The Crucible Abigail Williams Manipulation

Honesty is not always the best policy, especially when it forces you to decide to sell your soul or end your life. Abigail Williams and her girls manipulated the entire village with their mass hysteria. Through lying about their doings with witchcraft, Abigail’s needle wound, and Abigail’s so called “vision” of a yellow bird and the girls following suit, they all managed to circumvent from the Angel of Death.
First and foremost, as this play starts out, Abigail and her girls were just dancing in the woods along with other devilish acts. No harm could come from that. That is, of course, if they were just dancing. Casting spells trying to get the men in the village to love them. Abigail is drinking chicken’s blood trying to curse Elizabeth to

Throughout the play, more specifically in Act II, she is mentioned having an affair with John Proctor; who used to be their servant. When they get the chance to be alone; he then tells her that the affair is over. She does not like his response, and blames Elizabeth for keeping them apart. In spite of his reaction, Abigail plots vengeance against Elizabeth. Abigail blames her for sending out her spirit to stick a needle through her stomach. Suspicion is raised when Ezekiel Cheever arrives at the Proctor home with a call for Elizabeth’s arrest, after he sees a poppet lying on a shelf. Previously that day, he saw Abigail Williams claiming to have a needle two inches into her stomach. The doll actually belonged to their servant, Mary Warren, which she made while in court. To Mary’s claims, she put the needle there for safe keeping but forgot the needle was there when she gave it to Elizabeth as a gift. The irony of this situation is that Abigail blamed Elizabeth for sticking a needle in her stomach when she put the needle in there herself. In the courtroom of Act III of this play, they are discussing whether the poppet is supposed ‘voodoo’ or if Mary is telling the truth. Falsehood is clear here because no one wants to hear the truth, or at least the real one. The truth doesn’t have evidence like the lies the girls are

As Abigail realizes the tables are turning against her, she pretends to be super scared, and sees a “yellow bird” that is supposedly Mary’s spirit that wants to pluck her eyes out. The girls continuously say that they are being attacked by Mary’s spirit, but they honestly see nothing. When Mary feels the pressure of being hanged, she flips back to Abigail’s side. She knows that if she lies and blames someone else, she will be saved. She confesses the devil has control of her. Mary then accuses John Proctor of witchcraft by influencing her. She calls him the “devil’s man” and forced her to sign his “black book” stating that she must overthrow the courts to overcome them. This shows the falsehood of Abigail and her girls, because it proves that lying can get you out of punishment when it