. After Elizabeth proctor is accused John tells the court about the affair and proceeded to yell at the judges and call Abigail a “whore”. The court brings in Elizabeth Proctor to testify
During the play Abigail is a manipulator, Liar, and a very cruel character throughout the play.
Abigail Williams is a selfish young girl that can be argued to be dishonest in many parts of the book. At the start of the play, Abigail is questioned by
The play contained many scenarios of good versus evil, and the characters that generally possessed these feelings and intentions. But it must be understood that there were the intentions, the incentives, and then the actions taken out on a person or a group of people. Every character could either be placed in the intentions under good or bad intentions. After that, almost every character has mixed feelings of evil or good actions. The fight between the center of evil and the center of good is the foremost important of the points. Abigail Williams is the nucleus of all evil in the story. She is the one who triggers off this sense of hate in the play. She tempts Proctor into lechery, and commits unlawful acts which all are against the Puritan religion. To escape punishment for dancing, she deflects the actions and blames them on someone else, and does not care how many lives she ruins. Later when she grows into power and influence, she seems to enjoy sending these innocent people to their deaths. She takes pleasure in her lies, and thrives on the attention and power that they bring her. All these are the aspects of being the evil character, power, attention, and acts of wrongful doing. Therefore she can...
Abigail Williams is the niece of the town preacher, Reverend Parris. She is also a part of a love triangle. She was the Proctor’s servant until she had an affair with John Proctor, husband of Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail’s personality can be described as
Miller portrays her character as very cold and vindictive. Elizabeth is a devoted wife and the source of John Proctor’s guilt. Upon finding out of her husband’s infidelity with their past serving maid, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth has difficulty fully trusting John again. She remains suspicious, guarded, and cold toned toward her husband, “PROCTOR: Woman, I’ll not have you suspicion any more. ELIZABETH: Then let you not earn it.” (57). John Proctor is begging his wife to forgive him yet Elizabeth, though she want to forgive him, is right about the nature of the affair. Which has led for Abigail and John to be linked in way John cannot understand, “ELIZABETH: John, you are not open with me. You saw her with a crowd, you said. Now you- PROCTOR: I’ll plead my honesty no more, Elizabeth. ELIZABETH: John, I am only- PROCTOR: No more! …..Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.” (58). Her morals are a representation of Level 2: Stage 2 because, she instead of the telling the truth of John’s affair lies to protect her husband and her family’s reputation. Elizabeth’s actions and feelings of unforgiveness lead to the shaken state of their marriage, and ultimately cause the lies of the affair that lead John’s to his
She asks to have a “soft word” with him, implying that she wants him to show his love for her. Using the stereotypical character traits of tenderness and submissiveness, Abigail attempts to regain John’s love and rekindle the affair. Abigail fails and John Proctor sternly tells her, “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. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby” (22). Abigail is desperate to get her love back and brings John’s wife, Elizabeth, into the conversation, calling her “sickly” and claims that she is “blackening” her name. Although Abigail seems angry with Elizabeth for ruining her reputation, in actuality she is filled with jealousy at the fact that Elizabeth is married to John. With Abigail’s goals of keeping her name clear, and the lust of John Proctor in her eyes, this combination reveals her true motives and leads to a wave of fraud and deception.
John Proctor and Reverend Hale are similar as they have both detected the corruption beneath the witchcraft accusations and attempt to prevent false testimonies and innocent people being hanged. John Proctor easily realizes the truth of the witchcraft trials because of his affair with Abigail Williams, one of the leading culprits of the hysteria in Salem. Abby exclaims that “Elizabeth hates me, uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave. It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman” (Miller 12). Abigail feels this way, not because Elizabeth has mistreated her, but instead because Elizabeth is Proctor’s wife, a nuisance to Abigail and Proctor’s relationship. Additionally, after Elizabeth found out about the affair, she fired Abigail, thus ridding Abigail
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.
Before Abigail starts going crazy and accusing people of witchcraft a couple pieces of information are revealed about John Proctor and how selfish he is. He became involved with Abigail sometime before the play began. His actions showed he only cared about himself and didn’t care about his family at all. It is clear he is ashamed when he tries to deny his actions after Abigail confronts him. He tries to get her to forget about the things that happened between them when he says, “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time…. We never touched Abby” (Miller 22). He is tries to get her to forget about what happened because then he will be able to move on with his life and protect his reputation at the same time. His actions in this scene are selfish and he is just thinking of how to protect his name in the town and erase his past transgressions and by the end he does several things that help the town. People in the town begin to look up to him and he takes up the role of a leader despite his normal behavior of shirking away from the spotlight. Proctor is the one who has to step up and put Putman in his place and he tells Putman “You cannot command Mr. Parris. We vote by name in this society, not acreage....
The true antagonist of the play is the town of Salem itself, because of the judgemental and self concerned peoples, and its oppressive views. Abigail;s outrageous actions are due to her desensitized views on death and actions otherwise viewed as unethical. From her youth ABigail recalls: “ I saw indians smash my dear parents’ head on the pillow next to mine and i have seen some reddish work at night” (Miller 20), because of this Abigail is numb to death and suffering and is in fact quite morbid. There is no problem in condemning other to death in Abigail’s eyes because she doesn’t see the issue with it. Abigail does not seem to comprehend that it is unethical to let people be hanged and stoned to death and has no issue telling others that she “ can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down” (Miller 20). Not only is Abigail desensitized to murder and death, she is also numb to other unethical dilemmas. Abigail is desensitized to corrupting the Proctor’s marriage because of her childish lust and obsession for John Proctor. Such desires can be seen through her encounters with Proctor. In regards to their so called “relationship” she says: “it’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you love me now!” (Miller 22). Abigail does not view her behavior t...