The Downfall Of Abigail Williams In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Have you ever found yourself so deep into a lie that it felt too late to confess? Sometimes it’s easier to just keep it in to avoid getting in trouble, but then again, that means holding on to the guilt forever. This is the exact situation seventeen-year-old Abigail Williams from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible faced when she was caught dancing and conjuring spirits in the woods with a group of girls. To cover up her own faults, the deviously adroit Abigail started a lie claiming to see various Salem citizens “with the Devil,” in which the other girls follow suit. By doing this, Abigail and the others selfishly convicted many innocent people of witchcraft. Abigail’s flaws of lust, heartlessness, and stubbornness have led to the ultimate downfall

The first clue of Abigail’s longing for John was when she told Betty that she confessed, but Betty, knowing she had forgotten an important detail, exclaimed “You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” (Miller Act 1). Then, later in the act, Abigail admits to “waiting for John” every night, but he basically claims that while she is in his thoughts from time to time, it’s never going to happen (Miller Act 1). It is revealed in this conversation that they once had an affair, but if it had never happened, she would not have found herself casting spells in the woods to kill John Proctor’s wife. This in turn could have avoided the whole lie-filled situation that ripped her from an innocent

Abby seemed to show no sympathy whatsoever to any of the people wrongly affected by her scandal, though this is what “helped” her keep it up for so long. To start off, Abigail maliciously commanded the other girls to not tell anyone about what really went down in the forest, adding that she would come to them in the “black of some terrible night and bring a pointy reckoning” (Miller act 1). By saying this, Abigail was showing that---yes, she was indeed too afraid to confess herself--- but she was so craven that she wouldn’t even let another person do the confessing for her, contributing to the death of many. Another bullet point to add to Abigail’s list of heartless acts was her accusation of Tituba, a slave, attempting to demonize the girls and forcing them to go to the forest, when in actuality, it was Abigail who convinced Tituba to join them in the woods in the first place (Miller act 1). It takes a person who really does not care about others to say and do these things, and they are really what caused the whole crime to escalate into a fiasco that got the whole town involved. This all augmented a burning guilt in Abigail that could only be satisfied with confession, but that clearly was not her first