The trials start, in which the girls act as though they have a direct connection to God, led by the now powerful Abigail. Townsfolk soon have suspicions of Miss Williams affair with John, Abigail finds this power she has and takes advantage of it. One accusation against even the most well-respected villagers accused of devil worship was prosecuted. Abigail is convinced that after her affair with John Proctor, that he is in love with her, her jealousy of his wife and desire for him gets out of hand, she is labelled a “whore” and a “harlot”. John Proctor – John is an honest, blunt-spoken, good man with a temper.
The witches, who throughout “Macbeth” make prophecies to “help” Macbeth himself, are particular female roles represented as evil. The witches and Hecate (a female goddess) are the only supernatural characters in the play. Within the Context of this time witches, and witchcraft were objects of morbid and fevered fascinations, and many suspected of being witches were cruelly persecuted. Did women only practice witchcraft? The witches are shown as figures that seem to trigger Macbeths murderous ambition, as their prophesy leads Macbeth to first consider killing Duncan, to gain power.
Explore how Shakespeare and browning reveal strong feelings using Lady Macbeth and the laboratory. The laboratory by Robert Browning is about how one woman in aristocratic France because of betrayal and jealousy can lead to attempting to kill her partners’ new lover. The woman is at a laboratory to have a poison created to kill her rival. During which she has flash backs revealing what she has witnessed. The woman in the dramatic monologue is the woman with the strong feelings unlike normal women of the 18th century who would have gone to a church to pray to god, for him to give them strength, but this woman decided to go to a laboratory which was considered as the devils house, “devil’s-smithy”, to take actions into her own hands.
This leads into the deaths of the innocent people who are accused and automatically found guilty. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the people of Salem are responsible for the witch hysteria. The person with the most influence on the hysteria is Abigail. In the past, Abigail had an affair with John Proctor. She gets jealous when Proctor leaves her to go back to his wife, Elizabeth.
You drank a charm to kill John Procter’s wife" (Miller 19). This allows the reader to become aware of the severity of Abby’s ruthlessness. Her loathing of Mrs. Procter goes to such great lengths that she would go beyond the point of extremities. As an example of her demonic acts, she mutilates her stomach with a sewing needle and claims it to be Elizabeth Procter’s voodoo spell. "…and struck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out she testify it were your familiar spirit pushed it in."
Pearl symbolizes evil in the story by representing God's punishment of Hester's sin, symbolizing the guilt and the scarlet letter that controls her behavior and defying Puritan laws by being cheerful and associating with nature. Pearl is a greater punishment then Hester’s “A”. First, Pearl represents God's punishment by her mocking and nagging of Hester. This is shown throughout the novel she sometimes seemed to her mother as almost a witch baby (Hawthorne 88).Second, Pearl is a baffling mixture of strong emotions with a fierce temper and a capacity for evil; with Pearl, Hester's life became one of constant nagging, and no joy. This is proven when Hester remarks to herself, "Oh Father in heaven - if thou art still my father - what is this being which I have brought into the world" (Hawthorne 89).Thirdly, Pearl represents the sins of both Hester and Dimmesdale.
This forebodes the death of Macbeth and also Lady Macbeth by suggesting that they will not be able to kill the King and live a normal, guilt free life afterwards. Lady Macbeth then creates irony as she mocks Macbeth for thinking this way, she refers to him as a ‘coward’ and insists that this murder is necessary. This part of the play is extremely significant as we realise just how harsh Lady Macbeth is and how far she would really go. She removes any maternal characteristics that she may have had by explaining that her lack of pity would extend so far, that she would murder a baby. “Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out”.
Medea, the protagonist of Robinson Jeffers' play of the same name, is a vengeful termagant, stricken with grief and wanting nothing but to vindicate Jason's deeds. To her credit, though, she is quite wily, and in possession of one of the most impressive acumen ever given to a character of her type. So deep is her animosity towards Jason that she goes to such lengths as parricide (killing her children, who are merely "pawns of her agony") to extract revenge on her former husband. She does not stop there, though. She despoils him not only of two children, but also of a wife, a father-in-law, and a kingdom.
His attitude makes it seem like he finds women untrustworthy and weak. Throughout the play Hamlet’s treatment towards women were unkind, unfair and disrespectful. Hamlet is unkind towards Ophelia and Gertrude throughout the play. Hamlet: Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
Some critics see Shakespeare’s King Lear as an anti-feminist text because of different contributing factors such as the reasons for Lear’s demotion from king, the fall of his kingdom and the reason for his madness. However others see it is a feminist text which recounts the insecurity of men and their dependence on the female characters. Overall within this play, women are shown to play both the good and the bad at different scales and scenes. The most obvious, demonically portrayed female characters are Regan and Goneril, arguably the main reasons for Lear’s down fall from a prestigious king to a madman. They both display the Machiavellian trait of whoever holds the power holds the right to control and both the sisters exert this fairly ruthlessly.