Abigail Williams And Elizabeth In The Crucible

Abigail gets many people in trouble when she starts a series of lies after her affair with John Proctor. During the play, Abigail’s manipulative, selfish, and vengeful traits come out. One of Abigail’s main traits is her manipulative personality. For an example, Abigail threatens the other girls while they are alone and says “…let either of you breathe a word about the other things…I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (Miller 13). Abigail didn 't want her reputation to be ruined by having different story about what happened in the woods than the other girls so she forced them to lie with her.

She threatens the other girls with violence if they refuse to go along with her plans, and she does not hesitate to accuse them of witchcraft if their loyalty proves untrue: “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 19). In one of the court scenes, she claims, “Oh, Heavenly Father, take away this shadow!” (Miller 97), to prove that Mary Warren is threatening her with something evil. The hypocritical reference to God in order to trick the individuals in Salem reinforces Abigail’s cunning and devious character and the readers are given a sense of Abigail’s intelligence as she manages to perfectly manipulate the situation to her

This causes Proctor to confront Abigail and tell her he will not continue to live in dishonesty. “But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind” (Miller 1270). Proctor is honest with her and he is feeling remorseful. This infuriates Abigail and she turns to revenge.

She is mean. She shows that she is mean by threatening the lives of the girls if they say anything about witchcraft. “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” (act 1 line 460) She also shows that she is mean when she is coping Mary making the pastors in the court believe that Mary is a witch. “Mary- Abby stop it, Abby- Abby stop it”. (act 3) Abby is a killer.

Warren soon regrets her decision and looks to reconcile. The power she holds scares her and she wished to appease her past deeds od accusing anyone and everyone in the town of witchcraft. Mary works for the Proctors, and her ties seem to cause her guilt when she ultimately accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft and attempting to kill her. To rescind her actions Mary states “ Why, I-I think it is mine. [the poppet]” (Miller 75).

“But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again” (Miller 146). This highlights John's hate for Abigail and how he would hurt himself than touch her again. John loves his wife and even though he cheated on her before he never wants to hurt her again. Abigail feels that John’s wife, Elizabeth, is an evil woman and is trying to blacken her name in the village.

Abigail was also a bully to many people. She was a bully to everyone in the group that was in the woods. Abigail was especially mean to Mary Warren because Mary Warren wanted to quit, she wanted to tell the truth and stay out of trouble. As Abigail was almost like a leader to the group of girls in the forest, she wanted them to obey her, yet she was mean and forceful in her ways of leading the girls. She wanted them to obey her, so she would threaten to kill them so they would keep quiet.3 Abigail is very deceiving and lied often.

This is evident when she states that Goody proctor is “ a cold, snivelling woman” where it is encouraged to believe that Elizabeth Proctor is a nasty person, however Abigail is not as innocent as she claims to be. Abigail’s dominance and manipulative nature is particularly shown over the girls, after she influences them to follow in her footsteps by naming others who are affiliating with the devil, by doing so they posses power and protect themselves from any accusations against them. Abigail goes to great lengths to get what she wants,

Abigail was weak enough to want revenge on Elizabeth Proctor and kill her so John could love Abigail. “Now little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law” (Hale) Abigail Williams in the Crucible is a despicable character that is toxic to every person she commerses with. She portrays the evil of the world and the weakness of fear. She longed for love because of her loneliness and guilt that she could feel deep down inside of her soul. Miller wrote a wonderful play that gave us the thought of how we need to stay strong in the right and smart choices instead of falling to the ridiculous accusations that people make just to get revenge on others.

She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a—”. In this quote, it describes her anger, for John Proctor 's wife Elizabeth. Abigail was just trying to get rid of John 's wife Elizabeth, and try to get back into his life, however John didn’t accept her words of his own wife.