What Does Abigail Williams Symbolize In The Crucible

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If The Witch Don’t Fit, You Must Acquit In “The Crucible” 1953 written by Arthur Miller, wrote that hysteria in any place can ruin lives. The year is 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. In Salem at the time it was a modest town brimming with Puritans. In the town of Salem, little secrets, jealousy and massive hysteria spread around the town. The cause of all this? A group of young girls in the town (ages 8 to 18) were secretly dancing and chanting naked in the woods. And at that time of the Puritans, that behavior was extremely inappropriate and looked down upon. The consequence was to be whipped. To get out of their punishment, the girls claim to have been “bewitched” by the devil himself. From this little lie at the time, it caused a massive fear and hysteria throughout the town. Further in the story we find there are hidden hatred, jealousy, and lust between the people …show more content…

Although everyone had a piece to have fueled the flame of this mass hysteria. Abigail Williams was the reason this whole thing got started. She was the spark that started it all. Into the story, John Proctor and Abigail Williams have a conversation, which is very reveling and odd. In this conversation between them, it comes out and states that Proctor- a married man in his early thirties and Abigail which is seventeen years old had a secrete relationship many months ago. The first problem is, he’s a Puritan who has committed this ghastly sin. Second of all, nobody should ever do that, especially if they are married! Proctor wants to forget this whole problem but it does not help that Abigail is still in love with him. Abigail hates John’s wife, Elizebeth Proctor. So in the woods with al the other young women in the town were joking around and messing around saying random fake chants to the sprits to kill Elizebeth Proctor, so she could be with John. Lust and jealousy is which sparked this