Abigail Williams in The Crucible by Arthur Miller Essay

In Arthur Miller 's The Crucible, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Abigail Williams remained a static character throughout the book. Abigail is a mean, deceitful and manipulative person who always wants her way; she has no remorse about who she hurts along her journey to get her want she wants.

This is later confirmed when she threatens to “come to [them] in the black of some terrible night and … bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder” (Pg.175) Mary Warren and Betty Parris if they dare to tell the truth. This shows her determination at killing Elizabeth Proctor and securing her own reputation. Unlike many naive villains in other literatures, Abigail sets out a meticulous scheme to frame Elizabeth. First, she witnesses Mary Warren leaving a needle in a doll. Then she “[sticks] two inches [of a needle] in the flesh of her belly”(pg. 203) to frame Elizabeth of performing witchcraft. So mendacious is Abigail that she is willing to injure herself to accomplish her plan. Under her beautiful appearance also lays a manipulative heart. She is capable of manipulating not only the girls into doing things her way, but also the members of the court to her advantage. When questioned by Danforth whether the spirits she has seen are illusion, Abigail steps it up a notch by making the members of the court feel sorry for her and madly refutes, “I have been near to murdered every day because I done my duty pointing out the Devil’s people—and this is my reward? To be mistrusted, denied, questioned like a—” (Pg.210) This, following by Elizabeth's failure to tell the truth and the girl’s verisimilar acting toward the “yellow bird”, further demonstrates her manipulative power which brings the court in her favor. Altogether, many

People are not always who they say they are, and this is true for Abigail Williams. Abigail pretends to be innocent in front of more than one person, including Reverend Hale, Betty Parris, and John Proctor. Abigail portrays herself as pure in front of Hale

A court case is an event of great importance, and most trails ultimately end with the person or concept on trail being condemned to be guilty, or being declared innocent of the charge.Some trails take session upon session to find the truth of whether one is guilty and innocent. The longer the trail, the harder it often gets to tell between right and wrong. However, the guilt of some is painfully obvious. The deceptive girl, Abigail Williams, in Arthur Miller’s play the Crucible, shows her guilt by trying to sway John Proctor’s feelings for her, threatening her friends, and accusing so many people of witchcraft.

Abigail Williams, while on the journey of adultery, seems to of already carefully positioned her name in the devil’s book of self-conceited, merciless, and vindictive individuals that roams this Earth. No one's back holds an off limits sign when it comes to her grabbing a knife. Some may say that Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is dictated by a whore’s vengeance. While there’s some truth to this argument, I would counter that Abigail, the main antagonist, motives are beyond this. Maintaining her position of a victim to entrap anyone who dares cross her path is the premise upon which I build this counterargument. Abigail, not only abandons her hopeless relationship with John Proctor in the end, but continues the travesties against the people of Salem before and after John’s imprisonment.

Abigail Williams is an evil, lying witch responsible for the deaths of innocent citizens in Salem, Massachusetts. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible the young, beautiful Abigail has an affair with married John Proctor. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants, including practicing witchcraft. Abigail is an obsessive, selfish, manipulative liar, who brings destruction wherever she goes.

The first dominant trait would be that Abigail was in love with john proctor and when Abigail was the proctor's servant John and Abigail had an affair together.Abigail's character is independent and manipulative, and with a lack of conscience to keep herself in check.She sees no folly in her affair with Proctor. This mindset leads her to believe that Elizabeth Proctor is preventing her from being with Proctor. Her obsession with lust makes her oversee that Proctor himself has ‘pulled the plug’ on their relationship.

Being related to a priest doesn't mean you are a good person. Abigail Williams was the niece of Reverend Parris, but she was no Puritan. Arthur Miller understood and used this truth while writing his play, The Crucible. Abigail did some things that were not only unspeakable by Puritan standards, but also illegal at the time. She had Tituba use voodoo magic in an attempt to kill John Proctors wife, and had an affair with him while she was living there as a servant. To top it all off, she threatened the other girls who saw and knew what actually happened in the forest. These are all very strong reasons for why Abigail is not a true Puritan.

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail’s flaws- lust, jealousy, and mendacity- that led her to be responsible the most for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem. The Crucible focuses of the finding of young girls and a slave messing around in the woods, trying to conjure spirits from the dead. Rather than admit to their actions and face the consequences, the girls accuse everyone else of the crimes they were guilty of. Abigail Williams is the person who caused much of the drama in this story. She bears much responsibility for everyone meeting with Tituba in the woods. Once Parris discovers this meeting, Abigail attempts to keep her actions a secret because it would possibly reveal her affair with Proctor. Abigail lies to cover up her affair with proctor, and to stop the charges of witchcraft in order to prevent the terrible punishments that go along with the accusations.

Lust, greed, wrath, and envy, Abigail Williams marks off 4 out of 7 in the checklist of sins. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams is one of the characters that exemplify Miller’s view on human nature; no matter where you come from, human tendencies of sin overpower all moral values taught to you. The play takes place in Salem, an extremely Puritan society, where tensions have been high in light of some mysterious things happening in the town. Abigail Williams is a seventeen year old girl who lives in Salem, as well as the niece of Reverend Parris whose daughter, Betty Parris, lies inert in bed, with no explanation. Early on in the play, readers realize that Abigail has a real taste for lying whether to cover up her own tracks or just to wreak havoc. For example, as Parris along with Reverend Hale

In our lives, there is always one person who arises hatred buried deep inside ours souls. Having the ability to deem someone as something they are not is an enormous amount of power to obtain. With this power comes the mindset of being someone who can ruin the lives of others in a detrimental form of revenge. During the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Abigail Williams was one such character who used the devious power invested in her to get even with those who had done her wrong in any way, shape or form. Abigail is the most destructive character in The Crucible who caused innocent lives to be lost due to her atrocious actions and malicious intentions.

Abigail started out as a good girl , the reverend’s niece, but she made her first terrible mistake during their young teenage lives. Abigail had an inappropriate relationship with a married man named Proctor. That lead to her next mistake of dancing in the woods with a group of girls trying to curse their crush’s wives. This time she got caught by her uncle and had to start several lies. Her punishment after all of her lies and crimes was

as we find out that she has no parents. Also, because we are told she

Likewise, Abigail is capable of making everyone believe outside factors are causing her to act against God. She gives no room for anyone to think otherwise with how many lies she tells. “To the ceiling, in a genuine conversation with the “bird,” as though trying to talk it out of attacking her: But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Enby is a deadly sin, Mary” (Miller 115). This evidence is an illustration of how Abigail has tricked everyone into believing she messed with witchcraft, because even though nothing is there,

Throughout Act I of The Crucible, Abigail Williams portrays herself as a deceitful and dishonest person. The quote from “The Overview” that shows Abigail portraying this character is “Duplicitous and vindictive, she initiates the accusations of witchcraft as a way of deflecting blame from herself for the voodoo ritual in the woods.” This shows how dishonest and deceitful Abigail was because she was the one who started the accusations of witchcraft. Another scene that supports Abigail’s character is from Act I of The Crucible. In this scene, Paris was questioning Abigail about what happened in the woods. Paris says “Abigail, I cannot go before the congregation when I know you have not been open with me. What did you do with her in the forest?” (Miller 1219). This line is just one of the several lines in this scene that shows how Abigail has been dishonest in the