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Abigail Williams Reputation In The Crucible

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The namesake of Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is a container used to heat and burn substances. Like the namesake, the grudges of the townspeople of Salem provide a container for the fires of the witch trials to burn. The long suppressed grudges of Thomas Putnam, Reverend Parris and Abigail Williams are what keeps the fires of the trail in Salem. Thomas Putnam had long held grudges against many people in Salem. Putnam had long held grudges against the Nurse family, who had prevented his brother-in-law from receiving the office of Minister, and Putnam, “meant to right matters however he could” (15). Putnam saw the witch trials as an opportunity to get revenge for the past slights against his family by the Nurses and others by putting Goody Nurse on trial for witchcraft. By continually using the trials in Salem to take …show more content…

During the witch trials, he feared what others might have said about him and his niece Abigail being associated with witchcraft, telling others to, “speak nothing of unnatural causes” (9). Due to his position as minister, Parris’s reputation would be forever tarnished by any that attempted to point to witchcraft, so he despised anyone that attempted to point to it. Due to his fear of being discredited, Parris held grudges against anyone that could have done so Abigail Williams, the niece of Reverend Parris, used the trials to attempt to complete her own dreams. Some time before the events of the story, Abigail had slept with John Proctor, and believing she loved him, charged John Proctor’s Wife, Elizabeth with witchcraft, accusing Elizabeth of stabbing her with a needle, saying, “it were [Elizabeth]’s familiar spirit that pushed [the needle] in” (74). By accusing Elizabeth, Abigail hoped to free John Proctor to love herself, and not his husband. Abigail attempted to use the trials to act upon her grudge of Elizabeth Proctor receiving her John Proctor’s love and not

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