There is a tension that builds slowly and dramatically throughout the play to a fitting climax when Proctor tells his confession and we know that he has chosen to die.
“If it is a lie, I will not die for it”.
This quote quantifies that Proctor is willing to die for his errant way.
The audience feels gradually more involved as the play continues and we get to know their personalities.
At first, we watch all of them wondering who can be trusted.
The tension increases to a peak when we recognise that John Proctor is the hero as he challenges authority and Rev. Parris is the weak representative of the authority. “The brainless man”. John is pushed to such an extreme that he condemns himself by shouting “God is dead” He means dead in Salem, but his words are used against him.
We get more involved with John Proctor because as an audience we can see that he is vulnerable following his affair and that he is surrounded by unstable people such as the Putnam’s and Mary Warren.
Proctor gets trapped in the web created by the excitement and by the hysteria of the community. The witch-craft naming’s are governed by a combination of state and religious power this was called a theocracy (American government now based on the separation of powers, just like our democracy. This is seen as safer than having the judge who condemns you being the same person as your priest and law enforcement officer). It would have been hard to avoid being able to see the outcome of John Proctor as we get the intention from the early stages of the play that his doom is coming and we can tell this from the levels of excitement, drama and tension.
There is also tension created by the contrasting attributes and personalities e.g. Goody Putnam, Rev. Parris John proctor and Rebecca Nurse.
Throughout the play there is a romantic drama of emotions between John and Abigail – (John’s rejection of her and Abigail’s ability to determine and change the thought owned by John)
This romantic drama is only one of the emotions that are felt between Hale and Tituba. Hale seeks to get rid of her ‘evil’ and seek her of her sins. He wants to do this as he feels that he wants her to have a small amount of justice in an all white community. This is because she was brought to the country as a black slave for her master, Rev. Parris
Tituba was the founder of the religious calls for spirits “I give she chicken blood”. ‘She’ is the Satan and the chicken blood is an offering.
Also, there is an understanding between Danforth and Abigail which is unspoken but clearly observed. This is because, as an audience we can clearly observe the terrible power that creates the tension and the audience is also waiting for someone to laugh or to tell the truth. Martha Corey does this at one point as she can see that the girls pointing, screaming and chanting is obviously false. Eventually, Francis tells Danforth the truth of which a number of people have told him that he will die if he tells.
“The girls are frauds.”
By this quote Hathorne wants the two men (Francis Nurse and Giles) arrested for contempt of court and this subsequently makes Danforth begin to listen to them. I personally think Danforth does this to remind the audience and other cast members just how important he is. While this is going on Mary Warren who had not been in court that week, claiming she was sick. Giles Corey says that “she has been strivin’ with the souls all week”. And that she has come “to the court to day to tell the truth”
There is drama created by the contrast in scenes “individual freedom” –a scene of high emotion and tension followed by a slow paced romantic scene. These scenes are called juxtaposed; this can be seen throughout the play. The tension is increased when the characters reveal to the audience the plot and the action taken off stage.
Throughout the play we get learn that John still feels that he has the right to admonish Abigail “It is strange work for a Christian girl to hang old woman”
The language above is deliberately made to stand out because of the syntax; this is also shown here “she near to choked us all” in the case just seen it should be ‘she nearly choked us all’.
The cadence shown in the language relates t o a biblical theme such as James in the bible.
Miller used the actual script from court transcripts that were created by the people of the time.
Characters are revealed through speech as well as facial expressions and mainly from body language. The audience and reader have the added advantage of being able to read through Miller’s notes but this doesn’t tell the whole story as you judge the person yourself within seconds of being introduced to them.
A way of understanding this is to focus upon the main characters in the play who are as follows Parris ,Abigail and Elizabeth. The all have individual characteristics and ways of appealing to the audience. During the play Parris he uses a lot of pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘me’ this reveals that Parris is a pompous, vain man and that he is extremely selfish in his approach to life in general.Abigail has a passionate nature that is revealed in her utterances, this to the girls and to her wannabe lover John but the most strange is Elizabeth who has an ability to control her feelings but this makes the girl seem old and unloving.
This is shown in the quote “Would freeze beer”
Although a deeply religious protestant community they did not as a group of people practise forgiveness and Christian charity. This led to a culture of blame which made it easy for people to reject criticism of them and to push the blame for events on to others. Miller uses these people as a parallel to events in America in the 1950’s when the McCarthy ‘witch hunts’ condemned people as communists, the new ‘Devil’
