Act 1 begins with Reverend Samuel Parris praying over his daughter, Betty who is ‘supposedly’ under a spell of witchcraft, and has a chance of losing her life “My Betty not goin’ die....”, just before this line, Parris’ slave, Tituba enters, only to be thrown out of the room straight away, by an already apprehensive Parris. This incident creates an air of tension between the two characters within the first few lines. The beginning of this act is very powerful, in that, I mean that Miller has began the play with a very dramatic scene, to grasp the audience’s attention. Following this anxious opening, the tension begins to subside, until, suddenly, Betty Parris “darts out of bed” and she accuses Abigail Williams, who, earlier that year, had an affair with the farmer John Proctor, Betty accuses her of drinking blood to conspire to kill Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth. Following the accusation, ‘Goody Williams’ “smashes Betty across the face”, this sends Betty back into her ‘trance’. Abigail then gives her account of the accusations people had been throwing at her, she confesses to most, but avoids the allegation of plotting to kill Elizabeth Proctor. The act then sees a scene with both John Proctor and Abigail Williams alone in the room with the ‘sleeping’ Betty. Abigail is trying to flirt with John, he is understandably uneasy with this and he dismisses her attitude with a sense of denial. The scene’s pace then decelerates, until the climax of the play when Tituba, Betty and Abigail become hysterical and begin to chant names of those who have allegedly committed witchcraft.
Act 2 begins at a slow pace, but the tension in the Proctor’s farmstead is electric, as one would say, “the silence speaks volumes”. After a short, sharp conversation between the couple, Mary Warren, the Proctor’s servant comes home from Salem. Mary gives Elizabeth a small rag-doll, which turns out to be a big turning point within the play. Mary Warren had been at court, observing the trials of other people accused of witchcraft. The pace of this scene is still pretty slow, until the Reverend John Hale bursts in. In the previous act, Hale came in with books ‘weighted with authority’, he shows his authority in a strong, yet subtle manner. He asks Elizabeth Proctor to sit down, Hale then states that he has not come on the court’s permission, but to conduct his own investigation.
He begins to conduct his own ‘test’ on Elizabeth, she is unsure of the purpose of this, but she goes along with it anyway. Hale comes to the question regarding her knowledge of the Ten Commandments. Instead of asking Elizabeth to recite them, he asks John, Proctor speaks of nine commandments, but the one he has forgotten, ironically is the one he has committed, adultery with Abigail Williams.
Ezekiel Cheever then enters and spies a ‘poppet’ above the fire, the poppet is the doll that Mary Warren had given to Elizabeth. Cheever seizes the poppet and lifts its skirt, underneath lays a two inch needle. Ezekiel Cheever then states that earlier that evening, Abigail Williams collapsed from the dinner table, and she was found to have been stabbed in the stomach by a needle. Cheever thinks this is due to the poppet and Elizabeth has been using the doll as some kind of voodoo over Abigail. This was thought of as witchcraft, consequently Elizabeth was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft and the scene ends on a moment of high-intensity with Proctor forcefully ordering Mary Warren to testify in court over the poppet and to tell the truth.
Now, on to act 3, my chosen scene to study. Act 3 begins with voices and no-one ‘on stage’ and Giles Corey being thrown out of the courthouse, where his wife, Martha is being tried to being a witch. “I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is.” This is followed by Judge Hathorne’s question “How do you know then, that you are not a witch?” The question posed is interesting because it is asking that if she isn’t a witch, how she know that, for certain. This question builds up tension with how Martha is to respond, she responds, “If I were, I would know it”.
The argument between both Martha and Hathorne is interrupted by Giles; the interruption comes at a vital point in the argument, "I have evidence for the court!” roared Giles. This line brings in a sense of excitement to both the reader and viewer of the play because of the break off of the argument between Giles’ wife and the judge. The pace of the play then picks up, Giles accuses Thomas Putnam of reaching out for land, Danforth, another judge then calls for Giles to be removed from the court and be arrested.
