Abigail Williams Character Analysis

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In all novels there are many different types of characters, such as round or flat, and static. In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, there is a character by the name of Abigail Williams who is a very static character that leads the tragic happenings of the story. Abigail Williams is designed to be the antagonist of the play, based on a real girl in the actual Salem Witch Trials, and is known for her desperation to live, her obsession, or in her words dreams, and her all around ruthlessness to gain any kind of attention. In a simple word Abigail may be described as desperate. She is desperate for a large sum of things, but in the most shown way she is desperate to survive. Miller made sure to emphasize Abigail’s desperation to avoid suspicion by placing it on those she envies, such as Elizabeth Proctor. In the play Abigail causes herself harm in order to frame Elizabeth as a witch, shown in the lines spoken by Ezekiel Cheever; “Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly he draws a needle out. And demandin' of her how she come to be so stabbed, she. . . (To Proctor.) Testify it were your wife's familiar spirit pushed it in.” ACT II Abigail does this because she is desperate to accuse Elizabeth because of her jealousy towards the woman, and because Elizabeth is the one who could reveal John and Abigail’s affair which would have Abigail lynched. Desperation is a strong adjective to describe Abigail, but an even stronger one is obsession. The driving force to Abigail’s false accusations is her obsession for one person in particular, John Proctor. Arthur Miller designed an intricate relationship between Abigail and John consisting of an affair between the two. This affair was tied around Abigail’s love for John and John’s
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