Throughout The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a series on witch trials occur that creates mass hysteria in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Abigail Williams, one of the main characters, fabricates the lies that begin the witch hunt in her attempt to divert everyone's attention towards her including the attention of John Proctor. In the play, Proctor has an affair with young Abigail while his wife goes through postpartum depression causing Abigail to fall in love with him but John returns to his wife Elizabeth. While Elizabeth Proctor barely forgives him, John does all he can to make it up to her. Unfortunately, the biggest consequence of the affair is not the loss of security, but when Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft. Elizabeth and Abigail have very conflicting characters, but they also compare in many ways and contribute to the symbolism of the play over all.…
The Crucible is a play of the Salem witchcraft trials that took place in Salem Massachusetts. The villagers suspect witchcraft after finding out about a girl who is not responding to anything, she seems to be ill. Abigail Williams had an affair with John Proctor. Abigail soon wishes Elizabeth Proctor were dead. Abigail turns on the rest of the village to cover up her lies. To better understand the similarities and differences of Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor in the play, The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. One must think of the elements of love, personalities of persons, and the maturity of females as displayed by the characters.…
In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams- the main character- is a wicked, confident girl who lies to get what she wants. Abigail defends her name and her life through evil means. The Crucible is most forcefully portrayed through Abigail Williams. Evil is shown through Abigail in many ways. Abigail utilizes three main ways to complete her evil desires. Abigail shows her evil through harlotry, lunacy, and accusations. Abigail is a harlot, and from such harlotry stemmed the evils of The Crucible. Her relationship with John Proctor and her animosity towards Elizabeth Proctor all stem from her evil ways of lechery. Abigail loved John, but John only had lust for her because of strains in his marriage. This lust became evident.…
Anger coursing through the veins of a person who feels wronged often times leads to irrational thinking and actions. Perhaps the true motivation of causing a scene is the sheer want for attention. Abigail Williams is the largest, most impactful character in the Arthur Miller’s Salem based play The Crucible. She is the first to accuse anyone of witchcraft which causes the chaos that is now infamously known as the Salem witch trials. Throughout the course of the play, it is revealed that Abigail has an affair with a married man, John Proctor, and when the time comes to end the affair, she refuses to accept the rejection. John feels remorse for his actions with Abigail and partially feels guilty for Abigail’s warfare with Elizabeth and the other…
In the play, “The Crucible,” by Arthur Miller, John Proctor is portrayed as a tormented individual whose flaws inevitably lead him to his own destruction. Proctor’s lust for Abigail Williams is the instigator of the hysteria surrounding the witch trails. During the Salem Witch trials, Proctor tries to convince the court that the trial are fraudulent, he is then thrown into the mix of a corrupt society with greedy preachers, landowners trying to steal land, and a young girl infatuated with him and getting rid of his innocent wife. As the lead character, Proctor embodies a being that exhibits heroic qualities, temptation towards evil, and confrontation of evil in society.…
Abigail Williams was a deceitful, dishonest, and manipulative teenage girl who antagonized the village of Salem in the the late 17th century. Instead of living a traditional Puritan life Abigail was the initiator of pandemonium within the village of Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials. In 1692 men and women were accused and sometimes hanged for practicing witchcraft, including husband and wife John and Elizabeth Proctor. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller depicts the story of Abigail and her mischievous ways of governing people’s lives during the dark times in Salem. With the aid of Abigail’s friends she was able to psychologically influence Salem with her selfish and greed actions to successfully control the minds of it’s…
In Arthur Miller's tragic play the Crucible the author describes the life of puritans in Massachusetts in the 1700s revolving entirely around god, and all who said otherwise would be banished or hanged. The Salem Witch trials arose between this time and lead to an overall uncontrollable and unreasonable set of deaths in Salem. One could argue that the reason for these deaths lied in the hands of the people but in reality the fate of the victims in the Crucible lied with Abigail, a young girl in the town of salem who had relations with a well known character in Salem, this propels the story towards his eminent death and others ulike.…
“Power changes everything ‘till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who are the villains,” said Libba Bray. A perfect example to support this quote is how the accusations of witchcraft changed an entire village in the story “The Crucible.” Abigail Williams, a main character, was an orphaned teenage girl living with her uncle and her cousin, Betty, in the city of Salem. She was overlooked and unimportant until she was caught dancing in the woods with her friends one night. All of sudden two of the girls became ill and their only explanation was witchcraft. Abigail said she was innocent and blamed her own slave of possessing her. Abigail realized how powerful her words were and began to accuse anyone who had ever crossed her of being a witch. What people didn’t know was that it was all a lie. Throughout the story Abigail’s need for more power and attention increased until she was no longer the silly girl that danced in the woods, but a conniving and jealous antagonist.…
