Abigail A Victim Of Society In The Crucible

During the late 17th century a total of 200 people were accused of participating in witchcraft, while 19 people lost their lives to the mass hysteria. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a group of girls start a huge uproar in Salem, Massachusetts when they start screeching about Salemites being associated with the Devil. Throughout the play write, it shows the consequences of mass hysteria and how it puts people's lives in danger. Abigail Williams causes a wave of mass hysteria and because of her trickery, innocent people have died by her and the other girl’s actions, for this Abigail is the most unforgivable character in The Crucible.

Society as a whole seeks to satisfy themselves. This may be at the expense of their peers or individuals they are associated with. Arthur Miller brilliantly displays this dark side of humanity’s side in his play The Crucible. This play is based on the Salem witch trials in the early 1690s. During the Salem witch trials over two hundred people were accused of witchcraft and twenty were executed. Miller best depicts the evils in people through the main prosecutor in the the play Abigail Williams. Abigail is undeniably the most destructive and corrupt individual in The Crucible. Through her vengefulness, threatening her peers, carelessness at others’ expense, and complete disregard for human life, she ensues a tumultuous event to Salem.

One of the most powerful human emotions is desire. Everyone is constantly trying to fulfill their own desires. A desire or passion may be so strong it can conflict with morality. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams, is driven to go against her moral duty and pursue John Proctor. She will stop at nothing to see her plan through. Abigail is willing to accuse any one in her path of witchcraft even if it means taking the lives of those close to her. Abigail Williams’ emotional desire guides her actions even if it conflicts with morality.

For example, Abigail harshly threatens the girls with the fact that she is capable of killing them. The group of girls, deciding that keeping quiet is far better than being murdered,

In the novel the crucible, Elizabeth, wife of John Proctor, and Abigail Williams, mistress of John Proctor are two main roles. Elizabeth, a woman who is loyal and true, or manipulative and ruthless liar, Abigail. She pretends to see spirits and commands the other girls to pretend as well. Elizabeth is the victim of Abigail’s heartless actions and affair. These two women are almost complete opposites. Both characters struggle and fight through the story in their own ways.

Abigail has shown that she has grown mentally and emotionally. In the beginning of the story, it shows that she is a very superior person as being the reverend’s niece. She evidently changes when she had the power of

In the play Abigail only cares about herself and what she can do to protect herself. When the girls talk in Betty’s room and Mary shows weakness and wants to tell everyone about what they did in the forest, Abigail gets really angry. She threatens the girls and is not afraid to show what she is willing to do. “Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this – 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. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ head on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!” (Miller 12). This quote shows how Abigail has changed and what she’d do if she was confronted with such a situation. She made the decision quickly and opted to only save herself. Over the course of the book it gets represented pretty well that she is capable of doing everything to hold up her reputation: she wants to be a saint. Every decision she makes is like a little test that shows what kind of person and friend she is. Coming off of this she doesn’t perform well as an example as either of

Abigail displays dishonesty in the play because she lied about her and the other girls conjuring spirits in the woods. Abigail lied to her uncle and told him “It were sport uncle” (Miller 10 and 11) .Abigail’s uncle questions her about why she was kicked out of Elizabeth

One of the main elements that eventually build up to the main plot in the play is power. Many of the characters in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible have a strong desire for power. The Salem witch trials empowered several characters in the play who were previously marginalized in Salem society. It gave them the chance to misuse it leading to horrible suffering and even deaths of some innocent people in the town. Some of these characters are Abigail Williams, Deputy Governor Danforth and Reverend Parris.

Although Abigail Williams does not physically appear in Act 2, her presence is felt throughout The Crucible. She affects and hurts the lives of her family. She is the main source of trouble. If she wants something, she'll get it. At the beginning, there is a lot of closeness between her and the proctor family. Now we learn that all of the problems lead directly to Abigail. She is not to be trusted and would just bring pain.

Abigail had to deal with suffering at a young age, when her parents were brutally murdered in front of her by Native Americans. The death of parents is stressful, more so when you are such a tender age. What happened to Abigail was so stressful that she had a mental breakdown. Abigail developed a sociopathic disorder, from not being able to handle the amount of suffer and stress she had. This suffering caused Abigail to make horrible decisions, she had a relationship with a married man and accused people of being witches. These accusations ended up overwhelming Abigail to the point that she ran away, showing that suffering causes more

Adolescent minds are the most intelligent kind of mind. A young brain is filled with creativity, imagination and innocence. Though the thought process of a teen is assumed to be selfish there are other factors involved. A combination of these characteristics seems almost dangerous. One would undermine a juvenile to use these qualities to manipulate the court for their own selfish wishes or pleasures. Abigail defies all judgements against innocence as she is the driven evil force in The Crucible.

She does not care about the consequences her choices have on other people. In the beginning she endangers the other girls who were in the woods by turning the dancing into witchcraft when she drinks chicken’s blood and does not warn them of what she was going to do. Even so, compared to her following actions, that one would seem almost innocent. She has a complete disregard of the sanctity of life or any Christian values that she had been taught. She accuses or witnesses how innocent after innocent is sentenced to death or to a long time in prison. She managed to infiltrate herself into the justice system and convince the court of her lies, and then the court forces the people to either accuse neighbours or friends or to risk being hanged. Mass hysteria takes on the village, changing the social landscape completely, destroying friendships, families and taking human lives. Abigail just sits by through all of that, being more motivated by seeing her plans succeed and she enjoys the power her lies obtain her. This exemplifies that Abigail does not have love or simple lust, she is not just a bad person, but that she has pathological obsession and is living in her own mind, still thinking that John will come back to her and that would be the ultimate fulfillment of her

Abigail seems like an innocent girl to everybody however it is later found out that she is one of the people who puts herself before others and makes things worse to get herself out of trouble. In act one Reverend Hale was questioning Tituba, a slave from Barbados. Tituba was explaining what the dancing and the disturbance in the woods and Abigail says she “wasn’t conjuring spirits”(Miller ??) but in reality she was caught attempting to cast a spell on Elizabeth. The reason for her trying to cast a spell is because Abigail falls in love with John Proctor but he is married to Elizabeth but that doesn’t bother Abigail.

Around the time of the witch trials, the people in Salem were very religious. Rumors were easily spread and it was nearly impossible to prove yourself innocent if people were talking about you otherwise. During the witch hysteria, innocent people were imprisoned and and executed because someone has accused them of being a witch. It is understandable that some would accuse others to save themselves from imprisonment or from possible death. However, I believe Abigail should be held responsible for the imprisonment and execution of innocent people because she threaten the girls, so they would act bewitched and she also lied about getting stabbed by a needle and making it look like as if Elizabeth Proctor did it with witchcraft.