Aline

__Introducing and developing Abigail’s mysterious character__ Abigail is one of the most important characters in my play. Her character is very interesting, which is why in Act 1 I deal with her descriptions very carefully. The situation is very delicate in Act 1, because there is a mystery about witchcraft in Salem, two girls are sleeping and cannot wake, and a lot of fingers point at Abigail. But there is no proof yet that Abigail is responsible for what has happened. In act 1, I present Abigail using 3 different situations to give a variety of incidents that can show Abigail’s different traits to help the readers or audience find out more about her, without quite solving the mystery of her personality. My first description of Abigail in the play is “ Abigail Williams, seventeen, … a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling”, this introduces Abigail and leaves the readers with an impression that she is a beautiful dangerous teenager, since she can easily be under disguise and still have a beautiful distracting appearance. I also mention that she’s an orphan, because this will let the readers sympathize a little, before judging her. After introducing Abigail, I describe her in the first situation, being mainly about her and Parris (her uncle). The first few stage directions show how polite she is when her uncle talks to her, and her actions give the readers an idea about the presence of respect and also fright at times. Examples of these are: “lowering her eyes”, “innocently”, and “in terror”. Then I show a slightly different side of her actions around her uncle, when I mention her “resentment” and “temper” when she talks to her uncle after he doubts that her name is clean in the village. When I reveal this different side of her, I make the readers wonder if she is upset because she’s done nothing wrong and yet she is accused of it or if she is upset because her secret is no longer a secret. The second situation is when Abigail is with the girls and trying to wake up Betty. I found that an important situation, because it gave me a chance to show the ‘leader’ Abigail. With the girls, Abigail is scared, and worried about Betty but soon afterwards she looses her temper and “smashes Betty across the face” and “sits her up roughly”. My aim here is again creating a kind of illusion, where Abigail is worried about what’s happened but is also scared for an unknown reason. I reveal more about her character but still not enough to solve the mystery. Then the third and last situation is the scene with Abigail and Proctor. I describe Abigail to show how interested she is in Proctor. For example, “ … absorbing his presence, wide-eyed” and “she comes closer looking into his eyes” and then I reveal a whole different side of her, and that is “desire and desperateness”. I always showed how innocent and strong she is, but in this situation the teenager in love is uncovered. I show how much she wants to be with proctor, when she “grasps his hand before he can release her” and “rushes to him”. In this situation, Abigail also gets angry at some points but in this case she calms down again. It’s different with Proctor. She actually cares about him and wants him for herself.

I give many clues to solve Abigail’s character mystery but yet not enough. There’s a mixture of good and bad about Abigail in Act 1. Each reader will have a different opinion about Abigail but all readers would not be sure about what exactly to think..

__On Abigail The Catalyst…__ When Abigail Williams falls in love, she has no control over herself and her only goal is to get the man she loves. It starts off with the witchcraft in the forest, where Abigail wishes for Goody Proctor’s death so that she can take her place as Jon Proctor’s wife. Abigail drinks blood and her uncle finds out that she has been dancing in the forest with the rest of the girls. That, she could have covered up, but the fact that two of the little girls who took part in this witch craft cannot wake pushes Abigail to deny anything that has to do with witchcraft. Abigail blames the devil and many women in Salem whom she says have come to her with the devil. Many women are pulled out of their houses and taken to court, and then hanged if they don’t confess to dealing with the devil. The fuss that Abigail creates is very big and it is impossible for her to fix it without being blamed. But Abigail puts this chaos to use and blames Goody Proctor along with the other women. She hopes to get rid of her and works towards that goal. Abigail has power over the girls and can pull of a fake innocent cover to fool people. She uses these powers to get to what she wants… Jon Proctor. Women and men are hanged and Jon Proctor is forced to confess unless he wants to be hanged too. His wife gets pregnant and needs him. The situation gets very ugly, complicated and to a point with no return. Abigail is still planning to make her dream come true. And still thinks she has a chance to get Proctor and run away with him. Proctor refuses to confess and is hanged. Abigail leaves Salem without telling anyone and there is no sign of her at all. The foolishness of a teenager and her desire drive her to lie, and be the reason why many have hanged. She does get away with it without being affected, but she does not win after all. The obsession with religion in this community blinded everyone and forbade them from realizing what was wrong and what was right. The ones who got tricked are left responsible for the death of many as well as the ones who caused the chaos and who are also guilty. And it is too late to go back and change what has happened.

__Abigail accuses Marry Warren’s spirit of wanting to rip her face off.__ When in court Abigail says that Marry Warren’s spirit is threatening to attack her, while Marry Warren is standing in that same court as Abigail. I would tell Abigail to be very focused on what she’s saying and stop looking at anything in the room except for where she sees the spirit. If Abigail makes it look very real the audience will actually consider that what she says is true or they will just understand how convinced she is that what she talks about is true. Unless the audience believes that Abigail is a liar at that point, then they can tell how far she would go to prove that what she says is not wrong. Mary Warren knows that what’s going on is all fake and she is trying to tell the judges that the girls are fraud but she is still the weak one, because all of the girls stand together and she is trying to prove them wrong on her own. So I would make Marry Warren a scared and slightly angry character at that point, because she is trying to prove something and is constantly interrupted by the group of girls who stand against her. Proctor is positive that the girls are fraud and does not even consider for a second believing that what they are saying is true. His character will have to be disgusted and he cannot show any kind of respect towards the girls while talking about them. He should also be angry, because he knows that what the girls are doing is ridiculous but the judges in front of him are still supposing that maybe Marry Warren is really sending her soul to tear Abigail’s face off. As for the judges, they are my main focus when it comes to portraying the hysteria. They believe the girls and doubt Proctor and Marry Warren, although as professional judges, they should know that the girls are probably fraud. The situation is way out of control and the judges thoughts and beliefs and partly controlled by the girls, since their actions have been mainly caused by what the girls have said.

__The characters…__ The characters in the play were all very unique and each character had its own traits. This probably made it a challenge for the director of the Crucible (the movie), because the characters of the movie had to be as similar as they possibly could to the characters of the play. I find that in the movie, the characters were represented properly and the actors were really bringing the characters to live. It is clear that the director referred to the stage directions and used the dialogue to find out as much as he could about the characters, because the way each of them acts is what the play says. The characters in the play are a very important part of it. And they were all created for a reason. So in the movie that had to be perfectly clear. The director of the movie succeeded in showing the importance of each individual character. I found that the ‘characters’ aspect in the play and movie were really synchronized and successful.