“Abigail Williams, seventeen, enters – a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling. Now she is all worry and apprehension and propriety” (6 Miller). Further, a reader can infer that Abigail is an inquisitive girl and worries for her cousin. Despite that, Abigail‘s role is with her lying; for she can be headstrong. The girl threatened the other dancing girls to not speak a word to anyone about what they did in the forest. Due to the girl’s lies, the town worried that witchcraft was in their midst. Abigail had caused great confusion, and with it, the start if the Salem Witch Trials. Later, Abigail gains support of the court and…
In the Salem witch trials of 1692, 19 men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were taken to Gallows Hill for hanging. Hundreds of others were accused of witchcraft. Dozens linguished in jail for months without trial. In Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the 1692 Salem witch trials. Abigail was a mean, bitter, young woman who would stop and nothing to get what she wanted. No matter who she hurt, even the ones she loved, she did everything she could to live. She lied to people, manipulated a poor group of girls, and tried everything she could to ruin a marriage. She went so far, as to wish death upon people.…
The Crucible examines the exploitation of an individual by the power of coercion in society. The play is set in 1692 and it reflects the Salem witch Trials of that time contrasted with McCarthyism in the time of Miller. It depicts the Puritan characters where they are faced with choosing between binary oppositions as 'a person is either with this court or...counted against it, there be no road between”. Miller also adopts patois and archaic language to distance responders from the context and events, so as to critically analyse the conflict within character relations. Abigail is one character who has been exploited into conforming to society. She is dishonest and manipulative as on the occasion of the forest events. She exploited Tituba to act as the scapegoat through her use of contextual references voiced through vivid imagery, “I see the face of Lucifer, your face and mine”, overriding the pleading tone of the Barbados woman. She has also been able to avoid detection of her sinful behaviour, which was achieved by her and the other girls using repetitive histrionics, “I want to open myself!... I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil!...” The responder clearly can see how Abigail has been pressured into conforming to her community as she uses uncomprehendable methods in order for her to survive.…
In The Crucible, Abigail Williams, a seductive teenager, represents the Black Widow character archetype because of her manipulative ways to get the things that she wants. The Black Widow destroys anything she wants. Like Abigail, the Black Widow will lure someone into her web, trapping him or her until they have suffered for her own pleasure. When speaking of their previous affairs, John Proctor, a married farmer, requests that Abigail forgets it and speaks of it no more. But Abigail does not want to. “You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet! (Miller 24)” Almost threatening-like, Abigail tells John Proctor he will love her. Abigail and her friends have a secret: They danced in the woods naked while conducting witchcraft, which is a sin. Abigail will do everything in her power to clear her name. Even if that means accusing innocent men and women of witchcraft and being “seen” with the Devil. When Abigail is almost caught for doing what she did, she panics and quickly blames Tituba, Reverend Parris’ slave from Barbados, for forcing her to do these diabolical things. “She sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer! (Miller 44)” Most of Abby’s accusations force people to confess to witchcraft even if they did not do it because if the didn’t they would be hanged. During the trail of those who were accused, John Proctor uses Mary Warren, Proctor’s timid servant, to prove that Abigail Williams is lying. When Danforth, the judge for the witch…
1.Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a story of betrayal. 2.Elizabeth displays how hurt she is when her husband Proctor tells her, “She told it to me in a room alone”(1. 193). 3. John is speaking about Abigail, and how she told Proctor about everything that happened with the girls of Salem being accused of being witches. 4. During this time Elizabeth is feeling hurt, and betrayed by Proctor because she knows Proctor had an affair with Abigail. 5. Elizabeth begins to realize her husband has not been telling her the truth when she says, “Why, then, it is not as you told me”(2.193). 6. Elizabeth had suspected Proctor, but she never thought to question her husband without proof, but when Proctor begins to show signs of infidelity she gains the courage…
Author Millers play The Crucible. A small town in Massachusetts (in 1692) had a horrific event over a huge witch trial where over 24 people were killed; this eventually became known as the famous “Salem Witch Trials,” the person who started the horrifying event was named Abigail Williams. As one of the main characters in the play, she is a very attractive young lady. However, her outwards personality seems to be bitter, spiteful and vengeful. But she is far more than that; she is also cunning, convincing and manipulative. Most importantly, she is a girl who wants control in her life and is controlled by fear more than anything else, and uses both of those aspects about herself to her advantage.…
The Crucible imparts the significance of peace in the domestic setting through the moving tragedy of the Proctor family. In this play, the theme of desire is the catalyst for the family’s tragedy. Abigail Williams, a beautiful young girl, becomes sexually involved with her married employer, John Proctor. Though John Proctor breaks off their relationship after his wife discovers his disgraceful infidelity, Abigail is persistent on continuing their lustful affair. She is so desperate to be with Proctor that she persuades a few girls and a Barbados slave to perform a ritual for the purpose of causing sudden death to Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth. Her actions bring very serious consequences once her uncle discovers the ritual and when her cousin falls ill. Ultimately, she and Tituba, the Barbados slave, are accused of witchcraft and of doing the devil’s bidding at the Salem Court. Their plan to save their lives from execution launches a terrible witch hunt in Salem which destroys many lives.…