Today in society a person’s future is often dictated by their past. Traumatic events will in many times create a such a person to behave in an unacceptable behavior. Throughout literature such people are used as characters to further the plot. The term frequently used for this type of character is an antagonist. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, the protagonist, Abigail Williams, creates the sole conflict based on her adolescent years. For characters like Abigail, in The Crucible, her early life and relationship with John Proctor contributes to her actions despite some being seen as inexcusable. The introduction of Abigail Williams sets the stage for how she is treated and how damaging her life already is. The author describes her as, “a strikingly beautiful girl, with an endless capacity for dissembling (Miller 8). Although it doesn't give the exact age, by the year of the novel Abigail is an orphan and has already began to conceal her true feelings. Although Abigail finds a home with her uncle, Reverend Parris, in reality the home is quote unwelcoming. An example of Parris’s inability to establish love is shows in act one, “I have given you a …show more content…
home, child, I have put clothes upon your--now give me upright answer”(Miller 12). Parris demands answers from Abigail because she should feel gratitude for being housed but never once mentions he loves her. Therefore, Abigail loses her parents and then lives with her uncle who doesn't express any love which results in her always trying to make him proud or happy with her. In result the ideology of witchcraft can be excused due to her desire to appease and please her uncle and his reputation. In addition to her lack of a welcoming home, Abigail also involves herself within an unhealthy relationship. John Proctor is an older gentleman that houses Abigail while she does household duties and eventually invokes himself in a sexual relationship with her. An example of the confusing relationship between them is displayed in the lines “I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness” (Miller 23). Once Abigail is fired from the Proctor house the relationship ends yet John visits her from time to time allowing Abigail to feel mixed emotions about her place with John. Being pushed and pulled in from Proctor, Abigail follows her instinct and tries to rid of Elizabeth. Towards the end of act two Elizabeth is arrested because of accusations against her made by Abigail, “And demandin’ of her how she come to be stabbed, she--to Proctor now-- testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in (Miller 74). Despite John being an adult, he led a teenager on and her actions can be excused because she was blinded by her desires. Lastly others may disagree with Abigail’s actions being excused because of her tactics.
Although Abigail came from a harsh background some readers believe that her actions are solely vengeful. To prove such actions often readers point out that Abigail desired to kill Elizabeth from the beginning, “[Betty to Abigail] You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife(Miller 19)! Even though Abigail felt as though Elizabeth was the bane of her existence, she had just cause because from her position, the only man that feels passion for her isn't there and Elizabeth was to blame. Readers must know that at the time of the play Abigail is a mere 17 years and can be easily persuaded into love. Also coming from a background of lost or non existent love it's easy to do anything by all means necessary to regain
it. In conclusion, the designated role of antagonists played by Abigail Williams can be excused for multiple reasons. Not only does she come from a broken home that lasts the love and support she desires, she also becomes involved in an empty relationship without her knowledge. Others may disagree with the evaluation of Abigail’s past that played a role in her future, but she is still a child at the end of the day. Arthur Miller includes the backstory of John and Abigail along with the mentioning of her being an orphan because it contributes to the remorse readers should feel for her at the end of the novel. All in all, every event or moment today impacts the future for better or worse and eventually shapes people into what they are today.
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.
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
In every family, there is one child that is always very misleading and evil, and besides that, they get away with everything that they do that is unsound. The certain person in the family may break on of you mom’s favorite plate, and then end up placing the blame on you, and then persuades your parents that he or she is telling the true. Abigail Williams is the poor duplicate of that sibling or relative. She influences everyone that she is an innocent teenage girl, but that is not the case throughout the play. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail is the bona fide misleading and evil teenage girl.
