Abigail's Reputation In The Crucible

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During the Salem witch trials, Puritan girls, like Abigail, used their platform as pure and all knowing to harm people who had wronged them in the past by saying they were with the devil or some other moral misdeed. Abigail uses such a platform to not only get out of trouble she caused herself but save an important part of herself. She tries to save her reputation. Abigail’s motivation is her reputation, so she decides to lie in front of the court causing her to take extreme acts to make her innocent by the end of the play. Abigail, during the duration of this play, has show immense concern for her reputation proving it is her driving factor. “My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is soiled” (Miller 1132).From this quote, Abigail is concerning herself over her name. In this play, the idea of a name is equivalent to say a reputation, so Abigail is worrying over her reputation. Her reputation is a major driving factor to how Abigail takes her situation and handles it. Abigail, during this time, has almost no other concern in her mind besides her reputation. This mentality will later affect many others lives. …show more content…

“Oh Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it’s God’s work I do” (Miller 1209). When Abigail is doing all of this, it is after Mary Warren has confessed the entire idea that any witches are here is a lie and it was all for fun. Abigail decided to try and incriminate her friend as a way to protect her reputation in the town. Her reputation as seen from this quote is more important than honesty to the court and most of all moral actions at all. In the end, Abigail did get Mary back on her side from this lying as a way to get her truthful reputation back on track. This is leading to her doing worse more destructive things in the near

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