Giles is then faced with the dilemma of being forced out of the court by marshals or pleading to stay inside. If he pleads to stay in, then there is more of a chance for him to save his wife, unfortunately, Giles is thrown out of the court and into the vestry room, which is where the main action in the scene takes place.
The mood of the vestry room is quite tense due to what has just happened. Reverend Hale, who has left the court to try and restore some moral sanity into Giles’ mind, confronts him calmly, “Pray be calm for a moment”. This line also injects some sense into the mind of the reader or viewer of the play, who will probably be overly excited by the previous voiced confrontation between Giles and the court. The line could also be viewed as that you are put into the role of Giles for a brief period, to let you see things from his point of view. The pace of the scene at this moment is quite frantic, but it could be seen as quite slow due to the wise Reverend Hale coming in and restoring some sense to the powerful scene. Giles is still, understandably furious at what had just happened and he was at boiling point. The scenes pace begins to slow down in comparison with moments earlier.
However tension and drama is then built up again slightly later on in the act when John Proctor enters the courthouse with Mary Warren, this is on the matter of the needle and the poppet. Proctor states that Mary “Never saw no spirits”, this line is met by great surprise by Danforth, he thinks for a moment and says to Mary “How came you to cry out people for sending their spirits”. Danforth is beginning to get suspicious, as is the reader or viewer because people’s statements are contradicting others. Mary Warren responds “It were pretence sir”, this is met by Danforth, who is baffled. Danforth is unsure whether this is the truth and asks Proctor whether he knows what he is going through to protect his wife. The tension and anxiety here, is all psychological, it takes the understanding of the rest of the story to come to your own conclusions. The tension is not presented to you on stage, or in the text, but through what and how it is said.
Arguably, the time when most tension is apparent is when Abigail and other girls become fixed in a trance, repeating exactly what the members of the court (Hale, Danforth, Cheever etc.) say. Mary Warren – “Abby, you mustn’t”, and Abigail and the other girls, transfixed say “Abby, you mustn’t”. This goes on for a good few lines. The tension is here is gigantic, the audience and reader are engrossed by what is going on. The anxiety of this event is too much for Mary Warren, she begins to whimper, as do the rest of the girls, mocking her. But this extremely powerful scene of emotion has not finished, far from it. The girls in their ‘trance’ have overcome Mary’s sentiment and Mary begins to scream with them, staring up at the ‘bird’ in the sky as the other girls had done earlier. John Proctor, still in the room is understandably mystified by what is going on. The pace of the scene is frantic; there is no control over what is happening. The tension is then taken up another level when Mary says to John, “You’re the devil’s man!” John is mortified at what has just been said, Mary has changed her mind of what she was going to say in court, and instead, she has accused her master of witchcraft. Mary follows this up and says “My name, he want my name ‘I’ll murder you’ he says, ‘if my wife hang! We must go and overthrow the court,’ he says”. By saying this Mary has indicted the charge of conspiracy to murder upon John. However, Mary still says she loves God, and she feels she has done the right thing in telling the judge this. The pace of this part of the scene is hysterical, all characters have been come over with extreme emotion and people seem to say what they please. But, knowing Arthur Miller, this is not the end of the scene. It ends on the slight cliff-hanger of John Proctor being arrested and the Reverend John Hale quitting the court. Miller has used such a technique that makes the scene so dramatic that you feel you have to read on.
In my opinion, Arthur Miller goes beyond what is needed to make ‘The Crucible’ a very entertaining and dramatic play. Miller has made sure that there is something interesting for everyone to observe and read. By setting the play in 1692, with the communism and anxiety, it is easy to relate the story to modern day events. Although, looking at the story two-dimensionally portrays the events in Salem itself, whereas, looking at it
3-dimensionally will make you aware that Miller has purposely used events that he feels would plague the modern era but in a historical context. All in all, the drama in the play and with human emotions, anxiety, fear and other characteristics thrown into the melting pot that is ‘The Crucible’, it makes out for a fascinating tale of how human emotions and thoughts can get the better of others.