The Crucible
In The Crucible we can see from the beginning, that Abigail was portrayed as an antagonist. she is very manipulative and tries to win the sides of other people to cover what she is hiding. Abigail is very aggressive when it comes to accusations because, she wants to be seen as an innocent young woman to gain credibility. aAs Tthe Sstory Ggoes Oon, we see Abigail's use of rhetorical strategies to carry out her plans of being seen as this wonderful Christian woman.
iIn act 1, when Abigail walks into find her uncle Parris ,praying over Betty's lifeless body., Parris pauses his prayer to speak with Abigail about what he saw in the forest last night. Parris claims, he that he saw the girl practicing witchcraft in the forest and is concerned that this is the cause of his daughter's illness. hHe's not happy with what he saw because it goes against the word of God. Abigail's manipulative sell fuses eat those to try to prove to her uncle that nothing of that nature whas done, and that her uncle has nothing to worry about. wWe can see this when Abigail says “ she always sings her Barbados songs and we dance”. This is referring to why they were dancing in the forest. Making it seem as an active Aadolescent and playfulness., when in reality this was a way that Abigail used to try to ease her uncles mind of Wwitchcraft and that Abigail had nothing to do with it.
aAlso when in act 1 Abigail uses ethos to try to convince others that she was innocent., we can really see this occur when Hale the minister who comes in to help is questioning Abigail. When he last Abigail “ have you sold yourself to Lucifer?” Abigail's response was “ I never sold myself: I'm a good girl a proper girl”. tThis shows us that Abigail wants us to see her as this proper sweet girl that would no nothing against the word of gooG-d. but this is the complete opposite because, she is lying and stealing to make herself look better than the other girls. iIt is then that we can realize that Abigail is in trouble and trying to cover up her issues with the lies. Abigail has no sign of guilt at this point and is going to continue to do things that will benefit her even if it means hurting others.
in the end, showinge see that Abigail is not as innocent as she wants to be seen and has caused a lot of damage in Salem. ,she is a manipulator and can only lie to try to solve her problems. tThis is why Abigail make the perfect antagonist of The Crucible. tThroughout the whole story her qualities continue to grow and become worse so that she can get her way. Abigail is like the snake in Adam and Eve that continues to grow.