Abigail Williams Roles

Abigail Williams develops significantly as a character throughout The Crucible. Her gender plays a vital role in this development, primarily because of her age and current situation. Her decisions massively affect her growth as a woman during this time. Abigail has a tough time staying innocent just because of her gender because women were the ones who were most likely to be condemned, truthfully or falsely, as witches. Abigail’s relationships with other prominent characters in the play don’t develop all that much, especially because of Abigail’s cruel and untamed personality. Her relationship with Elizabeth Proctor stereotypically fits under a femininely jealousy-based relationship. Abigail sleeps with Elizabeth’s husband, John Proctor,

She’s unmarried, which during this time period and within the religion that she identified, being married as a woman was an important and honorable role, so the fact that she wasn’t married said a lot about her. Abigail was also avoided by the whole town because of her affair with John Proctor. Causing a married man to sin against God and his wife didn’t look good on her reputation. Abigail takes full advantage of her supposed power during the trials because she could accuse any of the other women whom she didn’t like, which made it very easy to get her revenge on Elizabeth because all she had to do was accuse her in court. She now had the opportunity to get her revenge on not only Elizabeth but also the people of Salem, because although they accused her of adultery, she could accuse them of something

They don’t seem to change no matter what backlash she gets from the people she calls her friends, and the local townspeople. Abigail begins by lying a tremendous amount just in the first part of Act One, she lies to Reverend Parris about basically anything she can get away with lying about. She also accuses many of her friends to be witches, and innocent people as well. It’s clear that Abigail only values her relationship with John, and she doesn’t even care if he wants her or not. It’s typical for teenage girls to want a guy no matter what, and want them so badly that they would do anything for them. Abigail is a clear example of this because she went to the extent of accusing John's wife, whom he is trying to repair his relationship with after she found out about the affair, of witchcraft. She doesn’t seem to care that John values his marriage with Elizabeth enough to cut ties with Abigail and try to repair their marriage. All she wants is