A Reputation Threads through Salem
A relatively calm town was deserted in response to madness and mayhem. Who was accountable for this? Abigail Williams. Abigail was a teen girl in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts. Her lustful fantasies towards John Proctor and suspicious behavior in the woods is what drove her and a small group of her companions to start sporadically accusing innocent people of witchcraft. These allegations started shortly after Abigail’s uncle and the town’s local minister, Paris, caught Abagail’s small group of friends dancing and chanting in the woods. It is suspected these girl’s sudden outbursts are a result of the minimal rights Puritan women were allowed and the immediate need to distract officials from …show more content…
Her power stems an outburst from other characters in The Crucible, namely Proctor, whose decisions are directly effect by Abigail. The confines of the Puritan society lend minimal rights to women and the role of sin is drastically exaggerated. Puritan’s thrives off of order and obedience. What they believe to be catastrophic sins seems trivial in today’s tainted culture. Because their philosophy is so strict, the smallest wrongdoing could send a person into degradation. Due to these societal constrictions, people during the Puritan era often garner their misconduct, which leads to lies. Abigail withholds her dishonesties in order to maintain a high status within the church. She denies accusations against her until the end and melodramatically changes the subject when things get heated. When Mary Warren accuses Abigail of falsehood during the trails, Abigail immediately screams, “Oh, please, Mary! Don’t come down!” (107) and starts shrieking. She uses this tactic to distract officials and put the blame on someone else. Abigail refuses relinquish her new found reputation in the town and, arguably, the power she receives muddles her judgment. John Proctor’s affair with Abigail is kept silent throughout most of The Crucible because adultery is a sin in the Puritan society. He refuses to speak about it until his frustration with Abigail increases to a point where he …show more content…
Throughout The Crucible, Miller exemplifies her influence by using the theme “the power of falsehood.” It can be argued that she started the trials to merely avoid blame for the sin of dancing in the woods and to obtain affection from John Proctor. Abigail is also used to display Miller’s underlying messages of reputation and its relation to the Puritan constraints. She is a rare feminine figure because women dunging the 1600s were granted few rights. Although Abagail misuses her new found power, it is understandable why she would crave so much of it. Likewise, bringing awareness to the daycare indignity of the 1980s and the Salem Witch Trials will prevent unnecessary hysteria from persisting in impending periods of
A relatively calm town was deserted in response to madness and mayhem. Who was accountable for this? Abigail Williams. Abigail was a teen girl in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts. Her lustful fantasies towards John Proctor and suspicious behavior in the woods is what drove her and a small group of her companions to start sporadically accusing innocent people of witchcraft. These allegations started shortly after Abigail’s uncle and the town’s local minister, Paris, caught Abagail’s small group of friends dancing and chanting in the woods. It is suspected these girl’s sudden outbursts are a result of the minimal rights Puritan women were allowed and the immediate need to distract officials from …show more content…
Her power stems an outburst from other characters in The Crucible, namely Proctor, whose decisions are directly effect by Abigail. The confines of the Puritan society lend minimal rights to women and the role of sin is drastically exaggerated. Puritan’s thrives off of order and obedience. What they believe to be catastrophic sins seems trivial in today’s tainted culture. Because their philosophy is so strict, the smallest wrongdoing could send a person into degradation. Due to these societal constrictions, people during the Puritan era often garner their misconduct, which leads to lies. Abigail withholds her dishonesties in order to maintain a high status within the church. She denies accusations against her until the end and melodramatically changes the subject when things get heated. When Mary Warren accuses Abigail of falsehood during the trails, Abigail immediately screams, “Oh, please, Mary! Don’t come down!” (107) and starts shrieking. She uses this tactic to distract officials and put the blame on someone else. Abigail refuses relinquish her new found reputation in the town and, arguably, the power she receives muddles her judgment. John Proctor’s affair with Abigail is kept silent throughout most of The Crucible because adultery is a sin in the Puritan society. He refuses to speak about it until his frustration with Abigail increases to a point where he …show more content…
Throughout The Crucible, Miller exemplifies her influence by using the theme “the power of falsehood.” It can be argued that she started the trials to merely avoid blame for the sin of dancing in the woods and to obtain affection from John Proctor. Abigail is also used to display Miller’s underlying messages of reputation and its relation to the Puritan constraints. She is a rare feminine figure because women dunging the 1600s were granted few rights. Although Abagail misuses her new found power, it is understandable why she would crave so much of it. Likewise, bringing awareness to the daycare indignity of the 1980s and the Salem Witch Trials will prevent unnecessary hysteria from persisting in impending periods of