Pick one character from act 1 of The Crucible to write about. Look
back at the scenes that character is involved in and what he/she says or does.
Write about your interpretation of that character. What ideas do you have about
his/her motives, fears, values, and point of view? What are some things you are
wondering about? Based on what you have seen so far, what role will this
character mostly likely play as events unfold. Be sure to discuss specific
lines from the text of the play.
Rachel Walsh
ReplyDeleteWicked Abigail
In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, a character that stuck out to me was Abigail. She has revealed the most about herself so far in the book. She has several different sides to her and can change her mood very easily. For example, when adults are in the room she acts innocent and kind. She says, “we did dance; let you tell them I confessed it and I’ll be whipped if I must be”(Miller 10). She acts innocent and is very apologetic and is willing to take the consequences in front of Parris. She tries to trick him into thinking she did is responsible for her actions and tries to make him think she is telling the truth. She lies to him constantly about what happened in the woods and what happened to Betty to make it look like it was nothing and that they are good girls; she is a liar. However, all this innocence goes away once the adults leave the room. For example she tells the children, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you”(Miller 20). She tries to strike fear into them and let them know she is the boss. She acts almost as if she is the devil coming to kill on his prey. Another characteristic of Abigail is that she is evil. Not only does she say she is going to kill the girls if they say a word, but she says she is going to kill Goody Proctor. She wants to be Mrs. Proctor and is willing to do anything to be it. I wonder if she is going to actually kill her?I predict that in the future she will kill her and that Mr. Proctor want want to be with her, so she will try to kill him. She will definitely continue to be a liar and key witness for the witch mania.
Angelo Cavallaro
ReplyDeleteBeing that she hasn't had much concious invlvement so far, I think that people underestimate the ability of Bettyto deceive and lie. I believe that she is just as able if not more able to and willing to lie to others to get her way. She has already deceived most by not actually being unconcious. On a side note, Betty, and Abigail don't seem to be that much different then some people today ( aside from the chanting and potion making in the forest ). Today there are many people that would use the methods they use to get around trouble and just plain being rebellious and doing the things that aren't allowed. i think that Betty will become just as bad as Abigail.
- Ayia Abdelmagid
ReplyDeleteIn the Crucibles by Arther Miller, a character that stuck out to me was Reverend Paris. Paris is the minster of Salem's town. when his daughter Betty wouldn't wake up since the previous night, Paris begins to worry that both is daughter and niece Abigail took part of what was going on on the woods that night, which he believes that they were participating in witchcraft. the thing that stuck out to me was that Paris wasn't really worried about his daughter, but was mostly worried about his reputation. In the book Paris says, " I have fought here three long years to bend there stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish you compromise my very character, " (Miller 11) . Paris believes that because his daughter Betty and his niece Abigail were in woods that night, that it can ruin his image and the people in Salem's town can overthrow him. Paris cares a lot about image more than anything.
Helen Leet
ReplyDeleteAdventurous Abigail
In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, there is one character that has stood out to me by far, and her name is Abigail. There is a lot of information about her personality and how it changes within Act 1. In the beginning, we learn that her parents have passed away right in front of her eyes, and that has caused alot of damage to her (mentally and physically) She is a very different person in front of the kids her age and the adults such as Mr. Proctor. In front of Betty, she has become more violent and extremely crazy. "*smashes her across the face*: Shut it! Now shut it!" Before this had happened, she had told everyone that she wouldn't hurt Betty for the life of her. This type of anger also happened when Mary Warren walked in. She has become more aggressive as the plot thickens. When adults are around, Abigail is completely different. She acts all girly and as if she were this sweet, innocent teenager, which is truly the opposite of things. During the act, Abigail was talking to Mr. Proctor in a completely different tone of things. She spills the beans to him about the girls dancing and he grins at her. The both of them had an affair with each other, even though he has children and a wife. I believe during this part Abigail, wants to be close with John so she can get rid of her wife and have him all to herself. It seems Abigail has a devious plan and that is why she seems to dangerous and cute in Mr. Proctor's eyes. Abigail has two scary sides of her. While she seems adorable in someone else's point of view, she is really a monster to other people.
