Abigail's Fall From Power

Rachael Kerr
AP English 11
January 5, 2010
The Crucible Long Paper
Abigail’s Appeal is Only Skin Deep
What is it about aesthetics that makes humans’ perception of character twist? Is it because they want to believe that the beautiful are the same inside and out? Obviously, this is not always true; many attractive people abuse this ‘gift’ to get what they desire. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, one character uses this misperception to elevate herself into a large accumulation of power. Abigail Williams, an aesthetically pleasing seventeen year old girl, wields this beauty to not only bend one man to lechery, but also to manipulate the court system to turn tables on her enemies. Abigail’s rise to power was due to her splendor, but her fall was when the other characters realized it was only skin deep.
As she is first introduced, Abigail is extremely beautiful with a knack of dissembling which summarizes her ability to flaunt herself and tear things apart very well. Her strong personality and overbearing pride is what allows her to bend other young women to her will. Other girls are not the only people she bends to her will; she uses her overwhelming beauty to lead John Proctor to adultery. In fact, this is her beginning motive for all of the “witch” non-sense. Abigail wishes so much to be with John that she will do anything to be with him: “You loved me John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!”(Miller 24). Following his rejection, Abigail seeks her revenge and begins accusing Proctor’s wife Elizabeth of witchcraft. The power continues to go to Abigail’s head which leads her to accuse more and more people of witchcraft: “Abigail: I saw Sarah Good...Goody Osborne...Bridget Bishop...Goody Sibber with the Devil!”(48). From the start, she a conniving and sly, but is unable to steal her prize--John Proctor's heart. She disguises herself as a holy follower of God, like the rest of the townsfolk, to deceive them. She walks among them, appearing like the exact opposite of what she is: innocent and pure. Abigail is forever on the prowl and trying to get to Proctor. Keeping with her facade, she lashes out at other villagers in an attempt to secure John for herself.
As if it was not obvious enough, Abigail is hated by the readers. In being a deceitful, overbearing, manipulative yet “strikingly beautiful” (8) young girl, readers harbor a resentment as anyone would. Abigail is a ‘evil’ person in regards to human definition of character in society; she is not a person that would represent a model citizen. Although she is not the only sinner, Abigail is more detested because she is a ‘wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing.’ People hate seeing, knowing, and being around other people who they would call ‘fake’ or ‘two-faced’: basically, those who do not appear as they truly are. A perfect parallel would be to Angelica from the cartoon Rugrats. Angelica was a cruel, mean-spirited little girl and all the babies knew it, but the adults (the people who ‘matter’ and ‘can do something about her’) saw her as a little angel. This enraged the watcher because of their innate hatred of pretenders, and the fact that because of this charade, Angelica was able to squirm out of trouble. Fortunately, Abigail receives her just desserts in the end. By becoming a prostitute for a living, Abigail’s end is riddled with poetic justice. Abigail used her looks to get through life, thereby never learning a trade or how to do anything really. When she ran away, she needed a job to support herself and because she only had her looks, her only option was prostitution. Is it not ironic that the adulteress was punished with the choice of life by unwanted sex or death?
While some of the similar emotions readers have are coincidental, others are felt by all because Miller designed the events of the story to make the readers feel this way. For example, the readers’ feelings for Abigail come about mostly through the situations she is seen in. If she was just a bad character, the readers would dislike her, but not as much as they do when she specifically does something to aggravate them. First, the readers do not like Abigail because of who she is, and want to see her get caught. So Miller puts her in situations, where the illusion is that she will be caught, to excite the reader. Then, he makes Abigail weasel herself out of it to excite feelings of anger, frustration, and disappointment. For instance, just as Abigail is about to be revealed as a liar, she bats her eyelashes and creates another lie that will take the negative attention away from her, and draw in sympathy: “Abigail, looking about in the air, clasping her arms about her as though cold: A wind, a cold wind, has come…Your Honor, I freeze!”(108). Now, what is it about being human that makes readers feel this way? It is the innate expectancy that justice will be served. When Abigail does not receive her punishment, readers feel a grab-bag of emotions, ranging from jealousy to rage; the jealousy is for her getting away with literally murder, which the average human could not do, and the rage is because she was simply able to get power, and then abuse it.
Abigail’s beauty unfortunately allowed her to by proxy end lives of many innocent people, and this clearly demonstrates the very human flaw of believing that beauty requires something more than luck to receive. However, when it is revealed that Abigail lied about almost all of her facts, people begin to perceive her differently: “Danforth, as though with new eyes, looks at Abigail” (105). This is when she began to fall; Abigail tried to gain too much power as she desired to have and eat her proverbial cake. Her beauty was her power, the hollowness of it was her flaw. When she began, she only wanted to have John to herself by killing Elizabeth: “[Abigail] drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife!”(19). While this was malevolent enough, if Abigail left it at that, she might have gotten away with it. Then because no one found out about, even when she was questioned about it, Abigail felt a rush of false immunity. This immunity only worked for a short while because it was paired with her good looks. Finally, an epiphany came about: just because Abigail is attractive does not mean she is necessarily telling the truth.
From this point on, Abigail was not seen as infallible; in fact it was quite the opposite because now all the characters (including the judges) knew that she was lying the entire time. For Abigail, this was the point where she knew she had to run away, which led her to her paradoxical end of prostitution; this seems like a suitable end for a character such as Abigail. Abigail’s beauty is a hollow mask, much like the love a customer feels for a prostitute; the love is supposed to be there because it is essential to love making, but-much like Abigail’s character in lacking amiable qualities-it becomes half-done and pointless. After all, what is the point of a magnificently radiant flower when you know it is rotting from the inside out?