ible, Abigail Williams is it. She is the one who first led the girls to Tituba for dancing in the woods and conjuring spirits. When Tituba is forced to "confess," Abigail jumps right in and the other girls follow her. During the witch trials she is the girls' leader, bringing them into the court and presiding over their "torments." She intimidates everyone--the girls, the townsfolk, even the judges. And then, when it begins to look as if the tide is turning against her, she gets out while the getting is good, robbing her uncle, Reverend Parris, before she goes.Abigail is a lot like the little girl in the movie The Bad Seed. In the movie, a nine-year-old terrorizes her family and the whole community. She murders several people, including her parents. She gets away with it because no one can believe that a child could be so evil. Anyone who does find her out, she kills.Abigail lies without shame, threatens without fear, and thinks of nothing of sticking a needle two inches into her own belly in order to bring about the murder of Elizabeth Proctor. And she gets away with most of it.But Abigail isn't a child. She's had a grown-up love affair with John Proctor, and has lost her childish faith in "the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men." A child, when hurt, may strike back in anger. But only an adult could so coolly plot and execute the ingenious revenge Abigail plans for Elizabeth.The important thing to decide about Abigail is whether you think she's evil or not. Without doubt, almost all her actions have evil consequences, and if there is good in her, we don't get to see much of it. She takes the lead in "crying out" witches; the other girls take their cues from her. In a very short time she has the whole town at her mercy, and she uses this power unscrupulously. In fact, a real witch could hardly have done a better job of destroying the community.But is Abigail the only one to blame? if so, the...
