Personal Character Exposed in The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Fear of being arrested or put to death is the key motivation in turning others in as witches. From these three human flaws, the town of Salem falls into chaos with many innocent people paying the price. Vengeance plays a key role in causing the mass hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail Williams, who?s probably most to blame for the trials, acts out of revenge. She and John Proctor have had an affair and when Elizabeth Proctor finds out, she throws Abigail out of their house.

I believe that Abigail Williams is to blame for turning the town of Salem against many people, and I think it is her fault that several people were killed. Abigail Williams sends the town into a state of hysteria by accusing men and women of practicing the satanic art of witchcraft. Abigail’s flaws - her lustful desire for John Proctor, her deceptive habit of lying in order to retain her good name in the town, and her selfishness and obsessive aspiration for power – led her to be ultimately responsible for the catastrophe of the witch hunt in Salem. The first reason Abigail is to blame for the deaths of the innocent Puritans is her lustful personal ambition to be John Proctor’s wife. John and Abigail previously had an affair, which basically began the hysteria.

Abigail lies to save herself by giving the names of others to be killed. “You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” (88). Abigail also uses threats of violence and the thought of her actually knowing some real witchcraft to scare them into not speaking up about what was really going on with her. She is very evil, and throughout the novel driven t... ... middle of paper ... ...imation of irony considering the prodigious amounts of lies are told in order to “protect” the court and the people of Salem. The process of proving the guilty and finding the innocent involved with witchcraft has a lot to do with the greed, selfishness and personal grudges that the characters display throughout the trials.

It was the gruesome reality of orphanage that hardened her into a cruel, unforgiving young woman; this is exemplified in Act One when she mercilessly threatens to kill anyone of the girls if they open their mouths about the witchcraft she devised the night before. Also, another challenge she faces in the small puritan commu... ... middle of paper ... ...er than face her sins. As the curtains close on Miller's play, Abigail Williams has took the role of an evil villain to the ultimate level; she has torn away the morality of a puritan village, she has destroyed the life of her lover, her uncle's reputation, the girls' innocence, and all without even flinching. How could such a seemingly innocent girl be so cruel? By the end of the play, the villagers hold a loathing and malice towards her as well as the audience.

As the girls’ conspiracy continues, controversy arise over their truthfulness; people choose sides often lying themselves to support their side, further altering the lives of all involved. 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.

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. The true antagonist of the play is the town of Salem itself, because of the judgemental and self concerned peoples, and its oppressive views. Abigail;s outrageous actions are due to her desensitized views on death and actions otherwise viewed as unethical.

Abigail was jealous of the love John and Elizabeth shared, so she wanted one dead. She got that eventually, although now she will never get to have Proctor either. Abigail’s jealousy caused so much chaos and destruction in the small town of Salem; she killed countless people, had many thrown in jail for no apparent reason, and manipulated numbers of people all to get revenge upon the man she loved and his wife.

Elizabeth is a stand up women. Throughout The Crucible, she seems to be struggling to forgive her husband and let her anger go for his infidelity. Of course her anger towards Abigail is understandable. Elizabeth’s hatred for Abigail is justified because Abigail later in the play tries to murder Elizabeth by framing her of witch craft. Elizabeth is the blameless victim.

At one point, Abigail becomes angered when John will no longer take her back in place of Elizabeth, and Abigail says, "She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold sniveling woman, and you bend to her" (M... ... middle of paper ... ... have vengeance by means of Salem's court. Vengeance dictated the actions of many characters in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, just as Salem's court system became utilized as a means of retaliation for those characters. During the period of the witch trials, it became an opportunistic time for residents of Salem to have revenge on those who they abhor.

Abigail Williams’s lust for John Proctor and her desire for attention motivate her to falsely accuse innocent women of witchcraft, resulting in the regret and desperation she feels in regard to the choices she made, and subsequently her decision to run away from Salem to escape the pain she has caused for herself and for others. Abigail Williams in motivated by her irresponsible and inappropriate lust for the revered and respected John Proctor, as well as her desire for attention in a town where she receives little notice. John Proctor, a major figure in Salem admired for his honesty and integrity, is married to Elizabeth Proctor; despite this, Abigail pines after him, chasing feelings that John does not share. Though the two had had an affair earlier on, John strives to stay true to his wife and forget his fondness for the teenage Abigail Williams. Abigail chooses to cling to John Proctor’s previous feelings for her and wishes to share a life with him, one where Elizabeth does not exist.