Act 1,#31. The motivation that Abigail and Betty have for denouncing everyone is to confess to their sins so they can avoid punishment. Miller shows her escaping punishment when Abigail says, “I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil…” (48). By confessing, Abigail is able to avoid the consequences of her actions. However, she takes it a step further by accusing people of also falling into the Devil’s grip. In addition to her evasion of punishment, Abigail also gets this sense of control and power from listing the names of people. Denouncing people makes Abigail go on a power trip and soon, she starts to control the fate of the people in Salem. In contrast,
Abigail plays a character that continues to lie to hurt others out of ulterior motives. She proves to be a very deceitful and untrustworthy character by many of her acts throughout the play. One of the first things Abigail speaks about is to her uncle, Reverend Parris, about what Abigail, Betty and some other girls were doing in the forest. She denies everything that her uncle saw them doing and said that they were simply dancing. However, not shortly after she speaks to Mercy and Mary about how they did do all of the things her uncle accused her of and Betty accused Abigail of drinking a charm to kill Goody Proctor.
Betty started yelling that Abigail drank blood and did all these other things that Abigail did not tell her uncle parris. Abigail slapped betty and told her that she only told Reverend Parris that they were dancing nothing else so they all need to stick to the same story. The girls are so fearful of Abigail so they obey her and keep her secret even though it could get them in more
The central character for The Crucible could be Abigail. Abigail is characterized as being a fabricator with destructive tendencies. Though she refuses to admit her name has been tainted in the town, Abigail knows of her carnage in the village has ruined it for good. Abigail is accused of witchcraft in the beginning of the act and therefore attempting to lie her way through it, she ends up admitting it. But alternately of taking the punishment, she blames someone else for pressuring her into it. The quote “Don’t lie! She comes to me while I sleep; she’s always making me dream corruptions!” (Miller 14) shows that Abby had admitted dreaming and doing corrupt things, but puts the blame on others. At the end of the act, the blame switches from
Abigail Williams “-a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling” (Crucible, Act 1, 8-9). She is also one of the main characters in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The play is set during the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century where innocent people had been accused of witchcraft and where punished for it. Abigail is the character that starts the accusations and threatens other girls into joining her. She can be considered villainous for the reasons that: she chooses to drink a charm to kill a person, she manipulates girls to lie, and she provides false evidence to punish people she has grudges against.
Abigail is an exception from the rest of the town because she ignores these rules and chooses instead to give in to her desires such as an adulterous relationship with Proctor, dancing, casting spells, lying, and condemning people to death. All of the “sinful” actions that Abigail commits should be seen as an effect of the society she lives in, not as the root of the trials (Galens). Abigail is a symbol of all Puritan desires that are repressed by their social structure. Miller does this to expose what this unyielding of a society does to its inhabitants, and how at a certain point they have no choice but to break and give in to their repressed desires. During the first round of accusations, Abigail exclaims, “I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand.
In the play “The Crucible” Abigail williams was the only character to blame for all the deaths and trials. She manipulated the kids in Salem. And she pretended to be attacked multiple “demons’’ or “spirits”. All of her actions caused the death of others in the town.
In that moment, Abigail tries to conceal her behavior so that her affair with Proctor will be masked. Yet Betty, her cousin, who is also one of the girls in the woods, later confesses to Parris that Abigail consumed chicken blood. But Abigail adamantly denies any involvement in witchcraft and reassurances the girls, “Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all.” (113) Abigail insists that the girls were plainly enjoying themselves. In order to avoid severe punishment for being convicted of witchcraft, she diverts the attention away from herself by accusing others of witchcraft. This desperate act of self-preservation shortly becomes Abigail’s primary source of
Abigail's Cause and Effect. Manipulation, jealousy and revenge. Reasons to blame for the disgusting amount of hangings that took place in the Salem Witch Trials. What started off as a modest group of recalcitrant children, turned into a case of many innocent deaths. Even though some may say she went insane or had issues, I believe she was purely evil.
She wanted people to believe she led a life of propriety, as her own ideology, but behind closed doors Abigail was naught but a smirched little girl playing make believe. In addition, Abigail craved for her community to view her as a covenanted pilgrim who lived in providence, however, she broke charity with anyone who did not defer or submit to her. In Act Two, when Danforth confronts Abigail in court she explains, “I have been hurt, Mr Danforth; I have seen my blood runnin’ out! I have been near to murdered every day because I have done my duty pointing out the Devil’s people - and this is my reward? To be mistrusted, denied, questioned like a -,” where Danforth replies “Child, I do not mistrust you -.” Manipulation is of clear importance to Abigail agenda as that if someone has dares to have a disputation with her incredulously, she is quails to protect herself. Therefore, Abigail is all pretense in order to elevate her own social status and preserve her
In Act II of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail has a drastic effect on the town without being present in the play by condemning many people to horrible witchcraft accusations and creating a sense of fear and paranoia in the town. To begin, Abigail makes merciless accusations of many people being bewitched. This is often solely done because Abigail has feeling of disdain towards the person. This is evident by this quote exclaimed by Elizabeth Proctor, “She will cry me out until they take me!” (Miller 1274). Elizabeth is fearful and appalled because Abigail accuses her of being a witch. There is no just cause or evidence for this claim, but Abigail Williams is a crazy girl who is engulfed with jealousy; she only accuses Elizabeth of being
think and do. As an audience, at this stage we have a mixed opinion of
In the Story Abigail made the choice of accusing more people of witchcraft with their lives on the line. The choices she made could had been different, but she was under a lot of pressure and panicked and blurted out people’s names accusing them of
I am choosing how theme such as power functions in the play. I am deciding to write about Abigail because she has the most power in the play in my personal opinion. Abigail had a lot of people behind her back supporting her. She has done a lot to show why she has the most power.
Besides wrongly condemning innocent people, these accusations also show Abigail’s own sense of guilt for her own misdeeds, indicating how it can be thrown onto others to make someone feel better. The ever present feeling of guilt underlines how fear and
This shows the bad side of Abigail right off the bat. In order to clear her name, she has to pull another name into the pool and give a crude, conniving reason for why that person is out for her. Very much later in the play, Danforth, the judge of the witch trials, tries to allude to the fact that perhaps Abigail is going crazy, and she responds harshly, stating, “I have been hurt, Mr. Danforth. I have been nearly murdered every day because I did my duty by pointing out the devil’s people.” (Page