In Arthur Miller's play “The Crucible” Abigail Williams plays a big part in the Salem witch trials as the instigator, yet there were many other factors and people who contributed to the Salem witch trials and in the subsequent tragic deaths of those accused. Factors such as the theocratic society of Salem, the court, and individual factors related to personal grudges, vendettas and jealousy played an equally important role in these horrific events of 1692.
The unconscious state of Reverend Parris’s daughter Betty and unnatural sickness of Ruth, daughter of Anne and Thomas Putnam, seeds the suspicion of witchcraft.
Abigail Williams and her friends Mercy Lewis, Ruth Putnam, the slave girl Tituba who works in Reverend Parris’s home and Abigail's cousin Betty were dancing in the woods. Reverend Samuel Parris sees girls dancing, Tituba waving on fire, clothes lying on the grass. He also hears gibberish words coming from Tituba’s mouth. When girls get caught, Betty faints the moment Parris “leap[s] out” of the bush. This all leads Parris to believe some kind of “demonic art” was taking place. Betty takes “a fright”, as dancing is a “whipping offence” in a strict society of Salem.
Abigail has drunk “a charm to kill goody Proctor”, who is wife of John Proctor with who, Abigail had illicit relationship while working at Proctors household. Such satanic ritual is type of a witchcraft and “Witchery's a hangin' error….” in Salem. Abigail keeps on denying to her uncle, Reverend Parris that no witchcraft was going on in the woods. She further swears and tells Uncle Parris, “You mistake yourself!”. From this point onwards, Abigail tells endless lies to protect herself from a severe punishment of death.
Abigail possesses shrewd insight and a capacity for strategy that reveal maturity beyond that of most other characters. Abigail becomes the leader of the group as she needs to conceal her casting a spell on Elizabeth Proctor as it will reveal her affair with Proctor if she confesses to. She prompts all the girls to tell lies that all of them just “danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters.”. She goes onto give a violent threat that if spoken anything otherwise, she will “bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder”. Thus, Abigail uses her authority to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. She threatens the other girls with violence if they refuse to follow her direction.
When Witchcraft expert Reverend Hale arrives, he becomes suspicious of Betty's behavior and asks Abigail if she or Betty had drank any of the “Soup” in the kettle which they were brewing while they danced in the woods. Abigail is quick to say “no” to this accusation but rather blames it on Tituba. When Tituba comes in, Abigail is quick to accuse her so that the suspicions are turned. “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” “She makes me drink blood!”. This desperate act of self-preservation soon becomes Abigail's avenue of power.
Abigail realizes that Hale’s investigation is leading Tituba into having her simply confess and shift the blame of witchcraft on someone else to be automatically get “cleansed” out of it. Abigail immediately portrays herself as “victim” of witchcraft and claims that she “danced for the devil” and saw things that no-one else saw. Abigail frantically goes on accusing, “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” Abigail carefully selects the individuals to increase her credibility. Hence, she first accuses the town drunk and vagrant, knowing that society is already predisposed to convict them.
Using Church’s paranoia over unexplained sickness of Reverend Parris’s daughter Betty Parris, and Wealthy Salemite’s, Putnam’s last surviving child Ruth; Abigail steers the situation to protect herself from accusations and to take revenge on the people who had put her character to a test over her firing from work, by Elizabeth Proctor. She gives a great performance and takes full advantage of facts known about Salem Society which runs on “pretense and lies”.
Abigail develops a detailed plan to acquire Proctor and accuses John proctor’s wife, Goody Elizabeth Proctor being a witch. To make the accusation believable, she puts up an act of being struck with a needle “two inches in the flesh of her belly” and falling “to the floor”, while doing so she adds a “scream that bull would weep to hear” to her act. She does this at a time while at dinner with Reverand Parris at the dinner table. Abigail testify, it was Elizabeth Proctor’s “familiar spirit that put it in”.
Abigail has seen, Mary Warren, Elizabeth’s current household help, was making poppet for Elizabeth and has put the needle pierced into the belly of poppet for “safe keeping”. Abigail uses this fact and strikes a needle in her own belly and put up the performance of getting pierced needle at a dinner time and makes sure that people sees her in pain. This makes her accusation strong because anyone would think that a sane person would not stab themselves just so they accuse someone.
Abigail sees herself as Proctor's true love and his ideal choice for a wife. She believes she has to just eliminate Elizabeth so that she can be rightfully John’s wife. Abigail's fantasy reflects her age of a 17 years old. And this explains her earlier behavior of engaging in some kind satanic ritual where she drank blood charms to “kill Goody Proctor”, showing her vindictive nature.
