Abigail’s importance in the play is that without her the play would not exist. The play starts with the girls of the village dancing naked in the woods with a fire burning. Then the girls are caught and they all run away.
Whilst at this meeting Abigail drinks the blood of a chicken. Her reasons for doing this are as follows. Abigail worked in the Proctor household and then she had an affair with John the master of the house then Elizabeth threw Abigail out of the house because she knew about the affair with Abigail and her husband. Abigail then drinks the chicken blood to send her spirit out to kill Goody Proctor. After the events of the previous night the daughter of Reverend Paris, Betty was taken ill and she was not able to wake.
Later when she woke she said this, “I want my mama!” Abigail says “What ails you Betty? your mama’s dead and buried.” Betty replies “I’ll fly to Mama. Let me fly Abigail then says “I told him everything; he knows now, he knows everything we-” Betty then says “You drank blood, Abby!You didn’t tell him that!” This is also telling us that the rumour of Abigail drinking blood has been backed up by the fact that the people who were there especially Abigail have been accused and she agrees, in a way with them. Then the a man who is very respected and is from Boston comes and says ” If the devil is in Salem we shall find him” Abigail is then arrested on charges of witchcraft. Instead of being executed for the crime she is asked to tell everyone who it was who was with the devil.
She accuses lots of people and these are all arrested and taken in for questing. Then it is suggested that Abigail has told the people that goody Proctor was worshipping with the devil. This is so that she can have John Proctor all to herself. This unfortunately does not work because the reason why she thought that goody proctor should be accused is because Abigail was found with a needle in her chest and this meant that she could not breathe properly. This was just a complete stunt by Abigail so that she could accuse goody proctor.
Elizabeth had, had a popped made in the court by Mary Warren and this was in the court Mary gave the popped to Elizabeth with the needle still in the popped. Elizabeth was taken in to quoting and this made John very angry. John had the idea to go with Mary to the court and clear Elizabeth’s name. At this stage in the play Proctor is like a raging animal. Abigail is also very important because her accusation then caused other good citizens to be arrested. Some of these people were like Rebecca Nurse.
In the film but not in the book, John and Abigail meet in the woods for a discussion on the subject, this is also where Abigail tries to get beck into Johns good books. The trials start to happen and Elizabeth is bought in front of the court where she wants to tell them that the her husband did not have an affair with anyone but John had already told the court that he did not. The court then starts to believe Abigail and people also start to. Abigail then becomes essential to the play telling the court everything. At this stage she also starts to lie about.
All the people around her, also start to lie and everyone soon realises that she is lying and she then begins to lie. All the girls around Abigail can not tell her that she is lying because they will also be accused. The importance of Abigail in the play as I think I have already explained is very important and without her it is obvious the play would not exist because she tells the lies about everyone.
