Examples Of Abigail Williams In The Crucible

What if someone you care about was accused of doing a horrific act that they are indisputably innocent of and there is no way to prove it? What if you were accused of doing a horrific act that you certainly did and you could not prove it? What if you lived in a town where there was so much hysteria that the justice system relied on accusations solely as evidence? What if the punishment for these horrific acts was death? In The Crucible, these events occurred and resulted in over twenty innocents accused of being with the devil that resulted in most of those innocents to their deaths by being hanged or being pressed by large stones. Although, Abigail Williams did not kill any of them directly, person to person, she was undoubtedly the character

In other words, she drank a charm to kill Elizabeth Proctor and danced in the woods, both sins in the Puritan society of Salem. “We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’ and the other things!” (Miller 18). Performing those two sins could have got her and the other girls whipped, but Abigail created these lies by accusing innocent people of practicing witchcraft and told the girls they had to as well otherwise she would call them witches and they would be hung. Subsequently, by Abigail forcing her friends to accuse other innocent people, those innocent people then accused other innocent people so they wouldn’t get hanged, which all started with the girls dancing in the woods. Therefore, Abigail could have stopped all the craziness by taking a whipping and getting the reputation of dancing in the woods but instead she created the horrific event of The Salem Witch Trials. Moreover, if Abigail and the other girls honestly confessed that they were dancing in the woods and drank a charm in addition to not accusing anyone there would not be a fear of witchcraft in Salem and no need to accuse uninvolved individuals and later provoke their deaths. Thus, if there is not a fear of witchcraft there would not be such an extensive amount of people accused of witchcraft who are jailed and

Furthermore, her parents were murdered by natives when Abigail was a young child and grew up as an orphan taken by her haughty uncle who could care less of children and more of his name. Secondly, she was an unmarried teenager, which was uncommon back in the 1690’s in Puritan society. Lastly, her name is not so white anymore since her former boss, Elizabeth is blackening her name. Consequently, Abigail begins to accuse people who are in the bottom tier in of their Puritan society like Goody Good and Goody Osburn. Sadly, the courts took people’s accusations as evidence and nothing could change that testimony unless there is another accusation that contradicts the current one. “I want the light of God . . . I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” (Miller 45). Abigail could have stopped after accusing Goody Good and Goody Osburn but instead she tries to improve her rank in town and accuse others who are higher up on the ladder of reputation and is able to do this because she was viewed by the judges as a savior, cleansing the town of witches. The constant accusations by her and her friends she forced led to the turmoil of The Salem Witch Trials.