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The crucible play analysis
The crucible plot structure
The crucible play analysis
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In the opening scene of the Crucible, a smoke machine shrouds a group of girls in a cloud of fog. The ominous setting is accompanied by demonic laughter and screeching. This makes the audience feel like they are truly witnessing the art of witchcraft before Parris’ shocking discovery sends the girls running. The hysteria of the actors communicates tension on the following day as people in town discover that some young girls have mysterious afflictions. Ms Putnam delivers her lines with startling shrieks. She address her ailing daughter’s condition and the loss of her other children with piercing and shrill cries. Early on in the movie, there is a combination of loud screaming scenes, quiet tense scenes, and passionate arguments. The intense noises set the audience on edge at every turn. …show more content…
Later on, there are not-so-subtle clues that the supposedly bewitched girls are not being truthfully. The scene in which John Proctor warns Abigail to stop is tense and well done. After Hale and Cheever come to the Proctor house, and before Elizabeth is taken away, there is a subtle change from the book in which Elizabeth’s sons come down to embrace her, when in the book they were still asleep. Mary Warren is given an additional scene where she is approached in the Proctor home by the mob of girls and she runs out. This gives background for the intimidation she received from the other girls helps to illustrate what is in her head when she turns from the court. Excluding the girls, who are angrily satisfied with the hangings, many people in the crowd became more somber
James Otis Jr, a lawyer, was very angry because his father was rejected the post of chief justice of Massachusetts by the royal governor.
In conclusion, the theme on how hysteria can occur and corrupt the entire community is displayed in The Crucible. Miller depicts how people can become hysterical over nonsensical things and that hysteria can ruin many people's lives. The reader should understand this theme to be aware of how much we can get swept up in hysteria. Without this hysteria a teenage girl had no power until she cried out witchcraft, a man was not able to act on his revenge until accusing someone else. Fear caused the townsfolk to believe the crazy accusations that someone could actually be a witch. All they were hearing was lie after lie. It’s sad how they actually could believe them. Make you think twice when you hear of a rumor, doesn’t
The play I chose for my third play reading report is "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller.
to those around him, and the lack of dialect from him, as well as the
Abigail and the girls, yet again, ruin someone’s life. They are the reason Proctor’s efforts failed to save his wife. John Proctor convinces Mary Warren, his servant, to confess to lying about witchcraft. When she confesses, Abigail is brought in along with Suzanna, Betty, and Mercy. Abigail denies everything that Mary has told the court. Abigail gets very scared and points up at a beam on the ceiling and says, “But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary.” All of the other girls went along with it and also accused Mary of witch craft. Mary realizes that the court will not believe her and she will be hanged for lying and for being a witch, so she turns on John Proctor and accuses him of witch craft. Mary tells Proctor, “You’re the Devil’s man!” Mary also tells the court that he threatened to murder her if she did not go down to court and lie about the girls accusations. Danforth believes their act and accuses Procter, “What are you? You are combined with anti-Christ and, are you not? I have seen your power; you will not deny it! What say you, Mister?” Procter is now being accused of witch craft and will be hanged. This is what completely destroys Proctor’s efforts to save his
A basic sense of honesty is another of Mary Warren’s traits. In Act I she goes to Salem to convince Abigail to tell the truth about what really happened in the woods. When the witchcraft scare gets out of hand, Mary joins Abigail and the other girls in falsely accusing women of being witches. These false accusations are motivated by hysteria. There is evidence that Mary really believes that the women in court are bewitching her. She tells the judge that she thought she saw spirits. The other girls were screaming, and before she knew it, Mary was screaming with them. When she realizes that there are no spirits, Mary is willing to be truthful. After Elizabeth Proctor’s name is brought up in court, Mary Warren defends her against the accusation. At the end of Act II, the reader hopes that the basic sense of honesty will remain strong enough to allow Mary to testify on behalf of the accused women in Act III.
For example, as a result of the lie Sarah is put in the position by the court that she may either confess to the crime and save herself or not confess and get hung. The act also affects the town of Salem because the girls notice how much influence they have over the court and begin to accuse of witchcraft anyone they do not like. Although Mary Warren does contribute to the hanging of many people, but when Proctor begs to her to go to the court with him and confess to save Elizabeth, she gets a chance to redeem herself. She tells the court that the whole witchery situation was just the girls pretending. Mary says, “I cannot charge murder on Abigail” and adds, “[s]he’ll kill me for sayin’ that!”
