She was taken in by her Uncle Reverend Parris, who she now lives with. She is the leader of the group of girls who accuse witchcraft on the town members of Salem. She danced in the forest with Tituba, and is also in love with John Proctor. Abigail has many different attitudes which include determination and dishonesty. She shows that she is determined by trying her best to condemn Elizabeth Proctor to death just to be with her husband John Proctor.
She had people fooled to believe that she had god in her and she could see the evil in people and could tell if they were in witchcraft. One person after another she had them hung. People so clueless of her intentions saw her as a saint for getting rid of the “evil” in the town. In the end of the play Abigail’s reputation was soon found out about, she knew people would come back and accuse her of murder so she ran away with her uncle’s money and Mercy Lewis. In contrast with Abigail Williams Elizabeth Proctor was not your ideal woman.
[pic] As an actress playing the role of Mary Warren in ‘The Crucible’ I would find the following moments difficult to communicate effectively to an audience. Arthur Miller describes her as ‘She is seventeen, a subservient, naive, lonely girl.’ I think that the line ‘Abby, we’ve got to tell. Witchery’s a hangin’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two year ago! We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things!’ would be hard to perform because Mary has to feel really frightened and she also has to feel as if she is guilty of committing a crime.
Her age isn’t confirmed, but historians estimate 1822 ○ Minty claims 1825 ○ Gravestone reports 1820 ○ Death certificate lists 1815 C. Age 6, Edward Brodess (Owner) appointed her as a nanny. ○ Miss Susan ○ Whipped when cried ○ Many scars remained ○ Prevention - Ran away for days, Wore more layers D. As a teenager, she was struck in the head (accidentally) ○ 2 lbs. weight ○ refused to capture a runaway slave ○ “had never been combed and ... stood out like a bushel basket” - saved her life ■ Sarah Bradford: Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman ○ Became narcoleptic - explain narcolepsy - demonstrate it. ■ Temporal Lobe Epilepsy ● Kate Larson: Bound for the Promise land: Harriet Tubman ○ began having “visions” & meaningful dreams ■ considered divine - direct word of God II. Family and Marriage A.
b. "The Crucible", by Author Miller takes place in 1692, in Salem Massachusetts, which was, at the time, a puritan community. Abigail Williams is a 17 year old girl that has just been fired from her job as a maid, because of having an affair with the husband, John Proctor, of the woman he works with. Now to get even with her for seperating her from the one she loves, she starts allegations of witchery, that eventually lead up to her accusing Elizabeth Proctor. c. Abigail Williams was caught dancing in the woods by her uncle (whom she lives with), and her fear of what would happen to her if it came to the surface what she and the other girls were really doing, makes her start crazy allegations against others to save her own name.
The trials began as a result of a seemingly bewitched child named Betty Parris. The 9-year old and her friends, curious of their futures, began consulting the spirits for advice on who they should marry. Soon after their experience, the girls began convulsing and angling their bodies in ways that physicians not explain. Historians are unsure why the girls did this, whether they were spectacular actors or bewitched or possessed, there is no way to know for sure. It is still a mystery how this could, or even did, affect them in such a way, but nonetheless the townspeople believed it was a result of witchcraft.
Even if Abby wasn’t involved with John, she could’ve gone into the forest with the other girls to dance and drink a potion to kill others. As the girls were standing in Betty’s room alone talking about what Reverend Parris knew, Betty sits up in bed and screams “You drank blood, Abby! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!”(1097). As everyone comes back upstairs, the girls blame it on Tituba, but it backfires on Abby when Tituba tells Reverend Hale “She beg me to conjure! She beg me charm-!”(1109).
Abigail first tells the lie “No one was naked! You mistake yourself, Uncle!” (The Crucible, I.9) Then she goes on and accuses Tituba of witchcraft to cover her trail of lies, starting from dancing naked in the forests to Elizabeth stabbing the poppet with the needle. Elizabeth is just as bad with her only lie. When she is asked to answer a question about the affair with her husband and Abigail, she lies to protect him. She is thinking if she tells the court the truth, then she is going to lose
Both Dora and Jane are quiet young when they first encounter some kind of hysteria, or symptoms of hysteria. In Jane’s case her first encounter would we the incident at the Red Room (Bronte 12). The Red Room incident is perhaps most important in establishing the rigid structure of patriarchy because we see that the image that appears before her in the ghostly pale moonlight as she imagines is that of her dead uncle, Mr. Reed (Bronte 12). We see earlier in the story that Jane is being punished by Aunt, for “misbehaving” with her cousin John (Bronte 10). The idea that her aunt would lock her away in the Red Room, the place where her husband had lain before his death, shows us what kind of fear her aunt wants to invoke in the child.
This sad circumstance affects the poor youngest child and sets her up for failure. In most other Cinderella stories, like in Perrault’s Cinderella the mother dies and leaves a young girl with her widowed father. Soon after the mother’s death the father remarries to a horrible stepmother who mistreats poor little Ashputtle (Perrault 624). These cultures are very different but each has an incident that occurs that lowers the characters circumstance. As in all cultures unfortunate incidents happen, but this leaves room for a great transformation to occur.