Abigail Should Be Tried And Punished

It’s important to note why and how Abigail inherited her selfish behavior in the first place, and what caused her to act a certain way. Abigail claims that she is in love with John Proctor, and the two characters were discovered to have an affair with each other. John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth Proctor, finds out about the affair and

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

Abigail is a selfish and manipulative person which gives her the courage to do the things that she does. In act 3, Abigail says "Oh, Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; It's God's work I do" (III.115). Abigail claims that she is doing God’s work, but she is actually doing the devil's work because she is lying and forcing her friends to agree with her and go against Mary. She has the courage to go through with anything that comes to her mind, no matter what harm it could cause. “The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris's house tonight, and without word nor warning she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demanding of her how she come to be so stabbed, she --- testify it were your wife's familiar spirit pushed it in”(Act II.1282). This explains how Abigail is willing to go through with anything to be with John Proctor. She shows a monstrous amount of intrepidness just to do so. Abigail Williams has the courage to do anything when it comes to John Proctor. She stabs herself with a needle just to accuse Elizabeth of witchcraft.

Once Abigail began feeding everyone her false indictments, one person followed after the other and commenced the actions of those in the mob mentality mindstate. Abigail’s issues within herself and those she was wounded by, clearly left an impact on her overall personality, thus resulting in her choosing to wreak havoc and seek revenge. If no one had followed her untrue actions to begin with, all of the hype would have died down. By the end of The Crucible, it is acknowledged that following what our own heart knows is right rather than what everyone else is doing (mob mentality), is what truly

Throughout the play we see instances where Abigail shows she still has feelings for John saying things like “ Give me a word, John. A soft word.”, but she is only met with rejection from John “ No, no, Abby. That’s done with.”. (Miller 22) as he has moved on and is trying to live a more righteous life. Even though John has made his intentions clear Abby continuously attempts to sway him “...do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?” (Miller 23) believing he will still come back to her. After still facing rejection from John, Abigail believes the only reason he denies her is because of his wife. Knowing that she has the power to condemn people by accusing them of witchcraft, Abigail decides that it is the only option she has to be with John. As time goes on the Proctor family is torn apart when Cheever, a clerk of the court, comes with a warrant for Elizabeth. The Proctor’s find out the reason for the arrest is because of attempted murder through the use of witchcraft. It is to our understanding that a poppet that is in the possession of Elizabeth, given to her by their servant, Mary, was used to attempt to murder Abigail . As the situation goes on we discover the entire ordeal was an elaborate plan by Abigail when Mary says “...she saw me sewin’ it in court. Or better still: Ask Abby, Abby sat beside me when I made it.” revealing that it was a plan by Abigail. Abigail saw Mary making a poppet for Elizabeth and came to the realization that it would probably be her best chance to get Elizabeth out of the picture. By placing blame on Elizabeth, Abigail is able to further her own personal goal of being with

Abigail wants to get rid of Elizabeth, who she describes as John Proctor’s “sniveling envious wife” (Optional scene Pg. 158)! One can infer how Abigail is jealous and is doing anything to steel Elizabeth’s place in Proctor’s bed. It reaches a degree were Abigail is lies so much she starts to believe her lies, and stabs herself in the stomach with a pin to blame Elizabeth for attempting to kill her. She later goes on trying to convince Proctor that “the jab your wife gave me’s not healed yet” (Optional scene Pg. 155). The revenge that Abigail is seeking to find is directly related to the theme of vengeance that is profound throughout the play. Additionally, other people in Salem, such as the Putnam’s, take advantage of the crisis to help achieve their

One of the final tests of Abigail’s character was to what degree of evil she really was. Although seeming innocent among the girls in court, Abigail was the source of all evil in the town at this time. Many times throughout the story, Abigail had opportunities to take her evil manipulating personality to a new high, and she always did. A good example of this is when Abigail had a chance to save Marry Warren, and confess to faking their behavior of fainting when a supposedly bewitched person was before them. Instead of taking a step towards goodness, she kept evil on her side and decided to show no remorse for Marry Warren.

