Antagonist of the Crucible: Abigail Williams

Seth Mahoney

Mrs. Redmerski

English 2

12/1/15

Antagonist of the Crucible: Abigail Williams  

        In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible one of the main characters, Abigail Williams, is a girl who had no real importance in her town of Salem except that her uncle was the town reverend and in fact she also had a bad reputation because of an  love affaire she had with a well-respected man named John Proctor. She then went on to be the main reason why dozens of townspeople were sent to jail or sentenced to hanging in Salem. The worst part about all her testimony and accusations was that they were made up.

Its is evident in The Crucible that Abigail Williams is the antagonist of the story based on her willingness to do anything to get her way, her not following the 10 commandments, and her lack of morale.

        To start off, Abigail Williams is the antagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible because of her willingness to do anything to get her way. Throughout The Crucible Abigail Williams is doing mean things to people, threatening them, and fabricating stories to get her way. This can be seen in The Crucible when Abigail threatens the other girls in act 1, “Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam's dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, 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. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! (She goes to Betty and roughly sits her up.) Now, you—sit up and stop this!” (Miller, 20). This quote shows the true motives behind Abigail’s actions, even as she tries to get the girls to agree on a story to protect herself she uses the threat of violence to keep them in line is part of the reason why her doing anything to get her way makes her the antagonist. Another example of Abigail doing anything to get her way can be seen after she is caught dancing in the woods she eventually ends up blaming Tituba and says Tituba forced her to dance and work for the devil and to help her own case she says she saw Sarah Good and Goody Osbourn with the devil also because she knows they are easy to convict of witchcraft. This shows how it is easy to see Abigail Williams is the Antagonist of The Crucible based on her willingness to get her way even if that means threatening her friends and blaming others for forcing her to dance in the woods and practice witchcraft.

        Another characteristic of Abigail Williams in The Crucible that makes her the antagonist is her not following the 10 commandments in regards to her actions and testimony in her overly religious society. At that time in their society breaking the 10 commandments was very uncommon in all aspects and for Abigail Williams to do it so frequently with no remorse is astonishing. Abigail Williams can first be seen breaking one of the 10 commandments when she commits adultery with John and then tries to convince him to continue their relationship and cheat on his wife more. "I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you've never looked up at my window" (Miller 23). In this quote Abigail is inquiring whether John has thought about her or not because she wants to continue their relationship, which would be a sin, and breaking one of the 10 commandments of adultery. Abigail Williams is again seen breaking one of the 10 commandments when she bears false witness multiple times in court and makes multiple testimonies about seeing and hearing spirits of people working for the devil. One example of her bearing false witness is when she pretends that Mary Warren transformed her spirit into a yellow bird and is controlling her mind and the other girls mind. In this situation out of nowhere Abigail started to pretend to talk to this ‘bird’ and the other girls followed suit because they were manipulated and threatened by Abigail to do what she says. Another example of Abigail bearing false witness can be seen when she says she saw various townspeople with the devil and signing his book which is getting them hung even though she did not really see them with the devil or see the devil at all. Abigail repeatedly not following the 10 commandments throughout the crucible shows how little she cared about what she was doing and how it affected others, which is why she is the antagonist of The Crucible.