Antisocial Personality Disorder In The Crucible

In the late 1600s, early 1700s in Salem there is a seventeen year old girl named Abigail Williams, who is accused by her uncle, Reverend Parris, that he had seen her and a few others dancing and running naked in the woods (Miller, 1131). This information is the basis of the beginning of the play, The Crucible, that is written by Arthur Miller. He illustrates, a time when people lived as Puritans and were blamed of practicing witchcraft, which was considered a serious issue and many were put in prison, punished, and or put to death because of it. Knowing that practicing witchcraft can lead to one's death many accused citizens would do anything to save themselves. This leads into people having, APD, also known as antisocial personality disorder,

Abigail is an example of someone who has antisocial personality disorder because she is a liar, lacks the knowledge of right from wrong, and has no empathy or sympathy of hurting others.

Antisocial personality disorder is present in Abigail’s ways and actions because throughout the play she lies a great amount. In fact, it is a known that one of the symptoms in people having antisocial personality disorder is “persistent lying or deceit to exploit others” (Mayo Staff). Throughout most of the play Abigail makes statements and answers questions that people may believe at the time, but the readers know that most of what she is saying is a lie. To illustrate, in The Crucible Reverend Parris consults Abigail about why the Proctor’s had fired her, her answer was, “she hates me, uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave,” referring to Elizabeth Proctor (Miller, 1132). When the truth is that Elizabeth no longer wants her present in the household because when she did work for them, she had an affair with John Proctor, who is Elizabeth’s husband. Another example, would be when Abigail had been accused during a court hearing of drinking chicken blood while she was in the

For instance, when Betty had awakened, Abigail explained to her that she has told her uncle Parris everything that had happened the night in the woods. On the other hand, Betty turns around and exclaims, did you tell him that, “you drank blood,” because the night they were caught in the woods Tituba had told Abigail that if she drinks chicken blood it will kill Goody Proctor (Miller, 1136). Abigail drank the blood because she was told that it would kill Goody Proctor and wanting someone to die is a wrong thing to do. In addition, another example is when Abigail was brought into the courtroom and interrogated about calling the devil the night when she and the other girls were in the woods. Abigail answered to the question, with “Tituba, Tituba…” blaming Tituba for being the one that called the devil, but really she was telling Tituba and wanted her to (Miller,1152).When John Proctor saw Abigail for the first time, since after their affair she had gone up to him and was convincing him that he loved her and he still loves her, which is not true anymore, but she cannot accept it. After hearing what she had exclaimed he responded and said that she does not know what she is talking about and that what she is stating is, “a wild thing,” to be saying (Miller,1139).