Sahar Shakeel
ReplyDeleteTwo-Timing Proctor
In the Crucible, there were a lot of different and interesting characters, but the character I thought was pretty interesting was John Proctor. John Proctor seems very interested in another character, Abigail, which bewildered me. John Proctor is a grown man with a family, but he had an affair with a teen girl. “Give me a word John. A soft word”...“No, no, Abby. That’s done with.”(Miller 22). Abigail liked John Proctor because she looked up to him a lot. Since Abigail’s parents died when she was younger, and Proctor showed her attention, I think that is why Abigail fell in love with him. What really gets me is that they had this affair and Proctor was okay with it at the time. I think that Proctor likes that how daring and different Abigail is. “Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t y’! …You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty.” (Miller 22). Also, I think Proctor’s wife knew about his affair because when they spoke they mentioned this, “It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now!” (Miler 22), Mrs. Proctor kicked her out when she saw that they had an affair. Proctor might still have interest in Abigail even though Proctor tells her that he doesn’t, “Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?” …”I may have looked up.” (Miller 22). Maybe later on the story, Proctor would stick to Abigail’s side and listen to her closely because of his interest in her. Or maybe Proctor would really get fed up with Abigail and hurt her feelings, Abigail might get really upset and maybe will tell everyone that he’s a witch or something similar. Either he will be for Abigail or against him, I really want to know how this all turns out later on in the play.
Zeynep Balto
ReplyDeleteAbigail
In the Crucible by Arthur Miller the character Abigail is interest me because she has a lot of different thoughts, ideas, acts. She has a lot of thoughts that impair her. (pg; 20) "now you look. All of you. We dance. And Tituba....stop this." This paragraph shows that she saw her parents dead they killed her parents next to her. She saw violence and know how to use it to another person. she can easily change her mood every time. She has a lot of accumulated things in her mind. She wants to take a place. In the story also the things that happening between she and Proctor is also explain things about her life. Proctor is denying her and says that its not going to happen again. but she refuse it and says that it did happen once. I think she tries to say that you love me once and its not easy to forget. She is usually doing bad things and enjoys that things. She like being different and I think Proctor is going to love her again because it seems like he kind of like these bad things and differences. He is irresponsible.
Cindy Dam
ReplyDeleteAbigail
One character from act 1 of The Crucible that I have noticed that shows many characteristics is Abigail. Her values are pretty horrid. Abigail is a very sneaking and conniving.teenager. I also noticed that her actions are very careless, she can put on quite a show with being innocent when really, she clearly is not, She strikes as a a person that can bring fear upon many, especially when she admitted that she would have the courage to kill Elizabeth(Ms.Proctor) to win over John Proctor. Abigail's actions kind of convinces me that she has slight fears when she explains the power of violence she can bring to Betty and Mary Warren of how she seen her parents violent death ever they chose to speak up about her intake on the chickens blood, and having witchcraft like behavior.I'm just really convinced that she is up to absolute no good because she is literally involved in every situation right now, even with John and the affair they had going on. i just think her motives and intentions are all bad and her main motive is to get john back to maybe something disastrous will occur to Elizabeth. Based on what we have read so far, my curiosity just goes out to what will happen between John Proctor and Abigail.
Taylor Nielsen
ReplyDeleteConcerned Reverend
The Crucible by Arthur Miller demonstrates many characters with different values. Reverend Parris is very concerned with his reputation.All of his decisions are reflected on his reputation. Parris says in act I, "And what shall I say to them? That my Daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?" (Miller 10). Reverend Parris caught the girls causing trouble in the woods and became concerned immediately. He thought that they were doing witchcraft, so he tried getting the truth out of them but no one said a word. Reverend Parris was so concerned because he did not want other people in the town to think that he had something to do with the witch craft. If people did find that out his reputation would be damaged forever. The only thing Reverend Parris cares about is how people view him as a person. Also his reputation is the most important thing to him which is shown by his actions in act I.
Rebecca Boodhoo
ReplyDeleteArthur Miller does a phenomenal job at developing the different characters in the first act of The Crucible . I think the most developed and captivating character so far is Abigail. Arthur has already told us about what happened during Abigail's childhood and the hardships she's been through. In the first act Abigail is revealed to be wicked and have many different personalities. When Abigail is with Parris and other respectable adults she tends to act completely innocent. She admits to doing some wrong "we did dance; let you tell. Them I confessed it- and I'll be whipped if I must be" (miller 10) but gives most of the blame to others. " then you were conjuring spirits last night. Abigail whispering: not I, sir Tituba and Ruth. She very quickly turned on her friends and rated them out. She put the blame on someone else to save herself. I thing this shows Abigail's character very well. She tries to act innocent but she is the most guilty. I think she has impure motives. It has already been revealed that she did a spell to kill john proctors wife simply because of her jealousy. This shows what type of person she is and how spiteful and wicked she is.
