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.