When Abigail and the girls go against Marry Warren, they pretend that Mary is trying to hurt them through her spirit. They repeat whatever Mary Warren says and act like she will attack them. Mass hysteria can be seen during this scene. Overwhelmed, Mary, who was on John Proctors side, blames everything on him. “No, I love God; I go your way no more. I love God, I bless God. Abby, Abby, I’ll never hurt you more!” (Mary Warren, Act 3, pg. 52) She goes back to Abigail and John Proctor is arrested.
In the first stage rests Mary Warren. She is not a character with strong conviction, and in the course of the play, she changes sides to whichever will keep her safe from harm at the time. During the first act of the play, we come to understand that she had been one of the girls dancing in the forest with Abigail and Tituba. She saw that the girls were being cornered, and felt that they should confess before it got out of hand, but was silenced after being threatened by Mercy Lewis and Abigail Williams. When Elizabeth Proctor was arrested, John Proctor employed his power as her boss and as a stronger human to coerce her to go with him to the court and expose the girls as frauds. Because he’s stronger than she, she agrees. When they g...
It was easier for them to blame the devil for the problems of society than fix the problems of their own strict way of life. So the girls involved with Abigail, like Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren, named many people in the town as witches. These people were put in jail and would be hanged if they did not confess to the crime of devil worship or witchcraft. Another part of the developing plot is that John Proctor knows Abigail and her friends are lying, but he is afraid to say anything because eight months before he had an affair with Abigail and did not want to be seen by the town as a lecher, which means wife cheater. So, Mr. Proctor has to fight with himself to come out and tell the truth, or his wife might die because of Abigail saying she was a witch.
The Crucible – Characters and Changes & nbsp; Change is good for the future. " We hear the catchy phrase everywhere. From company slogans to motivational speeches, our world seems to impose this idea that change is always a good thing. Assuming that the change is for the better, it is probably a true statement in most cases. The root of this idea seems to come from the notion that we are dissatisfied with the state that we are in, so, in order to create a more enjoyable environment, we adjust.
The crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials and how people react to hysteria created from the fear of witches. In the play, after hysteria breaks out, the Salem government starts persecute and hang people it believes are witches. This prompts people to start to accusing people of witchcraft. Some people who accuse others of committing witchcraft are Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam. They do not accuse people of witchcraft to stop witchcraft, but for personal gain or to hurt others. Thomas Putnam, one of the many characters who takes advantage of the witch trials, is able to use the fear of witches to bend the court to his will. Hysteria causes people to believe claims that are clearly false. This allows Putnam to persecute his enemies. He and many other are able to get away with this because hysteria driven persecutions are not run like regular courts and the fact that witchcraft is an invisible crime allows evidence to be made up. The theme of The Crucible is when any persecution is driven by fear and people can and will manipulate the system so they can gain and hurt another.
The first sight of action started at the beginning of Act I at Rev. Parris’s house with his daughter Elizabeth and his niece Abigail (Parris on his knees, beside a bed. His daughter Betty, aged 10, is asleep in it Abigail Williams, 17,). Rev. Parris was startled one night while he was reading a book he hears yelling coming from his daughter’s bedroom and he rushed to their aid to see that Elizabeth was in the bed screaming like something was attacking her. So immediately he called someone who was an expert on witchcraft meanwhile he was still trying to squeeze the information out of Abigail since Elizabeth was not responding, but the girls would not spill the beans until they gave Rev. Parris realized they were the ones in the woods with Tituba
“Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.” by Arthur Miller. All great works provide a way to reach in and grab the audience through the reoccurring themes like, greed, jealousy, reputation and hypocrisy. Arthur Miller had one of those great works and it was called “The Crucible”. The play was based off of the witch trials that happened in Salem in the year of 1962. Some of the characters were actual characters involved in the witch trials. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the time of the “Red Scare”. Miller wrote The Crucible because he wanted to turn the The Salem Witch Trials into
Analysis of The Crucible by Arthur Miller ‘You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor.’ Assess the developments in John Proctor’s character that validate this statement. How does Miller create a sense of tension and suspense in the build up to this climatic moment in Act 4? In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible he has used many dramatic devices in order to create tension and build up to the climaxes of the story.