At certain instances Arthur Miller uses strong and emotive language in this play,
“ That bloody mongrel Walcott charge her”
When Giles says this, he delivers it by use of a short, strong voice, the audience wouldn’t just have noticed the word ‘bloody, but the nature of it, the character must have felt very strongly about it to say it the way it was said, the maliciousness and hatred comes across so strongly the audience cannot help but remember it. At the time that this play was set, any utterance of a word referring to the underworld would have been taken very seriously, especially as the situation in Salem was tender anyway, the gravity would have been amplified.
In reply to:
“Damn the deputy Governor! Out of my house!”
Hale says “Now, Proctor, Proctor!” as if to calm Proctor down, this shows that Hale has a calming nature, he has no desire to jump to conclusions, and also by saying this, prevent him from saying anything that might condemn him, or get him into any trouble. Proctor here loses his temper and lashes out probably not knowing what he just said, if Proctor had damned a member of the court in front of someone that didn’t understand the circumstances, and the emotional turmoil that he was going through he could have hung for it. The contrast between the language used by Giles and Hale show how Miller uses language to convey the power and emotions of characters. The language in combination with dramatisation would leave the audience in no doubt as to the nature of the players.
However, it is not only the language the actor’s use that would capture the audience. When noises happen offstage the audience cannot find an explanation for them unless they think hard, so a noise offstage wakes the audience from a kind of ‘slumber’, and increases their attention to the proceedings, if you go on to the next section of occurrences off-stage, Proctor gets restrained by ‘[..two deputies and Herrick], so a noise offstage could signal an exciting event,
[…The clank of a chain is heard].
In this circumstance, sound is better than words, they say that an image can say a thousand words, but obviously this particular offstage sound can say a lot more than the onstage image of it. By having the offstage sound and the onstage image of Proctor, the audience can see the reactions and body language of Proctor, the audience can marry Proctors reactions and emotions with the sound of the chaining that is going on offstage. The result is a very effective way to catch the audience’s attention and draws them into the plot. It furthermore captures the imagination of the audience, as they piece together the events. This audience participation in the play would increase the dramatic impact of the play.
When acting out a play on stage there is not as many effects compared to being on television (which can have special effects, etc…), the atmosphere can be created by having music or by placing characters onstage which do not say anything, but do give the play a better mood, they can create a feeling of closeness, warmth and also create feelings of nervousness and frightfulness.
With the following stage instruction,
“Mary Warren: [glancing about at the avid faces].
we see that Mary Warren is petrified for her own sake when admitting to making the poppet. This shows that she is a vulnerable character and would not like to draw attention to herself, especially at the time of the witch trials.
This Act is just before the interval, so, naturally some exciting event would have to unfold in the closing part of the Act to create suspense; in this case Elizabeth is taken from her home and husband. When she was taken, Miller could have ended it here but he decided to carry on and get Mary Warren into the picture. This might have been included to give the audience something to think about as they had their break and would have made them want to come back and see if their predictions were right. The acting is done with a great deal of emotion from Mary as she is interrogated by Proctor, the reason she is upset is, not only Elizabeth has been arrested, but Mary is greatly intimidated by Abigail, she thinks that Abigail will kill her if she let the secret go, this shows that Mary is loyal, not only to the Proctors but also to Abigail. One of the main reasons that Mary was picked was because she is a servant; she is very low in the social structure of the play, which was the way of the day back then, servants were picked on because they were not thought of as highly as the rest of the middle and upper class population, they were almost slaves, they were property of their employer.
The work of Joe McCarthy played a part in this play; Joe McCarthy was a U.S right-wing republican politician. His unsubstantiated claim in 1950 was that communists had infiltrated the state department and U.S army and started a wave of anticommunist hysteria, wild hysteria, wild accusations and blacklists,
“Which continued until he was discredited in 1954.
The U.S senate for misconduct censured him”,
[The Hutchinson encyclopedia]
McCarthy was a lawyer and became senator for his native Wisconsin in 1946, and in February 1950 caused a sensation by claiming to hold a list of about 200 communist party members working in the state department. This was in part inspired by the Alger Hiss case. McCarthy continued a witch-hunting campaign against, among others, members of the Truman administration; this is what Arthur Miller picked up on. McCarthyism came to represent the practice of using innuendo and unsubstantiated accusations against political adversaries.
The end of this Act was vital to the play, it had to be exciting to keep its audience after the interval, Arthur Miller succeeded in maintaining the impetus, he gave the audience something to think about while they were having a break: is Elizabeth really guilty? Further points for discussion and consideration during the interval as a result of this Act are:
Is Mary disloyal if she doesn’t want to go to court? And who is the real culprit?
This Act demonstrates the way in which Miller uses language and off-stage noise to enhance the impact of the scene and to portray the characteristics of the actors. In this Act we see the way that Miller has incorporated the political situation of the time into the play, with the political sensitivities coming through to increase the dramatic tension. The suspense of this Act is shown through language, off-stage actions, stage directions and also in the lead-up to the interval; combinational of these would capture the audience and contribute to an enjoyable, eventful and emotional play.
