Abigail Williams Character Analysis in The Crucible

A book about witchcraft and witchery, the Crucible, teaches us about selfishness and fear and the consequences along with it. Humans are the most selfish species on the planet. These people are terrified, frightened of other's assessment, losing their riches or either terrified of losing their pride. Be that as it may, some need retribution, vengeance for cheating and retribution for pride. A lot like ourselves right? In the Salem witch trials, 19 people were hanged after being found guilty for performing witchcraft. In The Crucible, Miller dives deep into the concepts of revenge and fear as well as selfishness through the Salem Witch trials. Abigail Williams is a prime example of someone who wanted revenge. The townspeople demonstrate fear, considering they are scared of Abigail and what will happen if they cross a line.Humans are the most selfish species on the planet. 

In this novel, Abigail is utilizing others as substitutes whilst living in fear herself, when she is seen dancing in the forest. Abigail faults the majority of the vulnerable, poor and blameless individuals of performing black magic or witchcraft. Abigail, the young ladies, and a few groups in the town are taking advantage of the circumstance to get land, seek retribution and disposing of townspeople they despise. Because of Abigail's choice, 19 individuals were hanged and one of them was battered to the point of death. This clarifies the incongruity in the novel, as the honest individuals are getting slaughtered while the sorry individuals are the one's getting what they need. Abigail utilizes the witchcraft preliminaries to get retribution on John Proctor for betraying her when his wife Elizabeth after Elizabeth found about the affair going on among Abigail and John. Abigail's self centered reasons have caused the death of 19 guiltless individuals. On the off chance that Abigail needed to seek retribution Proctor, she ought to have attempted to get retaliation without getting anyone included, but didn’t why?  

Like Abigail, judge Danforth was engaged with the preliminaries of Salem, yet his motivation to execute blameless individuals was a result of dread. In the novel, Danforth continues questioning the people that have been accused of being witches as to whether they have confidence in Christianity or to own up to witchcraft and if they answer wrongly, they will be slaughtered. "In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?" (Danforth, Act 3, p. 93) He leaves out the part where he questions whether the townspeople are trustworthy. Danforth is too narrow minded to even consider allowing the blameless to live. Despite the fact that Hale and Parris attempt to persuade Danforth to look for more proof, he disregards Hale and Parris, and cruelly marks the execution orders for 19 individuals. Actually, Danforth was too frightened that the towns' kin may consider him a defeatist in the event that he disagrees on balancing nineteen individuals to their demise. In any case, dread is never a gainful motivation to murder somebody, particularly if this individual is honest.On the other side Hale and Proctor stood up and tried to defend the guiltless townspeople who were all soon to be slaughtered. They put others before them and did not fear death that may or may not come to them. They tried to show evidence and prove it was one big scheme by Abigail to save her sorry self. Hale and John Proctor show us an example of being selfless and considerate, that's who we should be learning from.

Natural human behavior is selfish. I'm sure you have put yourself above others many times whether it is consciously or subconsciously. The main idea to take home from this novel is to think of others and be aware of people's thoughts, feelings and needs before you make a decision to do something that could potentially benefit you but hurt others. At some point we must all set aside our self pride and God complexes to see we are all on the same level and cannot continue to act out of fear, strictly think of ourselves, or demand revenge. It's time for a change.