Preview

The Crucible: the Evilness and Selfishness of Abigail Williams

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
959 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Crucible: the Evilness and Selfishness of Abigail Williams
The Crucible: The Evilness and Selfishness of Abigail Williams

In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, there is one character who, because of her selfish and evil ways, causes the destruction of many people in the town of
Salem. This character is Abigail Williams. In the play, jealousy, and self- interest are the two characteristics that are seen constantly throughout the play. These characteristics pertain particularly to Abigail, and give a graphic description of her life, and how she deals with things in it. Throughout the play she gets worse and worse each time something major happens. After her affair and failure with voodoo, she was overcome by love and jealousy, and she was willing to do anything to get John back to her own self.
Since she was overcome, she had no concern with morals, and starts to sin heavily by starting the witch trials, which causes the deaths of many people in the town. Abigail doesn't want anyone to find out that she was in the forest so she harshly threatens Betty Paris and Mary Warren not to say anything. "Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and
I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you... And you know I can do it... I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down." She fell in love with John Proctor after their affair, her morals and her whole life began to fall apart. She started to be overcome with her feelings of love, and her passion for John was enormous. After she was denied these things she could no longer control herself, and her whole reason for living became to get back John. This shows that when a person is given something, which they enjoy, and even love, and they are denied it, they feel distraught and they will many times do almost anything to get it back. She was very desperate and she felt willing to do anything to get back
John for herself. She had been brought up to believe that magic

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    John and Kathy’s love was based on secrecy. Communication was discoursed by both of them when ever the other tried to come clean, as to suggest the truth was too much to handle. Kathy hated politics and seemingly wanted John to lose. She knew about the spying and secretly kept a grudge for making her abort unborn baby. When she tried to confess this to john, John brushed it off and prevented the confession. This speaks of John’s dear of loss. He might have known that what was coming would shake the relationship so he chose to keep living in deceit in hopes that he may never lose Kathy. This fear of loss goes back to the lose of his father. When john’s father died, he was not hurt the way you might expect. It seems almost as if john missed the concept of having a father figure rather then his actual father. This becomes clearer when it seems like john remembers an idolized, generic version of his father unlike the real one.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    far, and not even the truth can calm down the town’s frenzy that Abigail made up. This…

    • 612 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We can’t help but to tell a lie here and there. We, as a race, have the tendency to unknowingly tell a tale to save ourselves, others or their feelings. In this particular situation, Abigail Williams was only thinking for herself to avoid the rope.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    : Because it is my name.(pg 538).” This shows that John does not want his name to be use for a lie. In Act II, John was devoted to make Elizabeth happy again after she found out he had an affair with Abigail. The text states “ If the crop is good I’ll buy George Jacob’s heifer. How would that please you(pg 487).” This shows that John feels guilty about having an affair with Abigail so he is trying to find a way for Elizabeth to forgive him.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Concerning the title, Miller's subtlety as a writer is demonstrated in choosing The Crucible for his play. The crucible is a tool for purification, that only happens under the intense heat of the crucible, so he clearly meant that title as a metaphor to imply the adversities that his Salem community must go through, and thus, some are refined, and some prove their true metal which is not very high ( Dukore 70).…

    • 192 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams plays a very important role as being a manipulative character that accuses many woman of witchcraft, some including Tituba, Sarah Good, Goody Booth and Goody Hawkins. Abigail also had an affair with Proctor, which leads to a lot of problems for him down the road. Abigail Williams gets a lot of women in trouble by saying that they were involved in witchcraft and that they were torturing children and young girls. The problem with Abigail saying stuff like this about other women is that the punishment for witchcraft back then was death, usually by getting hung. Abigail manipulated everyone into thinking that she was also getting her by one of the women doing witchcraft.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    How would the word Crucible be defined? The word crucible can be defined as a severe test or trial. Nevertheless the definition describes “The Crucible” because throughout the play witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts took place. These trials were extreme and intense, as a Crucible is defined. One major charter in which the symbolic significance of the title relates to is Abigail Williams. Throughout the play Abigail acted extreme about having spirits cast on her and accusing others of being witches and or taking part in witchcraft. Abigail's actions created havoc throughout Salam.…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When present, fear can often be exploited for one’s personal gain. The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, exemplifies the power of fear due to the imaginary idea of witchcraft in the small village of Salem. During the time this play was written, the United States was overcome by the fear of communism, which had led to the government accusing many innocent people for ridiculous reasons. Miller uses The Crucible to show how many of the accusations in the Salem Witch Trials, a similar event, often had underlying, selfish, and personal reasons behind them. In the play Abigail Williams, and Thomas Putnam’s take advantage of the pervasive fear in the village, allowing them to fulfill their selfish and exploitative motives which are what truly fuel the Salem Witch Trials.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Don't lie to hail she comes to me while I sleep she's always making me dream corruptions."page 1091" The crucible is in the astonishing play about the history of Salem and witchcraft. This play is a story from past time, Abigail Williams is a huge part of this play because of her scheming ways to put people to death as you can see from the previous quote I listed, this was one of her many lies. Many different people play a role in the Salem deaths but Abigail started all and kept playing it off until she killed in abundant amount. Abigail is responsible for numerous deaths that occurred during this time. Due to her falsely accusing goody Proctor, threatening the girls to take part in her lies, and her admission to guilt by leaving Salem. Abigail is most to blame as a result of her extremely persuasive ways that involve threats towards the rest of the girls which made them start blaming people for witchcraft and they lied about all the things that they were accused of.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The girl Abigail Williams allegation begins to go a little too far when she blames witchcraft on one of the judges wife. This might have triggered a little bit of disertenty in the judges minds on Abigail's accusations on the townspeople. This is because a judge's wife can't be touched by the devil. When Mary Warren suggested that they confess about dancing in the woods. The next day all the girls turned on her in court and said that her spirits trying to kill them.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is a witch, you might ask yourself. A witch is a person who practices witchcraft, which are…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the main characters of the play The Crucible, Abigail Williams, is the most spiteful and least complex character throughout the entire play. She is the villain of the play, even more than Parris or Danforth. She is on the lower end of the social hierarchy; the only people below her were slaves like Tituba. Abigail Williams possess wicked character traits that give her a negative perception. She is a jezebel figure who lacks feelings, an immoral character who lacks ethics and a manipulative person who lacks a conscience.…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    John Proctor

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages

    His feelings changed because he accepted responsibility for having an affair with Abigail. John also came to the realization that his marital problems were not all Elizabeth’s fault. He agreed that it was both of their faults. He was also not to stray away from the truth to stay alive like he wanted to. He stood by what he knew was right and the truth.…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Abigail Williams is one of the most contradictory figures within The Crucible. She is charismatic, bright and persuasive yet lacks any sense of morals or fairness. She is vindictive, selfish and reckless in her pursuit for power and affection. Such actions are seen in Act one when Betty briefly wakes up from her coma like state and begins yelling at Abigail, “You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” (Miller, 18) This can be seen as an act to be involved romantically once again with her former boss John Proctor, who she has an illicit affair with. After Betty’s revelation Abigail promptly shuts down any idea of rebelling…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Human Condition

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages

    for they didn’t feel any sort of compassion. When those we cared for hurt us or we hurt…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays