The Crucible
Abigail williams
As the play unfolds, Abigail Williams is presented as an innocent adopted teenager of Parris. Abigail was Elizabeth Proctor’s maid, but after the affair with John, she loses her job as a maid. Born as a “Vampire”, Abigail is represented as manipulative, vengeful, menacing girl who is mainly motivated by her fear and immature arrogance. Abigail Williams is definitely a static character because she remains unethical and remorseless throughout the play. Manipulative she is, Abigail is able to convince the supreme court officials of the existence of devils in Salem. Using the name of God to conceal her guilt and be called the “Thumb of God”, she influences both Reverend Hale and Thomas Putnam in the witch-hunt trials. Abigail, the leader of the girls, initiates the hysteria by accusing the innocent people around her. She says, “I danced for Devil; I saw him …I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Brdget Bishop with the Devil!.(45)” Manipulating the religion, Puritan, she convinces all jurors of her infallible integrity and takes control of the court to accuse Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail, threatening her girls to follow her instructions, says “Let either of you breathe a ward, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you (19).” She exploits Marry Warren, the new maid of Mr. Proctor, to bring a doll, a curse which Abigail claims to be, in Proctor’s house to hang Elizabeth and marry with John. When her love, John dies, Abigail later turns up as a prostitute in Boston, carrying a innate evil trait she possessed since the play begins.