Examples of Abigail Williams being cruel and lying are,
unfortunately, very easy to find in this play, and there are many, many of them. The first comes
within her very first few lines--she lies to her uncle about what was happening in the forest
when he discovered her and her friends dancing there. She insists that "we did dance,
uncle,...and there's the whole of it." Well, come to find out later, she was lying through her
teeth. Not only were they dancing, but one of them was dancing around naked, AND, Abby herself
was praticing witchcraft--drinking a potion to kill off Elizabeth Proctor. So, Abby totally lies
about what happened in the woods.
She also lies about her
involvement in the events that night when she accuses Tituba of bewitching her. She comes right
out lies and says that all of the horrible things she's done in the past bit--laughing during
prayers, walking around naked, thinking bad thoughts--are all because Tituba made her do it.
It's a flat-out lie to protect herself from being accused of witchcraft herself. Later, she lies
about the needle in her belly, claiming that Elizabeth's "spirit" put it into her when we all
know that she stabbed herself to frame Elizabeth.
Examples of
cruelty are just as abundant. When Betty points out that Abby had been drinking a potion to kill
Elizabeth, she "smashes her across the face" and threatens her to be quiet. Then, she threatens
all of the other girls, saying that she will bring a "pointy reckoning" on all of them if they
tell anyone that. Later, Mary Warren is so afraid of Abby's cruelty that she cries out saying
that "She'll turn on me" if she dares tell the truth. And not to state the obvious, but
condemning innocent people to die and hang is something that Abby does over and over throughout
the course of the play, and you can't get much more cruel than
that.
I hope that those thoughts helped; good
luck!
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