Act three involves a lot of emotion; people would be scared and hateful, angry and fearful. Miller uses punctuation well in act three to get the characters feelings across. Miller uses a lot of exclamation marks to display raised voices or shouting. Shouting and raised voices is a key factor in building tension, it shows people are becoming angry and aggressive.
Miller uses quick sentences in act three to hasten up the speed of the conversations. Quick, sharp and snappy answers are fantastic for building tension as they are used well for catching people out and building excitement. Another device Miller uses to speed up the conversations is interruption; he gets people talking and has others interrupting them often with raised voices. Interruption causes tension as people begin to communicate louder and louder in order to be heard above the other, this would lead to excitement and aggressiveness.
Miller uses aggressive language a lot in act three as people become infuriated and lash out at one another; for example on page 68 line 20 Giles snaps back at Hathorne for calling him daft by shouting “you’ll not call me daft!”. Notice the exclamation mark which indicates aggressive language.
A huge twist in the story is unveiled on page 70 as Francis enters the court with alleged evidence that the girls, who began the whole hysteria with the accusations or Tituba, are frauds. After this evidence is introduced Hathorne becomes enraged and shouts “This is contempt, sir, contempt!” This is an indication that tension is building as even Judge Hathorne is becoming aggressive and angry. Later on page 70 John Proctor enters holding Mary Warren claiming that she wishes to tell the truth of the girls deceit. This adds great amounts of tension as the reader knows that the girls are deceiving everyone and we are under suspense wondering whether or not the truth will at last be known. This may add to hysteria as some of the townspeople could be lead to believe that Mary Warren is on the side of the Devil and is defending the ‘Witches’. On page 71 line 16 Danforth says “Do you know, Mr Proctor, that the entire contention of the state in these trials is that the voice of Heaven is speaking through these children?” This could be seen to build tension as it shows how deep in John Proctor has just dug himself. A slip up at this point could see him hung.
Danforth begins to interrogate Mary Warren upon her claims she says “It were pretence, sir.” Later in the act the interrogation of Mary Warren begins. Danforth questions Mary Warren in open court and tries to break her down to see if she is telling the truth or telling lies.
Danforth has some of the girls brought into the court and begins to question them on Mary Warren’s accusations. He tells them that Mary Warren will hang if she is deceiving him and by the honour of the Bible and God he asks that they tell him the truth. Abigail slowly rises and for one extremely tense moment you hope she is going to break down and bare all, however your hopes are soon shattered when she says “No, sir.” Abigail continues to deny every claim that Mary Warren made, she is backed up by the other girls. Things are very tense as you are certain that for this John Proctor and Mary Warren will not get off lightly.
John Proctor is later accused of not being Christian, one piece of evidence used against him is his adultery, which could carry a hefty penalty back then. He asks his wife Elizabeth, who he has said has in her entire life never lied, to come and confirm this. She enters the court and for the protection of her husband denies this and deems herself a liar. This is all a very tense moment as you once again are under the hope that the girls will be found to be frauds, however once again your hope is in vein.
Lastly and quite possibly the most hysterical moment in the entire act is when the girls pretend that Mary Warren uses her spirit to attack them. Abigail leads the group into pretending Mary Warren’s spirit has taken the shape of a bird and is intent on tearing away Abigail’s face because of envy. Abigail builds the entire group into a hysterical chant. During this hysterical chant Mr. Danforth continues to interrogate them asking if they have ever compacted with the devil, they deny it. The suspense is at boiling point and Mary Warren is almost certain to hang. This part of the Act is the utmost high point of the hysteria and Arthur Miller has cleverly used the short bursts of speech in order to build up the franticness. The Act ends this way with many people shouting and screaming at one another. Miller has cleverly left it at this high point and let the tension dip at the beginning of the next act.
