ipl-logo

Abigail Lies In The Crucible

1451 Words6 Pages

“One lie is enough to question all truths,” starting from the time the audience finds out that Abigail lied about being naked in the forest in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, readers have a hard time believing anything and everything that comes out of her mouth henceforth. At first, it is difficult to find a motivation for Abigail’s lies, but as the plot unfolds, her motives as well as the motives of the other townsfolk who lie are revealed. According to Arthur Miller in The Crucible, circumstances that incite fear, love, greed, hatred, and ego motivate people to lie; these motives have always existed and all trace back to one common root, the desire to protect someone, either yourself or someone else. I believe that if one lies to protect a …show more content…

There is not a person alive who has not lied, be it a little white lie or a whopper. It is highly probable that Arthur Miller created Thomas Putnam’s character based off people in the McCarthy era who accused others of being dreaded communists for the sole purpose of monetary or material benefits. Similar to Thomas Putnam’s motive, the duke and the king from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lie about their royal status in order to loot money from their audiences. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a non-fiction novel, Henrietta Lacks lies about her fatal disease to her family and friends out of love, she does not want them to worry about her. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter lies about his adulterous affair in order to prevent tarnishing his virtuous reputation in Puritan Massachusetts. A lie that I often tell is one out of greed, if my little brother asks me where the T.V. remote is I tell him I don’t know when I know because then I can claim I found it first and be the one that gets to watch. Just like Thomas Putnam and the king and the duke, I too sometimes lie to get things to go my

Show More
Related
130 Words | 1 Pages

It becomes apparent in the very first Act that Abigail is not a trustworthy character. She is willing to throw blame at anyone to deflect the suspicion from herself, or even to gain something she wants. I suppose in some ways Abigail could be seen as a tragic character, but her manipulative nature sure makes it difficult to sympathize with her. She is willing to hang an innocent woman in her delusion that this will somehow result in John Proctor realizing his love for her. He has made it clear multiple times he has moved on and wishes to not see her but - of course - Abigail only persists.

Read More
524 Words | 3 Pages

How would Danforth, Hathorne, and the other authorities know that Abigail and the other girls are lying? They can tell they were lying because when you don’t stick to the same story and you are always mixing it up and telling a whole new story every time, then they know something is up. The one who is mostly lying in the situation was Abigail because she was the one who was lying on Elizabeth Proctor and Mary Warren, she was also the one who was always telling what she saw when she didn’t really seen anything, and she’s the one who danced around the fire naked. How could you tell if the girls was lying?

Read More
364 Words | 2 Pages

Can one girl make an entire town go crazy about witchcraft? Based on the facts found in the book “The Crusible”, most would say that many could be held responsible for the mass witchcraft hysteria. However, I strongly believe that Abigail Williams is the most responsible for the salem witch trials. Not only does she lie to the court and town’s people she also manipulates a few girls to go along with her plan. At first, Abigail lies to the court and town’s people about Tituba and Goody Proctor, resulting in them to go to jail and many deaths in the town.

Read More
613 Words | 3 Pages

In the play, “The Crucible” many innocent lives are taken because lies and deceit play a very broad role throughout the entire play. Some Salemnites fake to see spirits to cause others to fear the innocent and get their lives taken to please the fakers. A main character in the Crucible, Abigail Williams uses lying to get her way with the whole town, and to get revenge. Abigail has had an affair with John Proctor who is trying to rid all his sins because he is aware of all his wrongdoings. With Abigail and John’s actions Abigail has a strong connection with John and lies to try and get rid of his wife Elizabeth so her selfish self can have John to herself.

Read More
458 Words | 2 Pages

Although Abigail Williams does not physically appear in Act 2, her presence is felt throughout The Crucible. She affects and hurts the lives of her family. She is the main source of trouble. If she wants something, she'll get it. At the beginning, there is a lot of closeness between her and the proctor family.

Read More
692 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
287 Words | 2 Pages

Some people think that Abigail is not guilty of witchcraft but i do think she is guilty of witchcraft because she lies alot to a bunch of people. Usually some think that you are innocent until proven guilty but you can tell that she is but all the lies she tells. There is no doubt that Abigail is guilty because she lied about seeing the witches because she did not want to get in trouble by Mr. John Proctor. She danced with the witches in the woods and she was the lier of the whole entire town

Read More
587 Words | 3 Pages

“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.

Read More
812 Words | 4 Pages

The deaths of one hundred ninety-two men and women, but who is to blame for this careless act? The witch trials that occurred in 1692 were written about in the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller; he recapped the trials that were caused by one girls rumors and jealousy. I believe that the blame is not put on one character, but the entire town of Salem. According to dictionary.com the word villain means, “a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.” The villain's name in this story may be known as Abigail, but she manages to put the blame of witchcraft on the entirety of the town while getting her name out of the mix.

Read More
679 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever heard the saying that, “you cannot turn a whore into a housewife”? That is exactly what Abigail Williams wanted John Proctor to do. Abigail, mistress of John, tried her best to use her lying, manipulating, and whore-like ways to get herself out of trouble; not only with John, but all throughout the community. She constantly displayed her despicable ways all during the whole play. Most of all, Abigail was a liar; all within the play, she revealed all of her lying ways.

Read More
768 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
1772 Words | 8 Pages

What does it mean to be a victim of society? A victim of society can more or less be defined as someone who is harmed by their surrounding environment. However, being a victim of society is not nearly as it seems as people may easily play the victim in order to manipulate others, and that scenario holds true in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In this play, a crisis regarding the question of witchcraft is introduced in late eighteenth century Salem, a town ruled by a theocracy of predominantly Puritan beliefs. The dilemma first emerges when Betty, the daughter of Reverend Parris, the minister of Salem, is in almost a persistent vegetative state after having danced in the forest with Abigail Williams, Parris’s niece, and other girls within the

Read More
565 Words | 3 Pages

In a small village called Salem, witchcraft and sorcery exist, however everyone is pointing fingers but not a single soul knows who is actually to blame for this nonsense. During this time period of hysteria, there are multiple scenes that are very questionable due to one person and one person only. Abigail is the one most responsible for the hysteria and witchcraft in Salem. She threatens the group of girls that accompanied her in the woods while they all danced. She has also lied about many things on multiple occasions in which causes an extreme amount of suspicion.

Read More
465 Words | 2 Pages

In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, one of the characters who goes by the name of Abigail Williams is the orphaned niece of Reverend Parris, she was once the mistress of John Proctor but Elizabeth Proctor discovered the affair. Abigail is extremely jealous of Elizabeth she ends up using her power that she has in the town to get rid of her and anyone else that discredit her in the past. She will not let go of John Proctor and she is the leader of the girls, she tells lies manipulates the entire town and her friends. This sends nineteen guiltless people to their get hanged in front of the whole town while Abigail is still free of the harm and lies she told. Abigail Williams is selfish and a magnificent liar in Act 1 Abigail says “I never sold myself!

Read More
497 Words | 2 Pages

Often times there’s a point in a person’s life where one wonders if they’re crossing the red line when it comes to reaching their goals. When the lines a drawn and crossed, people suffer, much like the 20 sad souls who were executed in the Salem witch trials, or the 205 falsely accused state department officials. False accusations that ended and ruined people’s lives have been going on for ages like the examples before. Either for self-preservation or to cheat their way up, these things have always been embedded in human nature. Just like in Arthur Miller’s, The crucible, Abigail William’s false accusations propelled the community into its own demise, which also happened when McCarthy doomed 205 members of the state department with his accusations.

Read More

More about Abigail Lies In The Crucible

Related Topics

Open Document