In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible Abigail Williams, a young, headstrong woman , is the main villain of this story. Most people will say Abigail is the victim but the only thing she is a victim of is a broken heart. The reasons of her being the fellon are she started the witch hoax and tried to rid of Goody Proctor. Abigail commenced the whole witch hoax in order to save herself from getting into trouble for ‘dancing’ in the woods.
I do not agree with Ryder's assessment of Abigail. Initially, I think Abigail is selfish and is doing everything for herself so that she can have John Proctor. Abigail says, specifically, "oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be -." The quote supports what I think because Abigail wants John. Another one is, she started blaming other people to keep from getting whipped.
The Crucible Abigail was a corrupt, cynical, and dishonest character throughout the Salem witch trials. She accused innocent people of the community of Salem of being witches. Most of the time she did this in seek of revenge on the people, but other times she did it so that she wouldn’t get caught for lying. Abigail was not a very old character she was 14-18 years old and still single.
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams and John Proctor are known to have had an adulterous affair with one another. Even though both John Proctor and Abigail are worthy of blame for their actions, Abigail is the most culpable of the two. In The Crucible, Abigail is the most to blame because of her “tempting” Proctor to carrying out the act more. During Act 1, Abigail is shown to keep egging on Proctor although he does not want to have the affair with her anymore.
Abigail is to be blamed a lot, because she seduced John Proctor even though he had a wife. Elizabeth found out about the affair and Elizabeth told Abigail not to mess with her husband or she will regret it. Abigail confesses to withcraft saying that she gave her soul to the devil. She convinced other girls to cast spells with Tituba. She carefully planned the way she accused people in the community of withcraft , so she could be credible when she accused Elizabeth.
I think Abigail is to blame for the hysteria at the end of Act 1, because she accuses other people, lies, and tries to get what she wants. First, when Abigail says, “If they be questioning us tell them we danced- I told him as much already.”(18). Abigail is telling the other girls to lie to Reverend Parris about what happened in the woods that night he saw them. Fear is used to scare the girls into lying even though what they did was wrong, Abigail doesn’t want to lose the power of controlling and “witchcraft”. Secondly, Abigail is speaking to John Proctor saying, “Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be-.”(24).
Society try’s to control every member. The problem with this is each individual is different. Which means Abigail and the other girls are victims during the Salem trials in their town. In the play, “The Crucible,” written by A. Miller, Abigail is a victim to her society due to the fact that she is controlled by social rules, she is a female, and she has limited to no power.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play involving numerous conflicts and relationships between multiple characters with the setting of Salem, Massachusetts 1692 during the Witch Trials. The most prominent one of them all is between the protagonist, John Proctor, and the antagonist, Abigail Williams. Their relationship changes drastically throughout the four acts due to Abigail’s actions. This then leads to John Proctor becoming aware of her true personality and intentions. Before the play, John was on much better terms with Abigail, seeing as they had an affair, but in Act 1 those feelings seem to be a lot more muted.
“Inside each of us there is the seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win. And on cannot exist without the other”. (Eric Burdon) In Miller’s play The Crucible Abigail and Elizabeth both had to choose between good and evil.
Abigail cannot have John or be in a relationship with him since he is married to Elizabeth. Abigail is also angered at Elizabeth since Elizabeth is blackening Abigail’s name in Salem because Abigail had an affair with Elizabeth’s husband. Thus, Abigail decides to remove Elizabeth from John’s life by any means necessary. Abigail practices witchcraft by asking Tituba her uncle’s slave to make a charm that will kill Elizabeth, which she drinks while the girls are dancing in the woods (a forbidden act to do in Puritan society).
Sometimes there will be people who just seem to fit together flawlessly comparable to two dogs, but in the play it is like a cat being terrorised by a dog chasing it. In the play, The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller there are two contradictory characters. Elizabeth and Abigail are important characters who have opposite traits. Elizabeth is an extremely sweet and truthful women, and Abigail regularly tries to lie and be jealous. Throughout The Crucible Elizabeth and Abigail express truly opposite traits only to follow the theme of protecting their integrity.
While the play goes on, John Proctor is desire to have an affair with Abigail Williams and Elizabeth is starting to notices the situations between them. John views Abigail as a child and say “We never touched, Abby,” this is stating that he does not recognize that he is unfaithful at this point to Elizabeth (Miller 15). “I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again.” which he is expressing that he will actually cut his hands off to keep the peace between him and Elizabeth (Miller 15). He does not want anything goes wrong and hurt Elizabeth’s feeling because of having a affair with Abigail.
Abigail The Victim In the Crucible many are to blame for the events that occurred, but one of the one’s who seems to take blame the most is Abigail Williams. She holds most of the responsibility because she was to blame for the girls meeting with Tituba in the woods. When Parris located the girls in the woods, Abigail tries to hide her behavior because she fears that it will uncover her affair with Proctor if she confesses that she attempted to cast a spell on his wife, Elizabeth. Abigail also lies to avoid being punished for witchcraft.
When people think of the play, “The Crucible”, they usually picture the witch trials and women being hanged, but Arthur Miller depicts the witch trials in a completely new light. He shows through a story that the witch trials were much more than just people calling others witches. There was deceit, pain, greed, and more. Through the play, we follow the character, Abigail, observe her actions and their consequences. We witness the lives of people she impacts, what happens to them, and how many times she lies to get her way.
In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller does an incredible job of portraying the character’s personalities. From the beginning of the play, Miller is able to connect various different situations to dilemmas that are going on with the characters. A particular character in which Miller is able to show a collection of character traits is with Abigail Williams. Throughout the play, I found myself able to relate to many of Abigail 's characteristics. Abigail Williams and I both let jealousy evoke the best of us, are able to manipulate situations, and tend to be self absorbed.
