Examples Of Abigail Williams In The Crucible

Throughout history, there have been many times where we have been unable to escape the inevitable. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller displays a major historical event of the 17th century, the Salem Witch Trials. In the story, the antagonist, Abigail Williams, has an affair with John Proctor. When Proctor will not leave his wife, Elizabeth, for the girl, Abigail gathers her friends in the woods to wish death upon Elizabeth. Abigail’s uncle, Reverend Parris, finds them in the woods and instead of owning up to what they were doing, the girls claim they were under the influence of witchcraft. From there, they begin accusing people in the town of being witches. The witch trials in The Crucible were inevitable because Abigail was unwilling

During this time, the courts would accept anything as evidence. One example was witness testimony where they would believe “anyone who could attribute their misfortune to the sorcery of an accused person” (“Witchcraft in Salem” 2). Abigail could have easily made something up for this the court would believe her. Another example was spectral evidence “if anyone saw a ghost or spirit in the form of the accused, the person in question must be a witch” (“Witchcraft in Salem” 2). If someone were to use spectral evidence to get another person convicted, there would be no way to validate the spectral evidence as true. Therefore, none of the evidence Abigail used to get people convicted could have been true. It was easy to make up and the court should not have believed a word Abigail said without hard evidence that could have been proven. Some might say the witch trials were avoidable because they should have learned from the mistakes made during earlier trials, however, the witch trials in The Crucible were inevitable because Abigail was unwilling to ruin her reputation, she displayed unfavorable character traits, and she had personal rivalries with other characters in

At the time Abigail was living with her uncle, Samuel Parris, who was the Reverend of the town. Because of this, she had a good reputation in the eyes of the other townspeople. Abigail did not want this reputation tarnished because it would have reflected badly on her uncle who was raising her. Miller depicts how important this reputation is to her when Abigail exclaims, “She is blackening my name in the village! [Elizabeth] is telling lies about me!” (Miller 471). At this time, Elizabeth had fired Abigail from being their servant due to the fact that she suspected Abigail and John’s affair. Because of this, Abigail believes Elizabeth has dampened her reputation and is afraid of what the town might think of her for getting fired. In comparison to the real Abigail Williams, Miller stayed true to what was known of her when writing his play. Based on what is known, the real Abigail also wanted to keep a good reputation. There is evidence that “John Proctor was an outspoken critic of the girls, often calling them liars, and reportedly stated that they should be whipping for lying” which would explain why the girls accused him during an examination (Brooks 4). Proctor was one of many that became suspicious of what the girls had been doing in the woods with Tituba and instead of coming clean, Abigail accused people of witchcraft. Because Abigail went to such great lengths to protect her reputation, the witch trials were