What is the purpose of Abigail Williams character in the crucible?
Abigail shows how serious consequences can arise from self-serving lies in a paranoid political climate. The play is an allegory of the Communist witchhunts in the 1950s, when names were given to settle personal scores and lies were told to ruin rivals careers, ie Arthur Miller is drawing attention to the MCCarthyist period in the US as being a mockery of justice. Abigail illustrates this by telling a lie to save herself from the wrath of her Puritan guardian, who sneaks into the woods to watch Abigail and two other girls apparently worshipping the devil. She frames the servant girl for this (as the servant girl has low status) and later uses the heightened fear and paranoia gripping the court room to force an hysterical ‘confession’ out of Mary. Abagail praises Satan in the woods because she is an outsider; she wants to gain a foothold in a community which affords her no status. A Malcontent, she works her revenge by manipulating the Witch trials and the members of the community into
