Essay On Abigail In The Crucible

In this missing scene, Abigail Williams meets John Proctor in the woods, where they discuss the happenings in town. Abigail tells John of the mental suffering she has gone through for the good of the town, and even shows John the physical proof of her sufferings. Abigail is not in any way connected to witchcraft and has no ability to see spirits, Abigail appears insane. She appears to believe that the wounds she has caused herself were. But not only is Abigail is insane enough to mutilate her body for the sake of being believed by Salem’s court, Abigail still deceives herself into thinking that John will marry her one day.
John sees Abigail’s deluded state, and, determined to end Abigail’s influence over the court at any cost, warns her that
We witness Abigail’s complete derangement. She is not just power-hungry anymore. She is a different girl with a new and different motive for playing the victim of spirits in court.
Only in this scene do we see that Abigail has a motive for accusing townspeople of witchcraft other than revenge on Elizabeth Proctor: she also wants to rid Salem of its hypocrites. She rants about the hypocrisy of the townspeople, who only appear to be good but fall deep into sin. Abigail truly seems to believe that she does God’s will by cleansing the town of sinners.
Since Abigail’s new quality is only present in this missing scene, we may theorize that perhaps Arthur Miller left the scene out so he could create a character whose villainy was solely vengeful, and not a side effect of being insane. Obviously, Abigail was not meant to turn out insane; perhaps Arthur Miller wanted to show readers what could happen when the unscrupulous seize power. This could only be accomplished if Abigail were only a manipulative person with her wits. This way, the downfall of man could not be blamed on insanity, but on man’s manipulative, deceitful