Abigail Williams Downfall

Words: 869
Pages: 4

How could a young woman’s crush lead to the demise of herself and others? Abigail Williams is a troubled character. In the Crucible, she has many faults. Many characters in the play are hanged because of her and her friends wanting to get out of a chastisement. Abigail also was the one who drank the charm, which led people to believe she could see the people who had contacted the Devil, which put her at the center of it all. At the trial, she was the one who people watched to see if she would react from the people. She is the main factor as to why so many people were killed. By the end of this paper, you should understand why Abigail deserves the blame for the outcome of events in the play. At the beginning of the play, Abigail is accused of being a witch and contacting the Devil after dancing in the woods and drinking a blood charm. It can be shown in the following quote:
HALE. Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying. Did you call the Devil last night?
ABIGAIL. I
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Many people may argue that Abigail was a girl in love, and she was just trying to get Proctor’s attention and hopefully get him to return her affection. A love struck girl should not go to this extent to get the one who does not return her feelings. They could also argue that she was young, and how we all do terrible things in our youth. She did do some things that could be blamed because she was a child, like dancing or rebelling against the Reverend’s rules, but blaming innocent people for being witches and eventually sending the accused to their demise because she wanted to be in a relationship with a married man is not at all justified by being a child. Other people might blame other characters in the play, like Judge Danforth. Yes, he and the others decided who was going to be hanged, but he handed all of the power to Abigail and the girls. This moment can be shown in the following quote from page