“Winningly…comes a little closer, with a confidential, wicked air”
“A trill of expectant laughter”
“feverishly looking into his eyes”
All of these directions if performed correctly help the audience to begin to understand that mixed emotions flowing between these two characters. One might assume that they are in love with each other until “her concentrated desire destroys his smile” and we, the audience, see that all is not what it seems to be. Abigail obviously had and still does have feelings of lust and passion for Proctor and refuses to disregard the fact that Proctor believes he has made an unforgivable mistake.
Abigail has wanted Proctor for a long time and thinks he came to renew the affair they once had. He very first line to Proctor “Gah, I forgot how strong you are”, immediately gives us a hint that something sexual happened between them. The way that the line is said and written gives the impression that the last time Abigail felt John Proctor’s strength was not during any conduct of violence or anger and probably during their love making.
Abigail being brought up in an orthodox Puritan society was taught that sex was only for married couple to reproduce. Whilst having her affair, Abigail discovers that sex can not just be for reproduction, but for pleasure and John Proctor has given her this knowledge. As Abigail tells him:
I look for John Proctor that that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart…I never knew the lying lesson I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men!
She says she loves him, but secretly, just craves and lusts after him. She thinks after declaring her love and desire for him, that he will do the same. However he does not and leaves Abigail heartbroken and angry. She believes as Elizabeth Proctor quotes in Act 2 “There is a promise made in any bed.” and Abigail now clings to it, hoping that John will turn back to her and away from Elizabeth
She lusts for John. Abigail's motive is to get rid of Elizabeth so she can have John for herself. She thinks that by her accusations of witchcraft she can cleanse Salem of all the people who she believes that denounce her for who she really is: a whore.
She is clearly the villain of the play, more so than Parris or Danforth: she tells lies, manipulates her friends and the entire town, and eventually sends nineteen innocent people to their deaths. Throughout the hysteria, Abigail's motivations never seem more complex than simple jealousy and a desire to have revenge on Elizabeth Proctor. The language of the play is almost Biblical, and Abigail seems like a Biblical character—a Jezebel figure, driven only by sexual desire and a lust for power. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out a few background details that, though they don't ease Abigail's guilt, make her actions more understandable.
Abigail is an orphan and an unmarried girl; she thus occupies a low rung on the Puritan Salem social ladder (the only people below her are the slaves, like Tituba, and social outcasts). For young girls in Salem, the minister and the other male adults are God's earthly representatives, their authority derived from on high. The trials, then, in which the girls are allowed to act as though they have a direct connection to God, empower the previously impotent Abigail. Once shunned and scorned by the respectable townsfolk who had heard rumours of her affair with John Proctor, Abigail now finds that she has power, and she takes full advantage of it. A mere accusation from one of Abigail's troop is enough to incarcerate and convict even the most well respected inhabitant of Salem. Whereas others once reproached her for her adultery, she now has the opportunity to accuse them of the worst sin of all: devil-worship.
The Witchcraft Trials.
When the witchcraft trials begin, Abigail plays her cards very carefully. She only mentions Elizabeth in court at first, gradually upping the evidence until she launches as full-blown attack and cries out against her. Abigail knows that it was practically illegal to gain divorce and to marry a married man or woman, their partner must be dead. Abigail believes that once Elizabeth is condemned as a witch and hanged, she will be able to step in and take her place at John side. That is her goal throughout the entire play to get John and she takes great risks to take steps towards it. Elizabeth Proctor says in Act 2. “I am no Goody Good that sleeps in ditches nor Osburn, drunk and half-witted. She dare not call out such a farmer’s wife but there be monstrous profit in it”
The whole aim of the witchcraft trials is for Abigail to murder Elizabeth and have John for herself, but when Abigail and her friends accuse ex-friend, Mary Warren, who cried out against them and told the truth, that is when the play takes a sudden twist. For Mary condemns Proctor in order to get back in with her friends. Proctor is accused and sentenced to hang whilst Abigail realises she has just lost everything she was working for.
Proctor’s attitude to her here makes it clear that the audience is to see Abigail as deluded. John is moved to pity by her confusion but still determined to expose her. She is however absurdly sure she can save him. Abigail is a convincingly human yet frightening character, but her disappearance from the play after Act Three is a further suggestion of Miller’s reluctance to make her as key a character as he first intended. She has performed her dramatic function and is no longer needed.
Act 2: Although Abigail’s character does not physically appear in this scene, there is much talk about her between the other characters. Elizabeth Proctor is Abigail’s ex employer. We learn that Abigail is being praised and is considered above everybody else and that most of the adults in Salem are in awe of her.
“She speak of Abigail and I thought she were a saint to hear her. Abigail brings the other girls to court, and where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel.”
