Quote 1
PROCTOR, breathless and in agony: It [Abigail] is a whore!
DANFORTH, dumfounded: You charge—?
ABIGAIL: Mr. Danforth, he is lying!
PROCTOR: Mark her! Now she'll suck a scream to stab me with but—
DANFORTH: You will prove this! This will not pass!
PROCTOR, trembling, his life collapsing about him: I have known her, sir. I have known her.
DANFORTH: You—you are a lecher?
FRANCIS, horrified: John, you cannot say such a—
PROCTOR: Oh, Francis, I wish you had some evil in you that you might know me. (To Danforth:) A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that.
DANFORTH, dumfounded: In—in what time? In what place?
PROCTOR, his voice about to break, and his shame great: In the proper place—where my beasts are bedded. On the last night of my joy, some eight months past. She used to serve me in my house, sir. (He has to clamp his jaw to keep from weeping.) A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is. My wife, my dear good wife, took this girl soon after, sir, and put her out on the highroad. And being what she is, a lump of vanity, sir— (He is being overcome.) Excellency, forgive me, forgive me. (Angrily against himself, he turns away from the Governor for a moment. Then, as though to cry out is his only means of speech left:) She thinks to dance with me on my wife's grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore's vengeance, and you must see it now. (III.374-384)
Proctor reveals Abigail’s true motivations, jealousy and desire, at great personal cost to himself. If had made the revelation earlier, perhaps it could have prevented the tragedy of the witch-hunt.
Quote 2
ABIGAIL, with a bitter anger: Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be—
PROCTOR, angered at himself as well: You'll speak nothin' of Elizabeth!
ABIGAIL: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a—
PROCTOR, shaking her: Do you look for whippin'? (I.202-205)
Though Abigail pretends she’s angry at Elizabeth Proctor for damaging her reputation, the more powerful emotion is envy of Elizabeth for her marriage to John Proctor. Here she resorts to petty name-calling in order to cast doubt in John’s mind.
Quote 3
HALE: Why can she not wake? Are you silencing this child?
TITUBA: I love me Betty!
HALE: You have sent your spirit out upon this child, have you not? Are you gathering souls for the Devil?
ABIGAIL: She sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer!
PARRIS: She have often laughed at prayer!
ABIGAIL: She comes to me every night to go and drink blood!
TITUBA: You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm—
ABIGAIL: Don't lie! (To Hale:) She comes to me while I sleep; she's always making me dream corruptions!
TITUBA: Why you say that, Abby?
ABIGAIL: Sometimes I wake and find myself standing in the open doorway and not a stitch on my body! I always hear her laughing in my sleep. I hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me with—
TITUBA: Mister Reverend, I never—
HALE, resolved now: Tituba, I want you to wake this child.
TITUBA: I have no power on this child, sir.
HALE: You most certainly do, and you will free her from it now! When did you compact with the Devil?
TITUBA: I don't compact with no Devil!
The early scene in which Abigail falsely accuses Tituba of witchcraft lays the foundation for the twisting of justice in Salem, in which good and innocent people are accused and convicted by those without integrity. From this point on, it is apparent to us that something is deeply amiss in Salem—that the beliefs and paradigms of that society allow, or even promote, such unjust outcomes.
Quote 4
ABIGAIL: She heard you singin' and suddenly she's up and screamin'.
MRS. PUTNAM: The psalm! The psalm! She cannot bear to hear the Lord's name!
PARRIS: No, God forbid. Mercy, run to the doctor! Tell him what’s happened here!
Mercy Lewis rushes out.
MRS. PUTNAM: Mark it for a sign, mark it!
Rebecca Nurse, seventy-two, enters. She is white-haired, leaning upon her walking-stick.
PUTNAM, pointing at the whimpering Betty: That is a notorious sign of witchcraft afoot, Goody Nurse, a prodigious sign!
MRS. PUTNAM: My mother told me that! When they cannot bear to hear the name of—
PARRIS, trembling: Rebecca, Rebecca, go to her, we're lost. She suddenly cannot bear to hear the Lord's name!
[...]
Everything is quiet. Rebecca walks across the room to the bed. Gentleness exudes from her. Betty is quietly whimpering, eyes shut. Rebecca simply stands over the child, who gradually quiets.
MRS. PUTNAM, astonished: What have you done? (I.213-220; 225-226)
Betty’s sudden whining at the name of Jesus indicates her relationship with the Devil—a classic sign of good vs. evil. But Rebecca Nurse suggests she just needs a mother’s touch. The more earnestly religious characters, like Rebecca, realize that supernatural conflict has its roots in human suffering, not the other way around.
Quote 5
ABIGAIL, with a bitter anger: Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be—
PROCTOR, angered—at himself as well: You'll speak nothin' of Elizabeth!
ABIGAIL: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a—
PROCTOR, shaking her: Do you look for whippin'? (I.202-205)
Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of damaging her reputation, and she also maligns the man she loves. Elizabeth will later admit that there is some truth to the charge that she is “cold.” But “sniveling”? Now that’s just a low blow.
Quote 6
ABIGAIL: Gah! I'd almost forgot how strong you are, John Proctor!
PROCTOR, looking at Abigail now, the faintest suggestion of a knowing smile on his face: What's this mischief here?
ABIGAIL, with a nervous laugh: Oh, she's only gone silly somehow.
PROCTOR: The road past my house is a pilgrimage to Salem all morning. The town's mumbling witchcraft.
ABIGAIL: Oh, posh! (Winningly she comes a little closer, with a confidential, wicked air.) We were dancin' in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us. She took fright, is all.
PROCTOR, his smile widening: Ah, you're wicked yet, aren't y'! (A trill of expectant laughter escapes her, and she dares come closer, feverishly looking into his eyes.) You'll be clapped in the stocks before you're twenty.
He takes a step to go, and she springs into his path.
ABIGAIL: Give me a word, John. A soft word. (Her concentrated desire destroys his smile.)
PROCTOR: No, no, Abby. That's done with. (I.173-180)
We learn that both Abigail and John have told lies: they have deceived people about their (past) relationship, and they continue to lie about it. But to this person who knows her deception, Abigail tells the truth that she was dancing in the woods and Betty took fright. However, she doesn’t tell him that she drank a potion so that his wife, Elizabeth, might die.
Quote 7
ABIGAIL, pulling her away from the window: I told him everything; he knows now, he knows everything we—
BETTY: You drank blood, Abby! You didn't tell him that!
ABIGAIL: Betty, you never say that again! You will never—
BETTY: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!
ABIGAIL, smashes her across the face: Shut it! Now shut it!
BETTY, collapsing on the bed: Mama, Mama! (She dissolves into sobs.)
ABIGAIL: Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam's dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! (She goes to Betty and roughly sits her up.) Now, you—sit up and stop this!
But Betty collapses in her hands and lies inert on the bed. (I.113-132)
We learn the true motives behind Abigail’s actions, even as she tries to get the girls to agree on a story to protect herself. She uses the threat of violence—along with their belief that she might know some real witchcraft—to keep them in line.