More handpicked essays just for you.
What are abigail williams motives in the crucible
Conflict in the Crucible by Arthur Miller
Jealousy in the crucible
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: What are abigail williams motives in the crucible
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, there are many themes surrounding the Salem Witch trials that are discussed. However, jealousy seems to be the most detrimental to the entire city. After all, Abigail’s jealousy of the life that Elizabeth Proctor led with her husband John was the incendiary device that began the Salem Witch Trials. In The ssCrucible, jealousy is truly considered the root of all evil.
Abigail, a former house servant to the proctor family, began to imagine her life along side of John Proctor. She becomes infatuated with John and although he is married, she is intent on being with him. When their passion becomes too strong to resist, they have a torrid love affair and she becomes more or less obsessed with him. When he says to her “but I will cut off my hand before I reach for you again” (Miller 22) and refuses to speak any more of their affair, her jealousy rages out of control and she has to devise a plan to win him over.
…show more content…
She seeks the advice of her uncle’s slave, Tituba, a known witch doctor. Tituba describes the power of a charm of chicken’s blood to Abigail that she claims can kill Elizabeth; therefore Abigail could take her place in the Proctor household. Abigail teams up with her cousin Betty and Tituba takes them into the woods to cast the spell. All is going according to plan until Paris, Abigail’s uncle and Betty’s father, sees the light from the fire they are dancing around, and goes to find where it is coming from. After they were caught, in order to protect themselves, Betty pretends to be bewitched and Abigail starts to name other
Before the play takes place, Abigail Williams and John Proctor had an affair while Abigail was working as a servant in their home. Eventually, John confessed and apologized to Elizabeth, pledging his faithfulness to her. Nonetheless, at the time the play takes place, Elizabeth still hasn’t fully forgiven him, and gives him a hard time about it. Abigail confessed the pretense of her accusations to him when they were alone, and now he has no way to prove that she’s lying to the court. But because he was alone with her again, Elizabeth becomes angry with him. She still doubts her husband because she feels that if it were any other girl he had to go testify against, he would not hesitate. But, because it’s Abigail, John feels he has to think harder on making a decision. He doesn’t want his name spoiled by a counter-testimony. John feels he is now justified in becoming angry because for the seven months since his confession, he has done nothing but try to please his wife, and she still approaches him with suspicion and accusatio...
John Proctor a well-respected man in the city of Salem has a deep secret that plays a major role later on in the story. He had an intimate affair with a younger single girl named Abigail which he regrets greatly. Proctor shows his disgust when he argues with Abigail by insisting, “Abby I never give you hope to wait for me” (page168). Proctor exclaims that he surely regrets his sin and doesn’t want Abigail to think that he loves her and not his own wife. Although Proctor may still have feelings about Abigail he reassures her that he will never have emotional relationships with her ever again. He had the ultimate opportunity to get back at Abigail and stop the witch trials from happening when he meets Abigail alone in the woods; upon their encounter she confesses to John, “We were dancing in the woods last night and my uncle leaped in ...
Abigail’s mendacity is a driving force throughout the play. It becomes clear early on in Act One that Abigail is hiding something. Her reactions to her uncles questioning of her name and reasons for discharge from Goody Proctors service are curious. The stage directions indicate that she answers “with an edge of resentment,” “with ill concealed resentment” and “in a temper.” She defends herself by slandering Goody Proctor. When she and her friends were together and realized that they could be in serious trouble she told them exactly what to say and threatened them if they did otherwise. When pressed with questions about the night of dancing in the woods and drinking blood, she tells blatant lies about Tituba by saying, “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” (1154). This is known to be a lie because earlier when the girls were discussing their alibi, it came out that Abigail drank the bloody charm to kill John Proctor’s wife. Tituba says that
Many of the characters in Arthur Miller's The Crucible have specific human flaws that cause the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem villagers exhibit failings, including greed, vengeance, and fear, which eventually lead to the downfall of their town. Many villagers, especially Abigail Williams, take advantage of the opportunity to seek vengeance on others through the trials. Greed for power and land often holds precedence when the hysteria takes over. Fear of being arrested or put to death is the key motivation in turning others in as witches. From these three human flaws, the town of Salem falls into chaos with many innocent people paying the price.
She said to the girls “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 a pointy reckoning that will shudder you”. (Miller 20) Abigail only wanted one thing she could not have which was a married man. When in court John begins to reveal his affair with Abigail. However Abigail is asked about the affair with John Proctor and she completely denies it.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.
Right when he finds them, Betty becomes sick and won't talk or open her eyes, about this time other people's daughters become sick too. Rumors spread that witch craft is involved in Betty's illness and the development of the plot begins. Important to the major development of the plot is the fact that in the forest, Abigail and the others were just playing like witches. But they were following Abigail because she wanted to try to put a curse on a lady named Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail was in love with Mrs. Proctor's husband, John Proctor, and she wanted to some how get rid of Elizabeth.
John Proctor and Abigail had an affair. After, John Proctor doesn’t want anything to do with
In every conflict there always seems to be at least one person to blame. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, many problems arise that deal with live and death. Many innocent people in this play were hanged during the Salem Witch Trials. Of course, there are many people that may be blamed. In The Crucible, one may find Abigail Williams, The Putnams, and Mary Warren to blame. Abigail was manipulative, The Putnams were very jealous, and Mary Warren was weak-willed.
After John hears about people crying witchcraft, he decides to go into town to get the truth about what is really happening. He goes to talk to Parris, but afterwards runs into Abigail. When he talks to her, she tells him what really happened when all of the girls were in the woods. After hearing her side of the story, Abigail begins to tell John about how much she has missed him. She even says that she has missed him so much; that she see’s him at night by her window. John explains to her that the feelings he once had for her are long gone. This news doesn’t sit well with Abigail. She then tells him: “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart” (Miller 1247). The feelings that Abigail still has towards John are not reciprocated. John is trying desperately to put what he had with Abigail behind him. Abigail doesn’t like the way that John dismissed her feelings for him, which caused her to take things into her own hands. Cheever comes to John and Elizabeth’s home after hearing what happened to Abigail while she was at her house. He then asks Elizabeth if she has any poppets in her home, to which she replied no. Cheever then saw the poppet that Mary Warren had given Elizabeth earlier that day after she had returned from court. He begins to examine the doll, to which he finds a needle stuck in the poppets stomach. Cheever then goes to explain what unfolded at Reverend Parris’
John Proctor faces many decisions in response to his moral dilemma to try to save his life. One of the difficult decisions John makes is to reveal that he had an affair with Abigail Williams and thereby has committed adultery. If the local court convicts him of this crime, he faces being jailed. Also by admitting this crime, John reveals a weakness in his character. This flaw in his personality will make it harder for him to stand up in the community as an honorable and believable person. In trying to convince others that witchcraft does not exist John’s dishonesty with his wife will make him less convincing to the community.
Throughout the entire play, Abigail is angry at John for not loving her back after the affair which preceded the play. Abigail is speaking to John, and she claims that he is still in love with her. As John rejects this idea, Abigail stills desires love from John. In Act I, Abigail says,“It’s she that 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 do now (Miller I).” She is using her words to manipulate John into loving her. Later in the play, she accuses John’s wife of witchcraft to get back at John. This backfires on her when John dies at the end of the play. Abigail quickly becomes an adversary of John after she harasses his family and his life. Abigail shows her anger towards John Proctor by accusing his wife and eventually hanging
Abigail states the facts of the situation and proves the close relationship that she and John had. John saw Abigail differently at the time and ignored his morals regarding the right thing to do. He chose to see Abigail and be alone with her where he made bad decisions and committed the crime of adultery. John Proctor executed immoral actions which created problems for his relationship with Elizabeth. During a private conversation between John and Elizabeth, John lets the information that he was alone in a room with Abigail slip out during one of their arguments. Not taking into account of what he said, Elizabeth notices and questions him on it. Earlier, from when John admitted to his meetings alone with Abigail, Elizabeth gets angry with him and insecure about herself in comparison with Abigail, “You’ll tear it free – when you come to know that I will be your only wife, or no wife at all! She has an arrow in you yet, John Proctor, and you know it well! (Miller 62) There is tension in the air between the two, causing their relationship to become more distant. John’s actions with Abigail have caused the bond with his wife to be problematic and lacking of trust. To add on, Elizabeth strictly points out her opinion on this, claiming that she does not tolerate cheating and that she will be his only wife or no wife of his at all. This puts their relationship at stake because it causes John to be required to make the right decision if he wants to hold onto Elizabeth in his life. He has to deal with the consequences to his immoral actions and try to earn back Elizabeth’s trust to get their relationship back on track again. As a result, when one commits adultery, it causes close relationships to escalate to a problematic
This all started when Abigail tried to get John Proctor to admit his love for her. She attempts this by flirting with John Proctor and
John Proctor, whether consciously or not, constantly determines the path to his fate through his actions, choices, and judgment. Though overall he is an honorable and principled man, he is flawed by one crucially harmful past deed to his reputation—his committing of adultery with seventeen-year-old Abigail Putnam. In a final attempt to save his wife from the accusation of witchcraft, he admits to his crime of lechery, by which he plans to unveil Abigail’s true motive for accusing his wife Elizabeth: “A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that…She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it, I set myself entirely in your hands” (Miller 113). This merely warrants him harshly disapproving views from his puritanical peers, and not even this act of utter honesty and sacrifice can reverse the witch trial hysteria that his affair with Abigail sparked. Both he and his wife Elizabeth are jailed, he is hanged, and Abigail maintains po...