This one girl is responsible for the lives taken in the Salem witch trials of 1692. Abigail Williams is at fault for the Salem witch trials From the beginning to end she manipulated to cause the trails.From the beginning to end she manipulated the townspeople to cause the trails. She accused others of witchcraft which cost many lives just to save herself. She is guilty for the imprisonment and executions of innocent people.
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.
Abigail is the villain in this play. 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. Abigail 's heartless attitude is shown in act two when she frames and accuses Elizabeth Proctor for witchcraft. She desired and longed for this revenge on poor Proctors innocent wife, aiming for her through out the play. Later on in Act Three she seems to lose her last attachment of society by destroying John Proctor, who she claims to love with all her heart. When John attempts and threatens to expose Abigail’s wrong doings, she skillfully manages to turn the whole problem around on him, sending him off
Through the Trials of the Salem, the story will always have a person that will stand out when it is mentioned, and Abigail Williams takes the cake of being the most horrific, yet a great character in the story because it isn’t The Crucible without Abigail as being the antagonist and the tension builder. The Village will never forgive of what she did to all the innocent women she has killed. Abigail has shown that she is a very Dynamic character from her emotions, to her actions, and to her experiences she has made in
Abigail Williams was the main cause of Salem witch trials because Abigail was the first person to start accusing innocent people of witchcraft. Due to young Abigail actions, 20 innocent people took the calling of death for her actions. how many People do you know willing to lie and cheat the rules to get anything they want .? The fact that twenty people died all because of Abigail craving attention and wanting her own personal gain from accusing others of having spoken with the devil or witchery is insane. I blame Abigail for anything that has happened during the witch trials of Salem.
In Author Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail Williams is the most to blame for the events of the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail accused many innocent people of witchcraft and she also told lies about the people she thought were witches. She made her accusations very believable for the judges to put innocent people to death. In conclusion, I say Abigail Williams was the most to blame for the events of the Salem Witch Trails. Her character flaws of dishonesty, envy, and lust costed many innocent people their lives and left survivors of the Salem Witch Trails wretched
Arthur Miller shows Abigail Williams to instinctively defend herself, as it is the humane reaction when accused of wrongdoing. It is common to tell a lie but, the intention of sabotage is a different story. Abigail had many tricks up her sleeve to manipulate the court. Her purpose to convince the town of her innocence was one of many. She uses this in act one as the accusations begin. “I want to open myself! I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus!” (Miller, Arthur. The Crucible.) Abigail exclaims of her passion and love for God when in reality she is filled with sin and lust. Opportunity was given for honesty throughout The Crucible of which
During the Salem Witch Trials a lot of people were accused of using witchcraft. As a result
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.
In The Crucible, many of the characters were slightly altered from the original Salem Witch Trials to make the story more interesting. Abigail Williams was one of those characters. She has several changes, some major, some minor, but they affect the story in a big way. While there are many differences, there are also some historically accurate things about her thrown in as well. Abigail Williams from The Crucible has several similarities and differences from the Abigail Williams from the Salem Witch Trials.
Abigail is the character mainly to blame for the outrage in Salem. She is a liar, double faced hypocrite that will stop at nothing to get herself out of the mess that she created. Making her one of the main killers of these innocent puritan people. At the beginning of Act 1 Abigail confesses to dancing in the forest seen in the quote: “Abigail: We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Better was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it. Miller 10.” In this Puritan society something as simple as dancing is considered abnormal. Furthermore, since this takes place in the woods it raises more suspicion, this is
I do not agree with Winona Rider's statement on Abigail Williams' character flaws. Abigail was one of the first people to accuse others of witchcraft to keep herself out of trouble. This proves to the reader that she is quick to blame others and get another person in trouble to get what she wants. Abigail said that Goody Proctor sent her spirit to her and bit her breast so she could have Elizabeth taken and have John Proctor to herself. This further shows how Abigail will go through any trouble to get what she wants, even if she has to get someone to be hanged. Abigail Williams' character is far from being innocent. She started the main problem in The Crucible and blamed whoever she could to keep herself out of trouble. This character
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. Because of previous lies she was caught in a trap she was unable to escape from.