Abigail’s character is a great influence in the Proctor household and she is exposed as a sly girl and possibly confused but lovestruck by John.
“She has an arrow in you yet John Proctor and you know it well!”
Act 3: This is the act where we discover the most about Abigail, her behaviour and her true motives. Who is the real witch? Abigail takes all measures to prevent the adults from learning the truth, even at the expense of others' lives and reputations. Behind the guise of a angel, Abigail is a cold, calculating sorceress of treachery and deception, driven by uncontrolled madness and hot, unquenchable desire - not the holy child that lights up the dark places of Lucifer's power, but the human form of Satan himself. The deceit becomes dangerous when the people of justice heed her words.
Abigail's fury, however, is not the only cause of the madness. An entire town, an entire government, and an entire church follow her to hell. Proctor makes an insightful observation:
"Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers? I'll tell you what's walking Salem - vengeance is walking Salem ... now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law"
What makes the town believe that Abigail's words carry the weight of absolute truth? The girls know they are dissembling, Abigail threatening them into pretence. Why didn't anyone think they were pretending? There are two reasons: the evil in the hearts of everyone and misleading logic.
The townspeople seek any explanation, any excuse to mask their own jealousies and ignorance. In a sense, Abigail is a way out. She is hailed as the voice of God. Yet, such a proclamation lulled the town into more self-satisfaction. The townspeople themselves let out the Devil that they were putting on trial, the same Devil that infiltrates the town and imprisons the righteous and sets free the evil.
It is Abigail who walks and the “crowds part like the sea of Israel” for. He capabilities are made clear in Act one. She demonstrates her skill to manipulate her uncle, to control the other girls and attempt to seduce Proctor. In Act 3 however, her arrogance leads her to threaten the revered figure of Judge Danforth. It seems that Elizabeth is the only person she cannot hypnotise and consequently she loathes her former employer.
Once the townspeople let the Devil/Abigail take over their hearts and minds, ignorance and misleading logic completes the job of bloodletting. The townsfolk and more to the point, the court, do not understand the burden of proof. There are more rational explanations, rather than witchcraft, for the what they see: Abigail's body damage, the seeing of "spirits," and the girls' delirious behaviour. No one questions why Abigail and the girls could see the spirits that no one else could see. No one points out that Abigail and the girls are human and subjected, like all other humans, to want and lust. No one questions Mary Warren's blatant changeability between her declaration and her actual court testimony.
This ignorance fuels greater lunacy that floods the people's gift of reason, resulting in the rise of more ignorance and of more complacency. It is a continuous cycle that destroys the innocence of Salem.
Abigail is clearly a natural teenager. She fights back against the repressed Puritan upbringing, by the liaison with John Proctor and the dancing in the woods, the drinking of blood and her friends being encouraged to strip off. The crying out against the witches, which begins at the end of Act one, provides Abigail with a dangerous thrill as well as power and revenge. Her ability to “read” events and situations is proved a number of times during the play, ultimately by her decision to leave Salem as public opinion rises against witchcraft. The fact she doesn’t appear in the final Act underlines the fact that this play is about Proctor’s destiny and conscience.
Abigail vanishes from Salem shortly before Proctor's hanging. The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston. This is the last we hear of Abigail, but the destruction she leaves in her wake is an ominous example of the chaos and ruin that comes from allowing irrational appeals of emotion - the l'infame that so rocks the Salem witch trials - tear apart the foundations of reason. The Salem witch trials and the hanging of innocent people are the product of a child's sick imagination, from Abigail's lust for John and vengeance against society. Granted, the entire town takes part of the blame for the Salem witch trials, but Abigail provides the momentum to "conjure" the whirlwind of human passions the way she does.
By incorporating into the plot a character that possesses the quality of the Devil and masquerades as an angel, Miller does a fine job of replacing the original definition of good and evil with a grey cloud of sinister good and virtuous evil, which draws a veil of ignorance over the eyes of the town by appealing to the dark side of the mind.
During a bout of hysteria such as the witch trials, authority and power fall to those who can avoid questioning while forcing others to speak. By virtue of their rank, Danforth and Hathorne have the authority to cast any questions put to them as an attack on the court. Similarly, Abigail responds to Proctor's charges of adultery with a refusal to answer questions. Although Danforth's patience with her audacious manner is restricted, the fact that a young girl can so indignantly refuse to answer a direct question from a court official indicates that she possesses an unusual level of authority for her age and gender.
But one thing that must be remembered is usually, that good usually prevails over the forces of evil. It is not the same in The Crucible. In the end, Abigail has succeeded in her wrong doing, and has killed Proctor. For once, evil emerged victorious.