The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, portrays a young girl named Abigail Williams as the supposed cause of the tragic events that took place in Salem, Massachusetts between 1692-1693. The question remains, is Abigail, the girl who first accused others of witchcraft, truly to blame for the execution of 20 innocent people? In a community where tensions were rising and conflict seemingly loomed in the air, calamity was inevitable. A young girl raised to live an oppressive lifestyle may have been the stimulus of the events that took place, but she cannot be held solely accountable for the actions of the court officials and other townspeople partaking in this infamous tragedy known as the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail Williams is depicted as a deceitful, manipulative, and troubled girl in the play. Abigail was the first of the afflicted girls to accuse residents of Salem …show more content…
It was strictly forbidden for anyone to engage in activities that were not pleasing to God, such as dancing or playing fortune teller games. Arthur Miller explains that the adults of Salem believed that the children were, “anything but thankful for being permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly low-ered, arms at the sides, and mouths shut until bidden to speak” (Miller 5). The afflicted girls felt as though they were given freedom and power they had never experienced before when the court officials trusted them over upstanding members of the community, giving them the strength to convict anyone of witchcraft. Naturally, when an individual is given the opportunity to step outside of the norm, they will push the limits until boundaries are set. In a community where members of all ages were expected to maintain a simple, upright way of living, a troubled girl such as Abigail will do anything to gain attention and the ability to be free of the moral standards held for
Everyone has something to be defensive about. All people have different qualities that they do not like about their personality or their body that they are very defensive about. The most despicable character or most admirable character could be a sum of people.
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the audience introduced to a chaotic 1692 Salem, Massachusetts. Throughout the play we see a series of unreasonable events including the hanging of 19 people due to false accusations of witchcraft. These witch trials killed many people and jailed hundreds for no reason at all. There is many people to blame for the Salem Witch Trials but, Abigail Williams is most culpable.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953. Arthur Miller wrote it because of personal events and what was going on at the time. The play was based in 1693 Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials. In 1953 communists were treated very similar to how the witches were in 1693. In Arthur’s life he had been accused of communism and was fined and sentenced to 30 days in jail.
In Arthur Miller 's The Crucible, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Abigail Williams remained a static character throughout the book. Abigail is a mean, deceitful and manipulative person who always wants her way; she has no remorse about who she hurts along her journey to get her want she wants.
The many books, there are characters that are hated. These people are called the antagonist characters. In the Crucible, the most hated character was Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams was considered the most hated character because she very deceptive, inconsiderate, and selfish. She was considered deceptive because she constantly chases John Proctor to get his affection. The worse part about this situation is that John Proctor is married to a woman named Elizabeth Proctor. She is seen as being inconsiderate because she accuses other people in the village of being a witch to get fame or attention. Abigail does this when she falsely accuses Tituba of being a witch. She is selfish in the story when she says she would tell John Proctor about when
The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the year of 1692 and during this time, the Salem witch-hunts began. The Salem witch-hunt was one of the oddest and most fearsome epochs in human history. The numerous amounts of people that were prosecuted were all innocent and their lives were taken away due to the fallacious accusations of the Puritan’s belief in superstition and their paranoia that witches had walked among them. One accuser that is the reason this all started was Abigail Williams. Abigail Williams is to blame because she possesses the evil qualities of being remorselessness, jealous, and also having the quality of vengefulness. These qualities that Abigail have are direct contributions to the murder of many people who were unjustly hanged to death.
Abigail Williams is a manipulative character that broke apart the town through lies, accusations, and trying to get what she wanted. Abigail, the niece of a reverend, should be a good girl but instead is considered a whore and a liar. She is motivated by wanting to marry John Proctor, be a mom, and be considered a “saint”. By wanting these things she goes out of her way to get a potion created to kill John’s wife, and get others to agree with her. By doing these things it creates death and terror throughout the town and causes manys to be hanged and killed brutally. Abigail goes to court and accuses many people of witchcraft and sending her soul on
In the crucible Abigail williams is one of the main characters and she did a lot to form the story.These are three most dominant traits that Abigail williams had in the book.
Conflict within a story does not only affect a single character yet rather affects them all. Abigail Williams, niece to Samuel Parris and cousin of Betty Parris, is most responsible for the conflicts within The Crucible. Abigail Williams consistently caused conflicts between many characters in the story as a revenge towards Elizabeth Procter following the conclusion of an affair with John Procter, Elizabeth’s husband. Initially, this conflict was kept between Abigail and John however soon after Abigail grew bitter towards John Procter’s wife, Elizabeth Procter as well as John himself. This bitterness resulted in a deadly accusation of alleged witchcraft as well as a cruel dispute within the small village of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. People will go to great lengths in order to protect the ones they cherish the most, even if it means destruction.
The Crucible shows bravery and cowardice throughout the book. Abigail Williams is a cowardly girl who doesn’t want to get in trouble for her foolish acts, who is then is offered a way to blame others for her actions by giving the names of “witches” in the town. John Proctor starts out as a cowardly man who cheated on his wife and didn’t want to give away Abigail’s secret that her accusations were false, but he ends up being a man that will die for his friends and the goodness of his name.
The devastating Salem witch trials occurred between February 1692 and May 1693. By the end of the trials many people were accused, nineteen were executed and several more died in prison. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, captures the hysteria that developed during the Salem witch trials. Crucible character, Abigail Williams, represents the repressed desires that many of the Puritans possess. Abigail’s readiness to abandon Puritan social restrictions sets her apart from the other characters, and eventually leads to her downfall. Abigail Williams uses manipulation and cruelty to create an atmosphere of terror and intimidation in her town. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Abigail Williams leads the hysteria in Salem by taking extreme measures to succeed in attaining John Proctor's love.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail’s flaws- lust, jealousy, and mendacity- that led her to be responsible the most for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem. The Crucible focuses of the finding of young girls and a slave messing around in the woods, trying to conjure spirits from the dead. Rather than admit to their actions and face the consequences, the girls accuse everyone else of the crimes they were guilty of. Abigail Williams is the person who caused much of the drama in this story. She bears much responsibility for everyone meeting with Tituba in the woods. Once Parris discovers this meeting, Abigail attempts to keep her actions a secret because it would possibly reveal her affair with Proctor. Abigail lies to cover up her affair with proctor, and to stop the charges of witchcraft in order to prevent the terrible punishments that go along with the accusations.
Patty Jenkins, an American film director and screenwriter wrote,“Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.” This quote is reminiscent of Abigail Williams, a character in The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller. In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, four girls were caught doing witchcraft. The girls accused other innocents of witchcraft, so they would not be framed for it. Due to the girl's actions, many of them, accused were hanged to death. Abigail Williams was a villain in The Crucible.
Abigail Williams played the biggest part in the deaths of innocent people. She was best known for making up chronic lies about people in the community, she influenced her friends into being on board with setting people up, and when the people she had framed were sent to be sentenced she did not stand up for them or get them out of death. There are many examples showcasing Abigail lying about innocent people. One example is found towards the middle of the play when Abigail falsely accuses Tituba of practicing witchcraft.
The court and Abigail led people to believe that this hysteria was quite real and something to feel threatened over even though it truly was non-existent. The mass panic was also something that led people to believe in the existence of witches. If the people around you begin to panic, you do too because you worry about what they are worrying about. This is what happened with Abigail and her gang of girls. The girls that had been accused simply went along with the witch act because they panicked and feared what would come if they had not.