Abigail's Revenge In The Crucible

In The Crucible, Abigail is driven by her jealousy of Elizabeth, a hunger for power and sense of belonging, and a yearning for John. Abigail continues to review and edit her memories until they accurately portray her as the center of John’s existence. This obsession and grave desire for revenge puts her in a delusional state, so much so that she develops a detailed plan to acquire John and stops at nothing to see her plan succeed. Abigail lies to conceal her affair, and to prevent charges of witchcraft. In order to avoid severe punishment for casting spells, having an affair and attempting to murder Elizabeth, Abigail shifts the focus away from herself by accusing others of witchcraft. This desperate act of self-preservation becomes Abigail's

She threatens the other girls with violence if they refuse to go along with her plans, and she does not hesitate to accuse them of witchcraft if their loyalty proves untrue: “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!”(Miller 19). In one of the court scenes, she claims, “Oh, Heavenly Father, take away this shadow!” (Miller 97), to prove that Mary Warren is threatening her with something evil. The hypocritical reference to God in order to trick the individuals in Salem reinforces Abigail’s cunning and devious character and the readers are given a sense of Abigail’s intelligence as she manages to perfectly manipulate the situation to her

The men of the town have all the power and their rule is reinforced not only by law, but also by the supposed sanction of God. In this society, the lower rungs of the social ladder are unmarried youths like Abigail. Powerless in daily life, Abigail finds a sudden source of control in her alleged possession by the devil and the hysterical denunciation of her fellow townsfolk. The Puritans believe that the Devil is working to tempt human beings away from God. All references to witchcraft are connected with fear, suspicion and the collapse of normal social values. In the fervor of the witch trials, Abigail is put on a pedestal by the people of Salem and treated as though she has a direct connection with the Divine. Through cold calculation, Abigail carefully selects the people that she accuses in order to establish her credibility. Thus, she first accuses the town’s social deviants, as she knows the court is already predisposed to convict them. Soon a mere accusation from her becomes enough reason to convict even important, influential people. Abigail uses the witch hysteria that consumes Salem to secure herself from accusation, and gain control of the trials by accusing respectable people, before moving on to Elizabeth, and then in her desperation, she manipulates Mary Warren into eventually accusing John. “Abby' s lust threatens Proctor in many ways: she tempts him to sinning adultery in the first place;