Explain how dramatic tension is built up in this act, paying particular attention to the main characters, historical context and Miller(TM)s stage directions.

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The Crucible Coursework

Explain how dramatic tension is built up in this act, paying particular attention to the main characters, historical context and Miller’s stage directions.

The action of the play is based on an historical event (and those events can be related to what goes on in the world today), the Salem witchcraft trials and hunts which took place in Massachusetts in 1692. But Miller author notice the drama has more recent parallels with the anti-Communist witch-hunts in the mid 1950s which was ran by the Un-American activities Commission. In a contemporary context, you could see similarities with the recent media witch-hunts against a number of conspicuous figures from the worlds of politics, business, sport and show business.

Arthur Miller has used unique techniques in Act 3 to build up dramatic tension with various climax points. Act 3 is the act where all the little things the characters have said and done come together. Through the use of dialogue, stage directions which enable us to envisage the scene on stage and characterisation we can see how dramatic tension is created by Miller which can not be easily accomplished in true-life play at that time.

Act 3 starts with an empty stage, but voices can be heard, there is no visual sighting of the characters. The audience can hear Hathorne, Martha Corey, Danforth and Giles. The tension then rises as they are in the anteroom of the general court; you cannot see the actors, but can only hear them. The stage direction is off stage (a roaring goes up from the people) this makes the audience think, what will happen next and that’s one of Miller’s ways of keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. The dialogue that goes on in the anteroom plays with the audience’s feelings. In the speech rhetorical questions are used along with repetition to create sympathy, anger and worry. Judge Hathorne is questioning Martha Corey regarding witchcraft, he also implies this by using rhetorical questions that Martha would find difficult to answer “How do you know, then, that you are not a witch?” This sort of question couldn’t be proved in anyway those days so Martha knew trouble was coming her way. Her husband Giles then comes to submit evidence to the court to prove his wife is innocent, but being the high court they do not allow anyone to come in and interrupt the session. This then brings sympathy on Martha and the audience realise that.

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The scene then continues with Mary Warren who is a character of weak determination who allows herself to be bullied constantly. She is not an evil person, but her weak will combined with her desire to be someone in the Salem community forces her into a situation in which she does harm to other people. She attempts to stand up to her main pressure, Abigail Williams, but her lack of resolve undermines this effort and leads to the climax.

       She arrives with john Proctor (Elizabeth’s husband) and they back up the story of the girls ...

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