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The Crucible, Act 1. Parris tells Abigail that he cannot pretend he didn’t see what he saw in the woods with the girls, including one of them running naked. He is worried that his enemies will discover this and use it against him to harm his reputation and standing in the community. True to character, Abigail simply lies and says no one was ...
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In Arthur Millers The Crucible, Abigail Williams is the pebble that gets the avalanche of the Salem witch trials started. It is Abigail who first says Tituba has been using supernatural powers to corrupt her and Betty, and it is Abigail who jumps on the (metaphorical) accusation train after Tituba has been coerced into confessing her involvement an...
Abigail and Elizabeth have a mutual dislike, although the feeling is much stronger on Abigail's side than Elizabeth's (since Abigail eventually ends up accusing Elizabeth of being a witch):
Abigail's resentment of her uncle, by contrast, is quite clear. Miller uses explicit stage directions to Abigail like in terror, with an edge of resentment and With ill-concealed resentment at him (Act 1, p. 11) when she's addressing Parris to illustrate the precarious position Abigail is in. Because Abigail is an orphan in a society that does not ...
Abigail has a somewhat mixed relationship with the third member of the Parris household, Tituba. Abigail seems to believe in Tituba's powers to the extent that she gets Tituba to make a potion to kill Goody Proctor (presumably so Abigail can marry John). When it starts to seem like this information might come out, however, Abigail preemptively accu...
Finally, Abigail appears to be friends (or friendly) with Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren. Mercy and Abigail seem to have a sort of partners-in-crime type of friendship - Abigail likes Mercy well enough to warn her by telling her what Parris has told Abigail he knows about the woods (although this could be perhaps because Abigails afraid of what Mercy ...
Abigail is an accomplished and convincing liar - she lies easily, without any compunction or care for the truth, and can keep the lies going. From her very introduction, Miller tells the reader of the play that Abigail has an endless capacity for dissembling (p. 8), and she spends the rest of her time onstage living up to this description. This cha...
Abigail only appears onstage in Acts 1 and 3, although she is talked about by other characters in the other two acts. In Act 1, she enters very near the beginning (right after Tituba has been shooed off by Parris) and stays onstage through the end of the act; in Act 3, she and the other girls are summoned to the court towards the last third of the ...
At the beginning of Act 1, Abigail is chastised by her uncle for possibly getting Betty sick with the dancing they did in the woods. Abigail tries to defend herself, saying that Betty was just startled when Reverend Parris leaped out of the bush so suddenly and thats why Betty fainted. Parris refuses to believe Abigail is telling the whole truth an...
Once the adults leave, Abigail confers with Mercy and Mary Warren about what to do. Abigail briefly manages to rouse Betty, who tries to throw herself out of the window, yells that Abigail drank a potion to kill Goody Proctor, and then sinks back into an unresponsive state again. Abigail threatens everyone with violence if she says something about ...
Hale arrives and begins to question Abigail about her actions in the woods. When pressed, Abigail blames Tituba, who is then fetched to explain herself. Before Tituba can say anything, Abigail preemptively strikes by saying that it was Tituba who did all the bad things like conjuring and creating potions, knowing that because Tituba is one of the f...
We learn via Cheever that Abigail has charged Elizabeth Proctor as a witch (Act 2, p. 69). It turns out that while at dinner at the Parris house, Abigail fell to the floor, writhing in pain, and a needle was pulled out of her by Parris; Abigail then testify it were your wifes familiar spirit pushed it in (Act 3, p. 71). It also turns out that Abiga...
Abigail is brought into the courtroom (along with the other afflicted girls) by Danforth for questioning. She denies that she has lied about the supernatural torments shes been through, affirming that Mary is lying and that Goody Proctor always kept poppets (Act 3, p. 96), and appears insulted when Danforth asks her if shes sure she didnt just imag...
In Act 3, Miller describes Abigail as staring Mary Warren down remorselessly (p. 97); furthermore, Abigail seems to deliberately focus on Mary Warren as the cause of both of her fits:
Unlike with Mary Warren, however, Abigails wish to avoid trouble is not coupled with a desire to please. She wants to avoid trouble not because she wants to make everyone happy, but because that is the safest thing to do. And in contrast to John Proctor, who struggles through the play with how hes compromised his sense of himself by committing adul...
In Puritan Salem, dancing and conjuring dead people are NOT activities that are good for your reputation, particularly if youre in a precarious social position to begin with (orphaned, young, girl, fired servant). Being found guilty of these acts, however, will merit far less punishment than being found guilty of adultery and of trying to kill the ...
Whether or not Abigail's fears of being kicked out of the Parriss house are justified, theyre still a motivating factor - she wants to avoid getting into trouble so that she doesn't lose her only home.
Abigail does not immediately seize upon the suggestion of witchcraft that Hale so blatantly puts out with his leading question (Did you feel any strangeness when she called him? A sudden cold wind, perhaps? A trembling below the ground?); instead, she denies any knowledge of the Devil and witchcraft (I didnt see no Devil!). If she really were entir...
Abigail Williams is portrayed as an unscrupulous, malevolent young woman who propagates the witchcraft hysteria throughout Salem's community in order to avoid being...
Abigail denies she has done anything wrong and blames Elizabeth entirely. Readers will soon learn that Abigail did have an affair with John Proctor, but this moment shows how much Abigail hates Elizabeth Proctor as well as her willingness to lie.
Mar 27, 2018 · In act 1 of The Crucible, Abigail drinks blood as a charm to bring about Elizabeth Proctor's death because she is envious of Elizabeth and desires John Proctor.
In The Crucible, Abigail Williams has several goals that effectively generate her conflicts, internal and external. One of Abigail's primary goals is to resume her affair with John Proctor.
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Abigail Williams. Of the major characters, Abigail is the least complex. She is clearly the villain of the play, more so than Parris or Danforth: she tells lies, manipulates her friends and the entire town, and eventually sends nineteen innocent people to their deaths.