First, In the book The Crucible Abigail Williams is the vengeful, manipulative, and a liar. She seems to be uniquely gifted at spreading death and destruction wherever she goes. She has a sense of how to manipulate others and gain control over them. All these things add up to make her one good antagonist with a dark side. In Act I, her skills at manipulation are on full display. When she's on the brink of getting busted for witchcraft, she skillfully manages to pin the whole thing on Tituba and several of Salems other second class citizens. Also since Abigail's affair with John Proctor, she's been out to get Elizabeth, his wife. She convinced Tituba to put a curse on Elizabeth, hoping to get rid of her and take
How can a girl who condemned seventy two to a death sentence and drank a charm to kill a man’s wife, a man she has slept with on more than one occasion be the victim? It’s possible when the town she lives in is worse than her. Although Abigail Williams is typically thought of as the antagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, she is in fact a victim as much as any other tragic character in the play.
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 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.
Abigail Williams the main character in The Crucible by Arthur Miller draws the interest of the reader as she is a wicked, confident girl who lies to get what she wants and defends her name and her life.
At the beginning of the play Abigail’s motive is to save herself and her reputation; at the end of the play she realizes that she only wants to be with John. She even accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft to get rid of her, so she could be with him. According to the text “Why-! The girl is murder! She must be ripped out of this world!” Page 76 Act Two. This quote shows that Elizabeth knows that Abigail wants to get rid of her. Elizabeth changes by how she treats John throughout the play. At the beginning she is cold towards John because of his affair with Abigail. Towards the end when he finally confesses that he committed lechery; she treats him better by loving and caring more for him. At the end she just wants John to be free with in his decision with the confession. According to the text “I am not your judge, I cannot be. Do as you will, do as you will.” Page 138 Act. This quote proves Elizabeth cannot be the judge of John in this decision, but it is his will.
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...
Upholding one’s reputation is a common theme in The Crucible. Abigail Williams and her uncle Reverend Parris seem to be exceptionally careful with what they do to keep the reputation they have. Abigail Williams does a lot so she does not jeopardize her own reputation, even though it puts other’s lives at risk. To begin, Abigail lies about the events that partake in the woods. At first, Abigail said her and the girls were just dancing, but the truth crawled its way out of Abigail eventually. Next, Abigail threatens the girls to keep quiet:
In The Crucible, Abigail Williams is a cunning, manipulating and deceitful character who thought of an idea where she can get away with anything without fearing any consequences. A teenager never looked at as a dangerous character by her society; Abigail figured that she could avoid trouble by making up lies to cover up her practicing witch craft. When the other girls from her community who were also involved in this started feeling guilty, Abigail verbally threatened by saying "..Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shutter you. And you know I can do it.."(Act I, 20). She never did play around with her getting in trouble and ruining her chances to be with John Proctor, the man whom she was most in love with. Elizabeth and Abigail are merely opposite of each other. A faithful wife to John Proctor, Elizabeth was more than a bystander in her commu...
The play, The Crucible, is a fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled into one magnification. It is a play with tremendous feelings, with many inside twists hidden in the archives of the true story. It is a play with emotional feelings; feelings of anger, hate, and evil, yet also feelings of goodness, and pureness. Undeniably, The Crucible is a play illustrating good versus evil. The principal characters, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Ann Putnam and Marry Warren all contain within them elements of good and evil.
“All is fair in love and war” is a saying that has been present for centuries. It suggests that nothing is out of bounds when involving these two vital parts of a person’s mind, and in a war between love and hate, anything is acceptable or fair. The character Abigail Williams from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible gives a whole new meaning to the well-known phrase. By making Abigail a selfish yet mature character, she proves to be more complex, and therefore more developed than villains of past literature.
...than be accused of lying and lose all the power and adulation she has fought to hold on to. As soon as Abigail realized people were beginning to suspect her integrity, however, her initial instinct was to flee. Parris, her uncle, was the first to notice this, telling the court, “My niece, sir, my niece – I believe she has vanished.” This exemplifies her selfish behavior, because instead of taking responsibility for her actions, she would rather cowardly run from her problems.