Evan Goodspeed
ReplyDeleteThe character that I pick rom act one in The Crucible is Abigail. What I learned for the way Abigail acts and speaks is that she does not like to get in trouble and will quickly put the blame to some one else. When Parris tries to to get an answer from Abigail, Abigail puts the blame on Tituba and Ruth very quickly. We also learn that in my opinion Abigail likes to take control of the problems. When seen with Betty and Mary in page 19 and 20. Abigail can also seen to be quite wicked or evil per say form when she tells Betty and Mary "I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow nedt to mine, and i have seen some reddish work done at night, and i can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!"
Radine Anne Nieva
ReplyDeleteI’ll die for you. Just love me, John Proctor
In the book, the Crucible by Arthur Miller. The character that caught my attention is Abigail. Because of how she act towards John Proctor. She is crazy in love with John Proctor that she will anything to be with Proctor, like killing John Proctor’s wife “...you drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!”(Miller 19). But Proctor kept on denying Abigail’s love for him. “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby.”(Miller 23). In this dialog said by John Proctor to Abigail, Proctor is having an affair with Abigail secretly. Abigail, on the other hand, don’t want to end her relationship or affair with John Proctor, “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart!..... You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!...”(Miller 24).
Tucker Sheely
ReplyDeleteTwo-faced Abigail
In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the character Abigail is a character that stuck out to me. When she is around adults she is this good girl who only danced when she went into the woods that night. this gives off the impression that she is no worse than any other girl in the town.
When Reverend Parris and Mr. and Mrs. Putnam left, she became a psychopath threatening Betty and Mary Warren, telling them how she watched her parents die and how she would kill them if they talked about her drinking blood in the woods.
When John proctor entered the room Abigail became a flirtatious girl who is madly in love. She doesn’t get that John Proctor could be killed for what he did and that the only way people find out is if Abigail tells them. But now they are talking about what happened right in front of Betty who is “afflicted” by a witch. No one know what she may say at anytime. This shows how madly in love Abigail is with John Proctor.
Andrew Canavan
ReplyDeleteIn the Crucible, the character that stood out tome was Betty. Betty stood out to me because she is pretending asleep for the beginning of the book but she still plays a major role. I thought I was interesting that everyone thinks Betty is posessed but she is actually awake and listening to the conversation. I am not sure why the girls are trying to cause chaos in the town but Betty is definitely a major factor. I predict that Betty will be the center of future conflicts if she keeps acting like a witch. I am curious to see what she does as the story unfolds.
I was very surprised in the development of Abigail as I kept on reading. She at first was almost playing the victim, saying they did nothing in the woods, all they were doing was dancing. She seemed to be putting on a show of sweetness for Mr. Proctor when he came into her home as well, acting on the persona of a sweet innocent girl. But she turned quite violent towards Betty when she was waking up, smacking her around and threatening the other girls around her. When she describes how she watched her parents be slaughtered, you see just how really dark she is inside. It makes me quite sad actually, the shocking memories of the things she saw as a child probably led to the way she is now, but she went from such a sweet loving persona to just utter curelty, it was scary, acting as her reading her part, it was odd to see such a change in her character development. I'm very interested in her, and how she will continue to act through the play.
ReplyDeleteStephen
ReplyDeleteArthur Miller spends the entirety of the first act of his play The Crucible describing and building a strong and extensive field of characters. One character that stood out to me was Abigal. Abigal appeared to be somewhat of a protagonist in the beginning of the play however her morals were questioned when she fed her uncle and guardian lie after lie. Fear of potential punishment led Abigal to not fully comprehend the severity of her situation and this resulted in rash acts of immaturity. She also reminisced with the married John Proctor of the time when "they touched." Abigal demonstrated leadership characteristics when she told the other town girls what the official cover-up story for the night before was. I believe Abigal will continue to have a prominent role in the story and could potentially be one of the accused witches.
Tyler Gibson
ReplyDeleteIn the crucible it seems that reverend Paris cares more about his reputation in the village then anything else that is happening. With Betty unconscious on the bed and the possibility of the devil being in his house he is worried more about groups of people turning on him to exile him. "But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it."