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The theme of power in the crucible by arthur miller-analysis
The theme of power in the crucible by arthur miller-analysis
The theme of power in the crucible by arthur miller-analysis
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A final technique manipulated by Miller in order to position the reader in adopting the pre-determined viewpoint that Abigail Williams is wholly evil, is the inclusion and exclusion of information. This event depicts Abigail as manipulative and controlling, as rather than portraying the death as a tragic incident that effected Abigail, making her childhood difficult, which would have given an insight into why she is immoral and malicious, instead, Abigail used the violent death of her parents to scare the girls, and manipulate them into being under her control. If Miller had portrayed the tragic, it would have positioned the reader to have sympathy towards Abigail, which in turn would have represented her as not wholly evil, as she would have
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Abigail William’s flaws – mendacity, lust, and arrogance – that led her to be responsible the most for the tragedy of the witch hunt in Salem, Massachusetts. Driven by lust, Abigail was able to lie to the Salem community in hopes of covering her and her friends’ deeds and gaining the attention of John Proctor. Her arrogance enabled her t0 advance her deceit.
First, In the book The Crucible Abigail Williams is the vengeful, manipulative, and a liar. She seems to be uniquely gifted at spreading death and destruction wherever she goes. She has a sense of how to manipulate others and gain control over them. All these things add up to make her one good antagonist with a dark side. In Act I, her skills at manipulation are on full display. When she's on the brink of getting busted for witchcraft, she skillfully manages to pin the whole thing on Tituba and several of Salems other second class citizens. Also since Abigail's affair with John Proctor, she's been out to get Elizabeth, his wife. She convinced Tituba to put a curse on Elizabeth, hoping to get rid of her and take
Abigail Williams forms a continuous string of deceitful lies about the presence of witchcraft in Salem and her involvement with it, triggering the beginning of the trials and causing mayhem to permeate the town. Playwright Arthur Miller characterizes Abigail as "a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling"(8). Her fabrications induce calamity in Salem, and entangles many innocent people in her slanderous web of stories. In most cases, Abigail lies to evade discomfort or punishment. This pattern is first displayed when Reverend Hale interrogates Abigail:
To begin, teenager Abigail Williams exhibits the sinister side of human’s natural tendencies towards desire and deceit through her role in the play, identified Jungian archetype, and Kohlberg moral stage. First, as a female and an orphan, Abigail expresses the desperate sentiments of powerless women in the hierarchy of Salem society. Evident in Miller’s stage direction description, seventeen-year old Abigail depicts “a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling” (Miller I.8). Abigail’s dissembling or “hiding under a false appearance” (Webster Dictionary), reveals women’s inability to express genuine feelings, often out of fear of societal judgment or intolerance. As a female teen and orphan, Abigail represents a character with no authority in the Salem community, forced to act with malice and spite to get attention (as any female with a desire for influence would in this time). Second, identified with the Jungian archetype of the rebel, Abigail Williams acts with rage in an attempt to reveal and upend the immoral expectations present in Salem. Evidence of Abigail’s
Abigail Williams is manipulative and wants everything to go her way. She is the main character and causes trouble everywhere she goes. The Salem Witch Trials is about hearings and prosecutions of people who were accused of witchcraft. In The Crucible Abigail is a no good villain. Abigail first commits adultery with Elizabeth’s husband. Later on Abigail begins to accuse innocent people of doing witchcraft which causes them to die. Abigail Williams uses the Salem Witch Trials to put out all the resentment she has toward everyone.
Mary has to show great willpower to oppose Abigail; e.g. “I have no power.” In the stage directions it shows Mary summoning all her determination from within to stand up to Abigail. In this scene we can see how powerful Miller’s characters can be. Our first impression of Abigail is accurate because she is clearly capable of sending people to death to save herself.
Also important to the play is how Arthur Miller depicts how one selfish, evil person like Abigail Williams can bring others down and make others follow her to commit evil acts. These evil acts affect even the most honest people in the town like John and Elizabeth Proctor, and Rebecca Nurse who cannot fight the accusations made against them by those following Abigail. Those following Abigail are considered to be holy men that are full of honesty and justice, but the play shows that even those who are thought to be respectable and right, like people of government or community leaders can bring death to innocent people if they are driven by something wrong. II. Plot: The plot begins with the inciting incident where Rev. Parris finds his niece Abigail Williams and his daughter Betty along with his slave Tituba doing some dance in the forest.
The first way Miller illustrates the theme of lies and deceit is through Abigail’s conniving
The Crucible by Arthur Miller was a play that had different characters that contrasted other character’s personalities. The main example throughout the play is the character Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail is one of the main characters that is seen throughout the play as an antagonist. Elizabeth is introduced later as one of the main characters but as one of the victims in the play, These two contrast each other in their actions and personalities. In the play, the actions made by these ladies showed their personalities in the contrasting roles.
Now I know what you are thinking: ‘Abigail Williams should be hanged for her crimes and for the false accusations of women in Salem.’
hunt is perhaps Abigail Williams.Specifically, Abigail's conflict with John Proctor contributed to the spark of the Salem witch hunts. Johns unwillingness to admit his affair with Abigail caused her to lie to save herself. Examples of this, are, “ Abby, I may think of you from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I'll ever reach for you again.”(Miller 1270). This example illustrates how Proctor made her feel like a child. Another quote that further shows Abigail's responsibility is “Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let a sickly wife be—.”(Miller 1270). This quote brings attention towards the vengeance Abigail wants to bring to Goody Proctor
In every family, there is one child that is always very misleading and evil, and besides that, they get away with everything that they do that is unsound. The certain person in the family may break on of you mom’s favorite plate, and then end up placing the blame on you, and then persuades your parents that he or she is telling the true. Abigail Williams is the poor duplicate of that sibling or relative. She influences everyone that she is an innocent teenage girl, but that is not the case throughout the play. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail is the bona fide misleading and evil teenage girl.
Have you ever blamed someone for something they never did? In the play written by Arthur Miller, The Crucible, Abigail Williams accuses many people of witchcraft which eventually leads to the death of twenty innocent people. Ever since she is caught dancing in the woods at the beginning of the play, Abigail and her friends have been trying to disguise their mistakes by blaming others for “being with the devil.” By the end of the play, Abigail is responsible for the death of many people because of the flaws she had which led her to make poor decisions. Abigail’s decisions lead her to put many lives in the town of Salem in jeopardy. Her flaws, consisting of selfishness, anger, and cowardice, ultimately lead to her downfall which results
How can a girl who condemned seventy two to a death sentence and drank a charm to kill a man’s wife, a man she has slept with on more than one occasion be the victim? It’s possible when the town she lives in is worse than her. Although Abigail Williams is typically thought of as the antagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, she is in fact a victim as much as any other tragic character in the play.
While Abigail Williams responds to the crisis of the witch trials in a very malicious behaviour by charges witch craft against those who oppose her, Aphra Bont similarly responds by blaming others after her final child dies from the crisis. When Abigail is accused of witchcraft she quickly recognises that ‘conferring’ and redirecting the accusation gain her power she had previously been denied. She begins this by accusing the house slave Tituba of making her “laugh at prayer,” and “go drink blood.” Whilst the book goes on we are told that Aphra Bont is a respectable women, but like many the loss of her children sends her into madness. Performing a ritual and hanging up the body of her dead daughter, she then goes so far as to kill Elinor.