In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, while there are other evils portrayed, Abigail Williams is by far the biggest evil throughout the story. She is a wicked teenaged girl who has her heart set on a man that she will never have and that causes bitterness to develop. While other characters display flaws and moments of unreasonableness, Abigail shows her level of monstrosity through manipulation, compulsive lying and allowing anyone and everyone to get hurt in order to obtain what she wants.
Abigail is extremely manipulative, she has many people under the thumb of her control and often uses it to her advantage. For example, the girls all go into the forest and dance, and do other things considered unrighteous by the town. Abigail uses fear to manipulate …show more content…
Many times using a scapegoat and telling a lie about someone, “She sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer!” (Miller, 1952, p. 44). When confronted about what happened in the forest by Reverend Hale, she cries out that it was Tituba who made them do it and that she only wants to be in God’s light again after being bewitched many times by the slave. This is in fact a lie, Abby was never forced to do anything by anyone, quite the opposite in fact. Another example of her lies is when she is originally confronted by her uncle about the forest incident, she claims all that they did was dance, but this is made out to be false to the reader by her cousin, Betty, “You drank blood, Abby! You didn’t tell him that!” (Miller, 1952, p. 19). Abigail knows that what she did is wrong, by drinking blood she was not only drinking something utterly revolting, Abigail was committing an act of witchcraft; she will do and say anything to keep that out of public knowledge, including lie. Abigail is the leader of the girls’ charade, the other girls follow her lead and do not dare contradict her. Within the first act, Abigail alone accuses seven people of witchcraft, all of whom were never witches, but she lies about it to save her reputation and to further her plan to eliminate Elizabeth Proctor, John’s wife, from …show more content…
She shows no empathy or remorse for any of the wrong acts she does, implementing even her own friends should they step out of line. When John refuses her, Abigail mentions Elizabeth’s name in court, in order to try and get her out of the way, “…stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in,” (Miller, 1952, p. 74). Abigail has Mary Warren plant a poppet, with a needle in its stomach, with Elizabeth so that she will be arrested as a witch and likely to hang. In addition to this when John brings Mary Warren forward to report this deceit, Abigail cannot have this, she has dug the hole too large so she implements Mary as a witch, “Oh Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it’s God’s work I do,” (Miller, 1952, p. 119). This does backfire as her implementing of Mary lead to her confession of witchcraft and the accusation that John Proctor is in cahoots with the Devil, “No, I love God; I go your way no more. I love God, I bless God. Abby, Abby, I’ll never hurt you no more!” (Miller, 1952, p. 119). Mary is utterly terrified of Abigail and knows what she in capable of, so in order to free herself of Abby’s wrath, she implicates John, not knowing of her friend’s true