Lies play a massive role in "The Crucible" - another example of where Elizabeth and Abigail's characters clash. When Abigail receives power, she is happy to lie to get rid of Elizabeth and anyone else who got in her way or insulted her previously. The lies that Abigail Williams tells aren’t small white lies, they are lies that could send an innocent person to be hanged. She uses her power to accuse people of associating with the devil, and by the end manages to send an astonishing number of innocent people to their deaths, for example Rebecca Nurse.
Where as with Elizabeth, it is said a few times during the play that she is an honest woman and she cannot lie. In Act three, when John confesses to Danforth and Hale that he had a one night stand with Abigail and calls her a whore ("It is a whore!"), Elizabeth is called in by Danforth, expected to tell the truth as Danforth had been previously told that she cannot lie. When she is called in and questioned on her husband's loyalty, she thinks she is doing the right thing by compromising her morals and denying that John had an affair ("My husband - is a goodly man, sir"), in an effort to save his name. Sadly, it has the opposite effect. Abigail is so easily willing to lie, to get even the smallest things, yet Elizabeth can only just about bring herself to lie in attempt to save her husband.
Age is another contrast between the two characters. Arthur Miller has chosen two characters who are in separate stages of their lives: Abigail is a teenager, in the ‘prime of her life’ and has just come out of adolescence On the other hand, Elizabeth is older, married and has children. It is interesting the way the characters contrast and the fact that there is such a big age gap between them.
Contrasting between the two characters is John: although they are both connected to him, they feel differently towards him. The audience is given the impression that Abigail feels lust for John Proctor, not love, where as Elizabeth, being married to him, really loves him. Abigail is so much in lust with John that she is willing to betray people, to send people to their deaths, just so she can be with him. Abigail is extremely jealous of Elizabeth for being married to John, and Abigail is obsessed with him - in Act One, when she is talking to John in private, she tells him, “John - I am waitin’ for you every night!”). She wants to get rid of Elizabeth so she can take her place as Mrs Proctor. John is aware of this, and makes him even more disgusted with Abigail and ashamed with himself for even having a one night stand with her. At one stage in Act One, again when they are talking in private, Abigail describes Elizabeth as “snivelling”, “sickly” and “cold” - all of which anger John, and prompts him to jump to his wife’s defence and shout, “You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth!”
On the other hand, Elizabeth genuinely loves John, even though he has betrayed her. For most of the play she is unable to forgive him, although he does whatever he can to please her - at the beginning of Act Two, he compliments her stew by saying, “It’s well seasoned.” Because John confessed to having a one night stand, there is an obvious strain on the marriage, the audience is led to believe that there is no sense of warmth between the couple. Again in Act Two, when it’s just John and Elizabeth in the kitchen, Elizabeth “receives” John’s kiss. This is the first time in the play that the audience is given the chance to judge Elizabeth, and we are given the impression that she is cold and unforgiving.
Sex drive: another factor which separate the two women. Abigail has a strong sex drive, and lusts after John. But Elizabeth, as we are led to believe, has a low sex drive and only has sex with John out of duty, as she is his wife and wives were expected to have sex with their husbands if their husbands so wished.
The audience get the impression that Abigail is erratic and very emotional. Elizabeth, meanwhile, seems to be conservative and closed off. Especially in Act Two, she doesn’t express any real emotion.
Abigail is a coward. At the end, she runs away, along with Marcy Lewis. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is courageous in her own way - when John is given the choice to compromise his morals and live, or be hanged, she understands when he rips up the signed paper declaring a false confession, knowing that her husband would not be able to live knowing what he had done.
To a certain extent, both Elizabeth and Abigail were to blame for the death of John Proctor. Elizabeth made a simple mistake in attempt to save her husband, and she had no previous warning about the outcome of the situation. This meant that she was under a lot of pressure and was faced with a moral dilemma. In the end she is forced to compromise on her beliefs, and tell a lie to the court, which makes it even more heart-breaking as she has done the wrong thing (unknowingly, of course). I think that Abigail was more directly responsible, because she was the one dancing naked around the fire, she was the one who set out to get Elizabeth hanged and she was the one who put John on the spotlight, to confess his sin of adultery, where the outcome was potentially very dangerous for him.
