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How does sarther miller describe abigail williams in the crucible
Essay about abigail williams THE CRUCIBLE BY ARTHUR MILLER
Essay about abigail williams THE CRUCIBLE BY ARTHUR MILLER
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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. Abigail Williams is the most misleading character in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. She is one of the type of people that no …show more content…
She does everything that is physically possible to get rid of her. She drinks a charm to kill Elizabeth, she stabs herself with a needle to accuse Elizabeth of a crime, Abigail also accuses Elizabeth of being a witch. The whole play, those were the only intentions that Abigail had, exterminate Elizabeth Proctor. Even though John decided to attempt to make the court look differently at Abigail and see what she has done to many people in the city of Salem. The misleading trait that Abigail has, helps her get out of a rocky situation without harm. The threatening of the girls, drinking a charm, stabbing herself with a needle, and accusing Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft are all the reasons that Abigail is also an evil individual. Abigail was the most misleading and evil character in the play written by Arthur Miller. In the position of a crisis happening, Abigail does not modify her intentions, she reveals her true colors. Many people in real life know a person that is the identical version of Abigail. That same person that you know may also be misleading and evil just like Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller’s play, The
Abigail Williams forms a continuous string of deceitful lies about the presence of witchcraft in Salem and her involvement with it, triggering the beginning of the trials and causing mayhem to permeate the town. Playwright Arthur Miller characterizes Abigail as "a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling"(8). Her fabrications induce calamity in Salem, and entangles many innocent people in her slanderous web of stories. In most cases, Abigail lies to evade discomfort or punishment. This pattern is first displayed when Reverend Hale interrogates Abigail:
Throughout the many acts of the play, we sense the anger rolling off Abigail’s words. “I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” By these words, we know that Abigail Williams is angry. She’s angry at John Proctor for trying to hide the crime he committed with her, and for the lack of closure she
In The Crucible, two characters that serve as a foil for each other are Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail. Elizabeth Proctor is known as an honest woman, while Abigail is consistently seen as a dishonest person whose lies result in the widespread paranoia of the Salem witch trials. For instance, after she dances in the forest with other girls, she forbids them from telling the townsfolk about it and accuses other people of witchcraft, which leads to their deaths. Another example is the fact that she had an affair with John Proctor, Elizabeth’s husband, and tries to conceal it because she does not want her reputation to get ruined. Her motive for accusing others of witchcraft is because she wants to get rid of Elizabeth so that she could be John’s “perfect wife,” and because she does not want to get in trouble. Abigail is the perfect foil for anyone who is even slightly honest.
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 The Crucible, Arthur Miller shows that the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials stems from human failings, particularly the need for vengeance, greed, and fear. Abigail Williams is an example of all three. Her fear prompts her to first accuse random women, her need for vengeance directs her toward Elizabeth, and her greed for power affects the lives of everyone around her. Individual flaws, when acted on collectively, inevitably cause the downfall of Salem.
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 shows much dislike for Elizabeth in the play and says to John "She is blackening my name in the village!" (Act 1). Once the town hears rumours of this affair they shun Abigail. This disengagement makes Abigail seek vengeance towards them; accusing many people of witchcraft. Abigail is a strong and determined character; she manipulates people to get herself out of her own trouble.
Abigail was able to easily deceive and manipulate the court to try and get what she had set her eyes on, being John Proctor; a much older, married man who had had an affair with Abigail once when she was a sort of servant in his household. After finding of this, his wife Elizabeth had banished Abigail from their house. Abigail sought revenge...
Her selfishness is evident when Abigail and her friends accuse the innocent people of Salem of witchcraft. She puts the blame on others, so she does not get punished for dancing in the woods. Abigail shows her anger towards John Proctor when she tries to accuse his wife and ultimately gets John killed. Her anger leads her to make the poor decisions of getting John killed, even though he did nothing wrong. She is a coward when she puts the blame on innocent people and runs away before John gets hung. Her craven attitude is the last flaw that ultimately leads her to run away from Salem. Abigail’s flaws eventually bring her to her downfall by the end of the
When Abigail was younger she witnessed both of her parent’s being killed. “I saw Indians smash my dear parent’s heads on the pillow next to mine”. (Miller 20) However in the beginning of The Crucible Abigail is portrayed to be innocent because she is an orphan and she saw the murder of her parents.
The absence of a healthy mind also can make a person evil, or do evil acts.Throughout the play, Abigail’s main objective is to replace Elizabeth Proctor and to save herself. She turns to extreme plans to do accomplish this. Convinced that she is doing the right thing, Abigail attempts to call upon the Devil to kill Goody Proctor. This delusion and ignorance to the severity of the situation is evil. Williams does not realize that calling the death upon another is a sinful act of harming one's neighbor. Instead she believes it is for the greater good. In Arthur Miller’s deleted scene, he touches upon Abigail's possible mental issue in another encounter with John Proctor. Displaying both a vulnerable side of Abigail and a violent one was deleted in hopes of stopping the reader to view her as innocent. However her mental state helps give reason to her actions. Abigail grabs and shouts at John, yelling, “Never in this world! I know you John-- you are this moment singing secret hallelujahs that your wife will hang!” (Miller 143). She manipulates her own mind to believe that the arrest of Elizabeth will be good for the two of them. With these thoughts Abigail continues with the evil acts of manipulation. The story sways her goals of killing a woman for her own advantage to killing others in order to save herself. Due to her feelings toward John, she not only schemes a plan to accuse Elizabeth of
Abigail also lied many other times throughout the play always in her own self interest.
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.
Abigail’s character is one of extreme manipulation; however it does not start out like this. In the beginning Abagail is an unwedded “orphan” (1.8) who lives with her uncle. This means she is only a little higher than being deemed a slave. This low social status is what drives her lust for John Proctor. Abigail’s main goal is to marry John Proctor and doing so displace his current wife Elizabeth. Abagail and John become seduced by each other and have an affair. “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge into my heart.” John however has tried to move on from his mistake with Abagail “And now you bid tear me the light out of my heart” (1.24) and redeem his marriage. This hurts Abagail, but then the witch trials begin. Abigail like other towns folk uses these trials to their advantage. Motivated by her lust for John she begins manipulating others around her and eventually schemes a plot to get Elizabeth hanged for witchery. “Abagail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Rev. Parris house tonight and without a word she fall to the floor, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly he draw a needle out. She testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.”(2.74) this shows Abigail’s manipulation of deceiving the people around her and planting false evidence to get Elizabeth accused of witchcraft, so that she may be with John.
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...