Since Abigail is the Reverends niece and grew up with a pastor in the household it seems as if she should be very humble and a good person but her human nature took a toll making her greedy therefore making her dishonest and deceptive. She is afraid that people won’t agree with her, that motivates her to get people on her side. She then falsely accuses others of witchcraft and her being the victim. Witchcraft was taken very seriously back then and it ended up ripping apart the town and caused non stop fighting by almost everyone. Abigail’s main motive is John Proctor so she tries to lie to John about his wife to get him to fall for her “She is blackening my name in the village she is telling lies about me she’s a cold swiveling

Once Abigail is assigned as an official of the court she and the other girls immediately began deceitfully abusing their powers. The first major time we hear of Abigail try to abuse her power is when she accuses Elizabeth Proctor. The Info is revealed to us by Mary Warren “I Saved Your life today! … Somewhat mentioned. But I said I never see no sign you ever sent your spirit out to hurt no one, and seeing I do live so closely with you, they dismissed it”(Miller 59). Thought Mary didn’t we bluntly say it was Abigail due to the rules of the court it doesn't take Elizabeth long to figure out it was Abigail “[Abigail] wants me dead. I knew all week it would come to this! … she will cry me out

The appalling occasions that unfurl in 'The Crucible' are to a degree caused by Abigail's sexual want anyway she isn't the just a single to fault. 'The Crucible' is about the Salem Witch Trials which occurred in seventeenth century Massachusetts where 19 guiltless individuals were censured. Considering the environment of the Puritan culture exhibited in the novel, a noteworthy occasion like this will undoubtedly happen at some point or another. Despite the fact that she is the trigger to the mass mania which happens in the novel, her wants are just mostly to be faulted. We see all through the play how Abigail controls the general population around her to get to this extreme want. In any case, we should likewise consider the part of John Proctor and a mix of different things in the novel which are additionally to blame. One could contend that Abigail was just the impetus and just accelerated the game-plan and chain of occasions.

Abigail’s behavior was most likely contributed to the traumatization as a child of the murder of her parents; that caused her to have a negative view of the world. After her parents death she was raised as an orphan, then later became the housekeeper for John and Elizabeth Proctor. Eventually, she was kicked out from the Proctor house by Elizabeth after having a sexual affair with John Proctor.Therefore, she had little

Abigail Williams is a very complex character. She may not be as evil as everyone thinks she is. Abigail Williams is a victim in her own society because of outside forces upon her. Abigail can be pardoned because she just wants to be loved, society fails to help her recover from her parents death, and her society has left no room for her to have fun or be creative One reason Abigail is a victim in her society is because she just wants to be loved.

One reason why Abigail is responsible for the death of innocent Salemites is because she makes up lies and stories about the people involved in the witchcraft. “Sometimes I wake and find myself standing in the open doorway and not a stich on my body. I always hear her laughing in my sleep. I hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me with-” (Miller, 156). In this quote Abigail is talking about Tituba, the slave of Mr. and Mrs. Proctor, to Mr. Danforth. She made up a story about Tituba putting her under a spell and doing things to her at night. Abigail is also the first person to accuse someone of

First off, Abigail uses the trials to seek revenge, resulting in the wrongful deaths of many. Abigail commits many sins, including lust for John Proctor. Once she rises to power in the courtroom, she uses it to exact vengeance upon those who have done her wrong. Victims of her wrath include Elizabeth Proctor; who she calls a ¨a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her¨ during an argument with John Proctor and Mary Warren (Miller 23). After Mary Warren starts siding with John Proctor, Abigail goes so far as to accuse Mary of sending her spirit out in the courtroom to attack the other girls. Abigail can be seen using such accusations to inflict a twisted justice on her enemies. Actions as unjust as these

In this scenario, it is easier to portray Abigail as emotionally unstable than John Proctor as it seems to sit better with audiences that a young girl would be more likely to act irrationally for the sake of love than a man. Yet, this doesn’t seem to sit right at all when these tired and gendered stereotypes are set aside. John Proctor had been just as involved in the affair as Abigail and while he might not have as intense an emotional connection, he must feel something regarding their relationship. As it is written, it appears that he feels nothing at all except anger, which only comes as a reaction to Abigail’s over-emotional state. From here on, once the audience has established her to be excessively emotional, she becomes a pawn for Arthur Miller to use throughout the rest of the play to drive the hysteria of the witch hunt and, therefore, the plot along.