The Crucible Narrative Essay
After a tragedy, can one be excused for their actions? Abagail Williams, niece of Reverend Parris, suffered through the loss of her parents, and is now living with her uncle and cousin, Betty.As portrayed in the book The Crucible, she can be said to be very evil and manipulative, which definitely is a resulting attitude of the tragedy. Any individual may have a rebellious stage, with a tragedy or not, but after a while of repetitive mistreatment, they will stop being pardoned. Due to the tragedy of Abagail’s parents dying and the subsequent events of her life, her personality and actions were very evil and manipulative, but after a while they were unforgivable. The following evidence will demonstrate how Abagail goes through survival mode by using all her powers to achieve before everyone.
First and foremost, Abagail’s personality must have always included a good amount or even just a slight amount of manipulation. Her attitude outgrew as she went through this tragedy and as she had to undergo this large change. The reader can determine that she has a form of emptiness. As one whose never gone through such tragedy, I do not understand how she feels after it. A way to overview her attitude is by saying she is missing parental guidance such as when she tricks Proctor into having an affair with her.
She addresses to him, “John— I am waiting for you every night” (Miller 21). Because of the missing parental guidance and not having someone to guide her into doing what is right and wrong, she is acting out like this. She manipulated Proctor into doing sinful actions that betrayed his wife. To be continued, the way she acts with the people around her may have been pardoned after a couple times, but not after the repetitive amount of times she has acted this way. After all the times she has tricked others and made herself seem as the victim, she should not be pardoned.
As seen in the following quote, “I told him everything; he knows now, he knows everything we—” (Miller 18), she is manipulating Betty into telling her that she told her father everything. Betty then continues to expose Abagail in saying that she drank the blood, showing that Abagail did not say the full truth. With actions like this, she is allowing her cousin and others around her to seem like liars, causing no one to believe them. Due to the fact that she was part of a tragedy may have been a good reason to excuse her actions, but after a while, these actions should be called out and fixed. An addition to reasoning in which why Abagail’s attitude should not be forgiven is to show how her attitude hurts others.
Since she is in complete survival mode, she does not want to be blamed for anything that occurred the night of the fire and dancing, she turns all the blame to Tituba. Since she is the house maid, she is seen as lower class, and at that time, whatever the higher class said, was set in stone. She has the gift of lying and using charm for everyone to believe that Tituba was the problem and that she was the witch, and if this is believed, she may be fired or even beaten. As seen in act 1, “She sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer! She comes to me every night to go and drink blood!” (Miller 44). She is using her status and her charm as an advantage to hurt those around her.
To conclude, the reader can establish that many events have caused her attitude to be where it is right now. This attitude may be one that can be forgiven, but to the extent that she has brought upon, using her survival mode, it has becomeo unforgivable. Abagail has caused many to be doubted, mistreated, or not liked by the lies and actions she undergoes to make them appear like this. Subsequently, losing a parent or both, is not something easy to go through, and a change in attitude will clearly be noticed. Finally, the harm and the hurt that she has caused to the people around her is one that has caused many destruction.
