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Abigail William's Evidence Of Hysteria In The Crucible

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Abigail William’s sudden accusations made for hysteria for the people of Salem. The first signs of hysteria comes in Act I when Tituba says “You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm-” to which Abigail responds “Don't lie! She comes to me while I sleep; she’s always making me dream corruptions!” (41). Abigail has the upper hand when she first accuses Tituba of witchcraft. At first Tituba rejects the whole idea and speaks out against Abigail’s accusations but it's her word against Abigail and Tituba being a slave, her words count for much less. So she accepts the lie that Abigail has told and goes with it. Salem is a town big on belief, so all Tituba had to do was accept the devil was in her and that it needs to get it out. It was easier …show more content…

Back then, it was not normal for women to show a lot of skin and those who would were frowned upon. Now for something like women getting undressed completely out in the open and trying to do witchcraft is one of the reasons witchcraft is atrocious. “I have seen too many frightful proofs in court—the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points!” (68). The girls that Abigail threatened are starting to blame more and more people for witchcraft that led Hale to say this quote. The girls are now in complete control of the town and have got people going to whomever they point their finger out. This is empowerment. The girls have complete control over who lives and who dies and it all benefits them, and if someone does say the devil was inside them then it just makes the power of the girls stronger. The girls did all this for empowerment and personal gain or revenge and it's all working out for them. Thomas E. Porter puts up the argument on the side of law and says “One of the most persistent attitudes embodied in the myth of the Law is the notion of a "fair trial”. When we look back on The Crucible and look at the side of law, we realize that this was not the case. The people in the town of salem barely even had a trial, there was no way to prove that they were not a witch. They came into court and either accepted the accusation or

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Changing the Salem Hysteria Arthur Miller writes a play called The Crucible. In the play, there is a mass hysteria about witchcraft, all started by a group of girls lying about dancing in the woods. The people accused questioned and hanged if they did not confess. Two people that could have stopped the hysteria are Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor.

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In The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller, people who previously did not have power in the community of Salem saw the witch trials as a method to get revenge on those whom they disliked. In a patriarchal society, women didn’t have much of a say, and were confined to live a domestic life inside of their private homes. A normal teenage girl, Abigail Williams, took the opportunity of being listened to in order to aid her in renewing her relationship with John Proctor. In Act I, Abigail and her friends were just another face in the community of Salem Massachusetts until the hysteria reached the town. Once the trials had begun, Abigail and her friends claimed that they had seen Satan with whom they accused in order for the judges to believe what

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Abigail Williams is the source of the witchcraft hysteria in Salem. Abigail is first accused of bewitching Betty Parris in the woods one night. She quickly disputes the accusation by saying they: Ruth Putnam, Tituba, Betty Parris, Mary Warren, and Abigail herself, were only dancing despite it also being highly looked down upon. By starting out with this single lie, her story snowballs and eventually leads to the downfall of Salem. By associating herself with Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam, both of which are sick while Abigail is well, Abigail is submitting herself to a fight she can’t win unless she lies.

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Abigail falsely accused many, many people for witchcraft. Notably, in ACT 1, Abigail screams, “She comes to me every night to go drink blood!” (36) Abigail falsely accuses Tituba of witchcraft, for her own profit. Abigail wants only to keep her good name in the parish.

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Being female automatically means less power, so the girls “[become] intoxicated...by the terrible success of their imposture (acting), and [are] swept along by the frenzy they [have] occasioned” (Doc D) to get more power. After seeing that they have the power to condemn someone to death, the girls went power-crazy and started to accuse random women and men of witchcraft. Consequently, with each success, they become more more confident in their acting and continue to send innocent women to their deaths. Having this power makes the girls feel important and valued; because of this, they don’t care about the fact that helpless women are being sent to their demise. Additionally, whenever the accused person “[turns] up her eyes,... the eyes of the afflicted [turn up]” (Doc C).

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During the late 17th century a total of 200 people were accused of participating in witchcraft, while 19 people lost their lives to the mass hysteria. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a group of girls start a huge uproar in Salem, Massachusetts when they start screeching about Salemites being associated with the Devil. Throughout the play write, it shows the consequences of mass hysteria and how it puts people's lives in danger. Abigail Williams causes a wave of mass hysteria and because of her trickery, innocent people have died by her and the other girl’s actions, for this Abigail is the most unforgivable character in The Crucible.

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Since the beginning of time people have gone through trials in court to either be proven innocent or guilty. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller a massive number of people were being convicted in Salem, Massachusetts because of the witch trials. The law of the land states that everyone is above suspicion until they are demonstrated to be guilty by legitimate evidence; in the play the Crucible if a person was accused of an unlawful act they were summons for being a witch and working for the devil without proper confirmation. Citizens in Salem were imposed to establish their innocent or be put to death, which caused conflicting issues in the village.

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Once Abigail is indicted of witch craft she exclaims that Tituba "...sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer," Tituba quickly retaliates only for Abigail to inform Reverend Hale she is lying (Miller 43). Albeit Abigail wasn't so selfish and took the punishment she deserved, none of the accusations would have been made. Protecting herself was her only goal but little did she know that it started the whirlwind of dreadful events. Abigail makes things worse when she has to threaten the other girls such as Betty to lie. Abigail warns the girls that if, "...either of [them] breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and [she] will come to [them] in the black of some terrible night and [she] will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you" (Miller 20), it was crystal clear that if one rats her out they're dead.

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“Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you,” (Act I, 160). She was the first person in the play to accuse a person of seeing people summon spirits of the Devil. This caused a massive, wide-scale witch hunt to take place; families torn apart, mothers, fathers, and even children murdered for what was considered to be the greater good. Now, others began to accuse people of witchcraft and people who had been lifelong friends to each other now had no choice other than to point fingers at each other or be put to death. Widespread panic and unreasonable action was sweeping through everyone in Salem, all because of a little lie by

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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.

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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.

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This is called scapegoating. Although some believe that vengeance is the main purpose, it is actually scapegoating. The theme scapegoating is the main purpose of the play because the girls blamed innocent Puritans just to protect themselves. Abigail Williams

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