We get our first hint of Abigail Williams' mental instability soon after she is introduced in the play. She is presented as a wild girl at first: she's a lost orphan, playing with witchcraft; she bullies her friends; she's had am affair with a middle-aged man. However, she hints at one of the reasons for her wildness when she tells her friends, "I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night,"(Miller 144). In these lines, Abby shows that she's not as tough as she wants others to believe. As a teenager, she's still traumatized by witnessing the violent deaths of her parents when she was a little child. Abigail Williams is first shown as a victim of violence, which explains
