Motivation is what encourages a person to behave in a certain way. Cruelty is a common motivator that is mostly used in a selfish way to one’s advantage. Whether it’s throwing others under the bus, or just wanting the attention. In The Crucible, a girl by the name Abigail William’s selfishly wants a married man by the name John Proctor and shows no remorse for any of her actions in her attempt to acquire get him. Her barbarous decisions lead her to a pool of lies, and deceit.

The main message in this play is to show how far a person is willing to go to get what they want, despite the lies and betrayal. Cruelty allies with this message by egotistical wants being the cause, and cruel behavior being the effect. Abigail William’s cruel behavior derived from her jealousy, and desperate desire to be with a married man, provoking her to lie about her practice of witchcraft. She drinks blood, and chants to put a charm to kill his wife. She encourages the others to lie by …show more content…
She does this in spite of her love for him, which was sparked from her affair with him. She begins to lie of her practice of witchcraft, and when one of the younger girls by the name Betty explains to her what she has done she threatens, “ I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” This reveals the mercilessness character that she is. She speaks of stabbing any of the girls that speak of the incident in order to save herself from the consequences of her choices.

In The Crucible, cruelty was the motivation for Abigail Williams. Getting what she wanted, even though it incorporated putting someone else’s life in danger, was her main objective. This is just one example of how selfishly obsessed one can become over something, that they will do whatever it takes to have it. Even if it does require being a little cruel and