Abigail had a dreadful childhood. She saw Indians smashing her “parents' heads on the pillow” next to hers. So being an orphan, having seen her parents being murdered can be traumatizing. Further, having Parris as a guardian couldn’t have helped as Parrisbelieves providing roof to his orphan niece, is like doing “charity”. Declaring herself as an innocent victim of witchcraft provided her with an instant sympathy, status, and credibility within Salem.
Although Abigail did play a huge role in the witch trials, she cannot be held solely responsible for what happened.
There were also other Salem citizens, who fueled the hoax such as wealthy Thomas and Ann Putnam, Walcott family, Reverend Parris as well as Judges of Salem Witch Trial.
Mr. Thomas Putnam, born into a wealthy and influential family, had political ambition which did not get fulfilled. Not gaining enough votes from citizens of Salem, instils grudges in his mind against fellow Salemites. Mrs. Anne Putnam had seven of her children “withered in her arms” in infancy. Thus, Mr and Mrs Putnam, hold grudges over Salemites, for their personal debacles and non-fulfilment of professional aspirations.
Ann Putnam, who is Paranoid about losing her only surviving child, Ruth to a witchcraft in Salem says in reference to Betty Parris's condition, “How high did she fly? How high?” She starts jumping to the extreme conclusion “I'd not call it sick; the devil's touch isheavier than sick” She and her husband Thomas Putnam just assume that witchcraft is at play. Parris urges Putnams, “leap not to witchcraft.”
The unscrupulous couple Putnams starts manipulating words of “Confession” from Tituba and Abigail that witchcraft is at play, and literally plants in their confession, names of women such as, “Goody Osburn”, “Sarah Good”, who Putnam have grudge against. For example, Goody Osburn were midwife for thdein Mrs Ann Putnam’s delivery and in Osburn’s hands Ann’s “babies shriveled ”.
Systematic campaign of witchcraft by Putnam against Rebecca Nurse , who was a very religions and god fearing woman was because Nurses had bitter feud with Putnams over land that resulted in 2 days battle in woods. Thomas Putnam’s relative Bayley was not able to take the office of ministry because the “Nurse’s clan prevented Bayley from taking office”. Further, Anne Putnam who lost many children in infancy was jealous of Rebecca nurse, having so many children and grandchildren and not one of them died. Anne accuses Rebecca of murdering her children.
Walcotts blame Martha Corey of being a witch. This was since she had sold them a pig and it died. When they asked for their money back saying that she had given them a sick pig, she refused and said “Walcott, if you haven’t the wit to feed a pig properly, you'll not live to own many” After that, the Walcott's claimed that they couldn't keep a pig alive for more than four weeks and so accused her of being a witch.
Furthermore, John Proctor, if had not been in illicit relationship with young Abigail, she might not have been driven to unscrupulous way of instigating witchcraft to kill John’s wife, Elizabeth, to ultimately herself be John Proctor’s wife. John is evidently guilty of the very hypocrisy that he despises in others.
There is also the mistake by Elizabeth Proctor. If she had not lied, the court would have been overthrown. When court asks her, “Is your husband a lecher?!” she downright refuses, “No sir”. This lie discredits John’s testimony of having affair with Abigail and also the fact that Abigail had confessed to Proctor that she had been dancing and that there was no witch craft done on them, to be dismissed by court as a lie.
Reverend Parris withholds crucial information of his Niece’s/Abigail's disappearance from Deputy Governor Danforth because he knows Danforth could interpret it as proof that the girls are a fraud. Parris protects his own interests to prevent upheaval in Salem — an upheaval he fears would result in violence toward himself.
The theocratic society of Salem and church having immense power on the judiciary system of Salem is equally to blame for. Danforth’s statement “a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between” in Act III, aptly sums up attitude of the court-authorities toward the witch trials. Since the court is conducting the witch trials, anyone who questions the trials, such as Proctor or Giles Corey, is the court’s enemy. From there, the logic is simple: the court does God’s work, and so an enemy of the court must, necessarily, be a servant of the Devil.
Hence in my view, Abigail’s role in Salem witch trials was only to an extent of self-preservation and to an extent of wining her lover back. Witch trial were mainly instigated and sustained by mass hysteria of Salem Society which ran on fear and paranoia of devil. Therefore, Salemites with old grudges and personal vendettas as well as Salem court with rigid and absolute ideological convictions, are the ones who sustained the hoax of witchcraft, leading to court trials and mass executions thereafter.
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