Abigail Williams: The Victim Upon the entrance of Abigail Williams one might think she appears as a behaved, but occasionally deceptive child, on the edge of maturity. One might be right, but there be more than what meets the eye. Is Abigail a victim or the culprit? It is evident that Abigail Williams is a victim of Salem due to her emotional scars from her past, the strict, overwhelming environment of the Puritan community, and the symptoms of insanity and power hunger she displayed. It is shown in the text that there are many underlying factors that created her to be a victim. If her past was the be examined it happened that there was a night when her parents were murdered by Indians in the bed beside her. It is obvious that this instance would create a traumatic experience that have permanent consequences, especially in the case of Abigail being a lady, to her emotions. This moment of her being abandoned in a horrendous tragedy could quite possibly have led her to a damaged and eventually destroyed …show more content…
Even the children of the Parris house are treated as young adults due to Reverend Parris’ parental apathy. As Abigail is forced, due to her circumstances, to live under his roof she must endure the lack of necessities she had needed after so much adversity in her life. The forcing the live in a Reverend of a Puritan church in a Puritan community may have been something that was too forceful for her to handle. The daily habits of the members of the community created such a dull life that in her perception was most likely overwhelming with emptiness and forced belief that she did not tolerate. Her emotional state along with the environment she lived in led to symptoms of insanity along with an insatiable hunger for
The Wicked Witch of Salem is back in action in the town of Salem. She’s accusing people of witchcraft to save her little tushy. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller Abigail Williams uses her manipulation skills to cause issues in Salem and get innocent people murdered. Abigail is one of the main characters in the book.
Deriving from her childhood, Abigail Williams seeked the attention and affiliation she never received as young girl. From this she was the prime reason for the hysteria and problems arousing from her town. She manipulated, lusted, and used her evil desires to send 19 innocent people to their deathbed all for her own satisfaction. She never attempted to mend the broken relationships she caused because she knew there was no turning back from her actions. She was suffocating from the problems amended by her own actions, which is why she maintained her bad reputation.
In the Salem Witch Trials, 141 people were arrested, 19 people were hanged, and one person was crushed to death. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the witch trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Abigail was the initial accuser of the witchcraft when she and a few other girls broke the rules. Abby had lied about what happened so she didn’t get punished. Abigail displays her villainous characteristics by telling lies, being manipulative, and leading nineteen innocent people to their untimely death.
This was a mistake that Abigail made because eventually, the blame landed on Proctor’s shoulders causing the loss of Proctor and there would be no accepting love left in Salem for her. Abigail’s only solution was to leave and so she ran off with stolen money (Act 4, 55). In the end, Abigail had nothing and she realized that the love she was looking for was not in Salem, Massachusetts. Her only solution was to start over and maybe she would not be vindictive and she would have more patience, but the events of The Salem Witch Trials had left her
Abigail sees the community of Salem, Massachusetts, very uneasy because it inspection of witchcraft. When she was a child, she watched both her parents die which could be the cause of her actions. Elizabeth knows that Abigail and her husband John had something going on. Although she goes through abounding efforts to get what she thirsts for by manipulating others, however, she fails. Since Abigail was close to getting exposed with witchcraft, she used her power to manipulate innocent people to get whatever she desires even if she has to assassinate someone.
Suspicion of witchcraft engulfed the entire community of Salem. Although nearly the entire community had been invested in the witchcraft trials, at the very center of it all was Abigail Williams. After suspicion of witchcraft was directed towards Abigail, fear inflicted her to divert the criticism. Abigail’s sense of empowerment over other community members of Salem
Whether a citizen wills to gain power or keep their power, accusing citizens of witch craft seemed to be the way to achieve power. Ultimate power and the ability to send anyone to their death becomes the same thing in Salem. Constantly the people in Salem struggle for power. Mr. Danforth, the judge in Salem has the characteristic of being power hungry, He maintains his power by sending people to death row. The Salem Witch trials are the response to power hungry individuals.
On the other hand, the author, Arthur Miller gives us a possible reason of Abigail's harsh actions. Abigail explains, “I saw Indians smash my dear parents' head on the pillow next to mine. "(Act 1).Through this quote Abigail's previous actions become more human due to the fact that a cause of her detrimental choices could have been tied to the fact of traumatic up bringing which included watching her parents being murdered. In a
In The Crucible, there could be many suspects to blame for the innocent deaths that happened in Salem. Proctor could be blamed for the innocent deaths because he lied about his affair with Abigail. Speaking of Abigail... in my opinion Abigail Williams is the one to blame for the innocent deaths because of the lies she told, the accusations she made, and the affair she had with John Proctor. Abigail Williams told many, many lies in The Crucible. The reason the witch trials began in the first place was because of the lie she told about being in the woods.
She did witchcraft in the forest with Tituba and other girls, had an affair with someone married, and is someone who has dark motives if she is ever angry with someone else. Abigail Williams needs to be brought to trial for not being mature and for the actions she has done, that way anything else could be prevented. From all the trouble caused in Salem, Abigail Williams should be prosecuted. She caused all the chaos and could cause more in the future.
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.
Miller tells us about Abigail 's childhood, namely about a tragedy she was witness to at a very young age. Her parents were both killed in front of her by the Indians. There is no doubt that this event affected her. No wonder she became brutal as an adult; she was too young to be exposed to such a gruesome
Character Analysis - Abigail Williams Sweet and funny are words usually used to describe teenage girls. This is not the case for Abigail William’s, she is the opposite of the average teenage girl. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Abigail is a naive young girl who viciously attacked Elizabeth with intelligence because she was jealous. First off, Abigail is in love with John Proctor and is oblivious to the fact that John will never love her back.
Reverend Parris is a tentative and hypocritical minister who focuses more on his social rank rather than the well-being of others. Parris stumbled upon a number of Salem girls, including his daughter and niece, dancing in the forest like freethinkers gone wild. Parris told Abigail that “his ministry is at stake” (Lines 112-119). He found his daughter and niece dancing and “conjuring spirits” in the woods, and the thing on his mind is the reputation of his ministry. Also, he says that Abigail is “blackening his name” when she talks about his reputation around Salem.
She’s the woman who holds grudges, is selfish, and a great liar. Abigail seems to be especially gifted at spreading destruction and chaos wherever she goes. She is able to manipulate others, for example, all her friends and the whole town. In addition, she obtains control over all of them and sends nineteen uninvolved people to their deaths. All these things add up.