The Crucible Abigail Lies Essay

Without the vengeful seventeen year old girl, Abigail Williams, the chaos that occurs in the small town of Salem would dissipate. While living in a Puritan society and having to move in with her uncle having fun was definitely not a top priority, but in Abigail's mind it was. In 1692, a small Puritan town known as Salem, Massachusetts youngs girls are about to face the death trial for dabbling in witchcraft. Abigail Williams, along with five other girls and her family’s slave Tituba, were caught dancing in the woods by her “perfect” uncle Reverend Parris. The next day Parris’s daughter who was also in the woods the night before will not wake up. The rumor of witchcraft went spreading violently throughout the small town along with other towns

The main way the Abigail does this is by lying. As the two of them are talking Parris asks why the girls were dancing in the woods and why was one of them naked. Abigail was quick to reply with the statement, “No one was naked! You mistake yourself, uncle!” (Miller 11) This shows that Abigail did not want to tell her uncle that one of them was naked because she did not want to be faced with him asking her more questions, and her possibly having to tell him what really happened in the woods. Once again, Abigail was being faced with the tough questions she again was quick to come up with a lie. When Reverend Parris asked Abigail again what were they doing in the woods he started asking about conjuring spirits because he saw all of the girls dancing around the fire and singing. Abigail stated, “But we never conjured spirits” (Miller 10). By saying this Abigail proves to the reader that she is willing to lie to avoid being punished. As the play continues the truth comes out that they did try to conjure spirits by calling to the seven dead babies that belonged to the Putnams. The reason that Abigail did not want to tell her uncle what they were doing was because if she would have told them that they were conjuring spirits her and her friends would have been faced with the death penalty for dabbling in