Abigail Williams in The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Abigail Williams is the troubled niece of Reverend Parris of Salem.

She is an orphan; made so by brutal natives who killed her parents

before her very eyes. The witch-hunt begins when Abigail is at the age

of seventeen. She has a large role in this novel, especially on these

dark events and also her relationship with John Proctor.

In my opinion from what I have understood from the text she is a

tempestuous character. She is initially perceived as being wild bright

and proud. Her character then develops a macabre quality that becomes

a precocious influence over everybody in the village of Salem. She

abuses this 'ability' to turn things to her advantage and others

demise. She develops a frosty insensitive demeanor, which seems to be

her permanence but occasionally she shows different emotions in

moments of intense passion and fear. This suggests confusion, perhaps

misguidance due to the absence of her parents. Projections of these

emotions are generally acerbic, though she is often deceptive in her

manner, feigning the necessary feeling to gain what she desires, which

is most obviously in the play, John Proctor. In my opinion

understanding Abigail's

Motives and drives is quite difficult, it is hard to see why she is

doing a certain thing when you consider the many different aspects of

her character. You may see a girl who after violent trauma has emerged

psychologically damaged. Others may detect an evil trait in Abigail.

Hardened by the traumatic death of her parents she has become

vengeful, throughout the play she seems to passionately resent doubt

with Parris' questioning in Act1. Always maintaining that she is a

proper and decent girl. She's expectant of unbounded tolerance and

sympathy in compens...

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.... That at birth she was a different

child to the present day Abigail. I feel that she has always had a

sense of evil within herself. Her parent's deaths only heightened this

sense and sharpened her intent, gave her the opportunity to exercise

at her own will. From a powerful envy grew hate and from these

emotions she brought a whole town to its knees. And she revelled in

it, before it became too dangerous. She, unblinkingly, sent countless

people to their deaths; she effortlessly imposed dreadful fear upon

the young girls in the village, to the extent that one was reduced to

insanity. She thought not once to stop, the euphoric indulgence was

too great for her, because she could, she did. Ironically throughout

her diabolical reign the one redeeming feature she possessed enforced

her actions and accusations most powerfully, her illusive childlike

innocence.