Miller presents Abigail as a passionate yet manipulative character when she first meets Proctor in the play. The uneasy alliteration in the ‘lying lessons’that she bemoans the other Christian women as living demonstrates how she criticises others in order to make herself look mature and attractive to John. This attack on the dogmatic piety of the Salem society by Abigail serves as a wider criticism of authoritarian society – there is the notion that to be repressed leads to evil acts occurring. To those who know that liberal colonial populations were more likely to fail, this reading of Abigail would seem less manic and unreasonable than it might do to someone who finds her over emotional. This reading of Abigail having some justification is enhanced by her choice of unusual metaphorical verbs ‘put’and ‘took’which both suggest that John is responsible for her obsession.
