Massey 1

Will Massey

17 March, 2023

End of Act 1 Paragraph

Within the play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, the character of Abigail Williams is

developed as a young naive girl defending herself from witchcraft accusations, to a girl who

accuses others of witchcraft, which causes many problems. Miller shows this as he writes

“innocently: A dress? Parris: it is very hard to say: Aye, a dress. And I thought I saw someone

naked running through the trees” (Miller 10). At the start of Act 1, Miller shows how Abigail

was getting accused by Parris. The night before, Abigail, Tituba, Betty, and others were running

in the woods naked. Abigail was lying about what Parris was accusing her of, and she starts to

get mad. As shown in the stage directions, at the start of the confrontation Abigail was calm.

Miller uses the word “Innocently” to describe how Abigail is calm in that moment. Miller then

moves on to show how Abigail becomes more impatient. Miller shows the tone in Abigail's

speech, as he writes, “Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth

Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the

edge of a word, about the other things, and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.

And you know I can do it” (Miller 19). As Miller continues to develop the tone associated with

Abigail’s character, we can see how Abigail is bringing fear to others. She is now threatening

others if they talk about what they did in the forest for her own benefit. As shown in the text,

Abigail states all they have done in the forest. Miller now shows Abigail's character developing

further as her emotions are changing constantly. Most of the text when Abigail speaks is now

more negative and hostile, as her behavior becomes worse. Miller then moves on to show further

development in the tone. As Miller shows the conflict that Abigail causes when he writes, “She
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made me do it! She made Betty do it!” Tituba, shocked and angry: Abby! Abigail: She makes me

drink blood!” (Miller 41). At the end of Act 1, Miller shows all of the conflicts that Abigail is

causing. Abigail blames Tituba for forcing her to drink blood. Miller uses stage directions once

again to convey the emotions. As Abigail is yelling at Tituba, she is shocked and angry because

she doesn't know what is going on. Abigail lies about Tituba forcing her to drink blood. Within

the play, “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, Miller uses tone and characterization to develop

Abigail's character throughout Act 1. At the start of Act one, we can see that Abigail is calmer,

but towards the end, she becomes irritated. Miller mainly uses stage directions to convey

Abigail's emotions. At the start of Act 1, the emotions associated with Abigail are calm, but

through the rest of Act 1, Miller associates negative emotions with Abigail.

Revision Reflection

When I wrote this essay, my writing skills still had a lot of room for improvement. There were

many formatting issues that I had to fix in this essay, but the biggest thing was I didn't explain

the reason behind some of my sentences. An example of this is when I explained that Abigail

was threatening people, but I never showed why. Making revisions on this essay was a big help

for me because I could see what I needed to improve on.