Skip to main content

What are the strengths, flaws, and motivations of Abigail Williams in The Crucible?

Abigail's strengths include determination and intelligence.  She is determined both to win back her former lover, John Proctor, as well as to exact revenge on any in her community who have impugned her reputation.  It seems likely that, once Abigail saw the power granted to Tituba to make accusations, she realized that she, too, could possess such a power, as she began, cleverly, to make accusations immediately afterward herself.  She is dedicated to John, so much so that she attempts to rid him of his wife, Elizabeth, by accusing her of witchcraft.


Abigail's flaws include dishonesty and selfishness.  Out of her dedication to John and her determination to justify herself to the community, Abigail tells  lies that result in the death and imprisonment of many people.  She selfishly puts her desire to be with John over the well-being of countless others, essentially murdering them to gain power for herself.


Abigail is motivated by love/lust and a desire for power.  When Parris asks her, at the beginning of the play, if her name is entirely "white" in the town, Abigail becomes instantly angry and defensive, insisting that there is no "blush" on her reputation (a lie).  She wants to gain power in the community so that she can punish those she believes to have wronged her as well as to eliminate those who she believes stand in the way of her relationship with John.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more