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Essay On Abigail In The Crucible

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Abigail, Reverend Parris’s niece, is miserable because she can not control her love for John Proctor. Also, she can not control that John Proctor is already married and that Abigail can never have any importance in John’s life. When writing the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller, the author, could choose how he wanted the characters to be. He could choose each character’s background, beliefs, and their importance throughout the play. Arthur Miller wants for the audience to create their own opinion on the character Abigail. At first he does not give a lot of information on Abigail, but he slowly adds in his own preference through stage directions, other character’s, and Abigail’s own dialogue. The first technique that Arthur Miller uses to prove …show more content…

However, this is inaccurate because Arthur Miller shows that Abigail is controlling through her own dialogue. Here Abigail threatens Mary Warren, Betty, Mercy, and other girls. She shows here that if anyone tells the truth about what really happened in the forest, she will kill them. This is one opportunity for the audience to see the evil in Abigail. Also, for the audience to feel threatened themselves and to feel frightened or surprised to see Abigail's true colors underneath all of her lies. Danforth is questioning Abigail and begins to become suspicious of whether or not Abigail is telling the truth, when Abigail changes subjects to ensure that the court will side with her. It is now clear to the audience what Abigail is trying to do. Abigail lies and misleads the court to believing that there is still witchcraft around. All of Abigail's followers that are too afraid to go against her in fear of being killed, are going along with Abigail about the wind that supposedly Mary Warren sent upon her. With more than just one girl acting upon the coldness the court begins to believe in Abigail again. Mary Warren now stands no chance. In addition, Abigail comes up with more false information as the play goes on. Her stutter in the beginning of her quote proves that she does not know what to say next. Arthur Miller uses Abigail's own dialogue to persuade the audience of her antagonist

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In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams and John Proctor are known to have had an adulterous affair with one another. Even though both John Proctor and Abigail are worthy of blame for their actions, Abigail is the most culpable of the two. In The Crucible, Abigail is the most to blame because of her “tempting” Proctor to carrying out the act more. During Act 1, Abigail is shown to keep egging on Proctor although he does not want to have the affair with her anymore.

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Abigail Williams: The Conniving Woman of the Crucible The Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Massachusetts in 1629. Many people were accused of being a witch and many lives were lost. In Author Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail Williams is the most to blame for the events of the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail is one of the main characters in the play.

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Abigail’s affair with John Proctor, which had ended seven months previous to the beginning of the play, causes her to be blinded by desire. She uses the witch trials to get revenge on anyone she wants, but her main target is to kill Elizabeth Proctor, John’s wife. Abigail bullies girls in her town to be loyal to her, while she feels no loyalty towards them. One of the girls Abigail bullies is Mary Warren, a servant of the Proctor’s. Mary tries to stand up to Abigail and tell everyone it’s all a lie, however, when Abigail threatens her of witchcraft, she gives up and joins Abigail again.

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Abigail defies all judgements against innocence as she is the driven evil force in The Crucible. Arthur Miller shows Abigail Williams to instinctively defend herself, as it is the humane reaction when accused of wrongdoing. It is common to tell a lie but, the intention of sabotage is a different story. Abigail had many tricks up her sleeve to manipulate the court. Her purpose to convince the town of her innocence was one of many.

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In The Crucible, Miller described Abigail as a “beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling” (Miller 142). In the story, Williams serves as the

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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.

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(I.465-472). Seeing Abigail cry, it suggests that Abigail’s affair with John Proctor has influenced her behavior in jealousy and lust as she strives for nothing more than her love for John Proctor. By only being heartbroken, Abigail is not to be fully blamed for the hysteria within the town as her actions are only based on desperate attempts to win John Proctor over, and no intentional harm whatsoever. However, on the other hand, Abigail cannot be excused with outside forces making her the way she is due to the fact that she has clearly had a choice in most of her decisions and actions throughout the witchcraft crisis. When Mary Warren, another girl involved in the forest incident, enters the court, she explains to Danforth, the judge, that the girls are lying and are only pretending to see spirits.

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(Miller 12). This quote shows how Abigail has changed and what she’d do if she was confronted with such a situation. She made the decision quickly and opted to only save herself. Over the course of the book it gets represented pretty well that she is capable of doing everything to hold up her reputation: she wants to be a saint. Every decision she makes is like a little test that shows what kind of person and friend she is.

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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

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Abigail shivers, “I-I know not. A wind, a cold wind, has come. ”(Act 3). Abigail is lying by saying she feels a cold wind Mary Warren sent to her. She gets all the power and attention in the court and gets Judge Danforth to believe

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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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Abigail finally sees the outturn of her lies she has made for what she wants. Proctor is hanged which she didn’t attend to do, but now pays the price. She also found out what lying can do “They’re pretending, Mr. Danforth... Mary, please don’t hurt me!.”(miller 120-121). Lying has made her corrupt and is used to persuade to make harm with.

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Abigail Williams, the main antagonist of the play, uses her sharp wit and manipulative personality in order to gain power through causing hysteria and chaos in a restrictive 17th century Salem environment. The attention Abigail draws to herself through the accusations made in the witch trials generate a great source of power for her, when Abigail and John Proctor, of whom previously had an affair have a conversation regarding the witch trials she says, “I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?”(Miller 21). Through her relationship with John Proctor, Abigail gains power due to the fact that they share a mutual liking for each other and John is married to

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Nicole Schaefer Mr. Becker American Literature October 29, 2014 Two Women for Two Different Worlds In the novel the crucible, Elizabeth, wife of John Proctor, and Abigail Williams, mistress of John Proctor are two main roles. Elizabeth, a woman who is loyal and true, or manipulative and ruthless liar, Abigail. She pretends to see spirits and commands the other girls to pretend as well.

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Abigail Williams is not your typical teenage girl. She is a girl that will drink blood to kill someone, accuse people of witchcraft, and have a affair. By looking at The Crucible, one can see that Abigail Williams develops the theme of reputation, which is important because people who fear losing their reputation spread hysteria. Protecting her reputation motivates Abigail Williams to accuse others of being a witch.

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