Act 2 begins with Elizabeth upstairs in the household, being heard, softly singing to her children. The door opens and John enters the house carrying his gun. He looks around the room and walks towards the fireplace. He hears her singing and then halts for a second. He then carries on towards the fireplace, puts his gun down against the wall and lifts a pot out of the fire and smells it. He takes the ladle and tastes what is being cooked. He isn’t quite pleased so he reaches for the cupboard and takes a pinch of salt and drops it into the pot. He tastes it again and he hears Elizabeth’s footsteps. He quickly puts the pot back into the fire and goes to the basin to wash his hands and face. As Elizabeth approaches John, she asks him a question: ‘What keeps you so late? It’s almost dark’ From this quotation you can feel a sense of suspicion creeping on Elizabeth as she still feels the affair between John and Abigail is still occurring, even though it had ended a long time before. Once John tastes the cooking in the pot, he says ‘It’s well seasoned’ After saying this he doesn’t tell Elizabeth that he added an extra pinch of salt to improve the taste. This may be because John didn’t want Elizabeth to feel bad and didn’t want Elizabeth to see John disliking the cooking. Also he didn’t want Elizabeth to seem as if she isn’t a good enough wife.
Later on in the conversation John says ‘I think you’re sad again. Are you?’
Elizabeth: (She doesn’t want friction, and yet she must)…. She doesn’t to show that she is feeling sad, but she lets it out and asks John questions. As the conversation goes on they talk about Mary Warren going to court, suddenly John raises his voice at Elizabeth asking her why she let Mary go to Salem: ‘Why’d you let her? You heard me forbid her go to Salem any more! Later on they talk about Abigail and Elizabeth asks John to go to court and say that Abigail isn’t a saint. He says he will think about it and he tells her that he was alone with her. Elizabeth then gets angry because John didn’t tell her that he was alone with Abigail, when Elizabeth told him what had happened in the forest. This then turns into a big argument between them. ‘No more!’ ……
Elizabeth and John have what seems to be an awkward conversation with no sentence lasting more than a few words. The short sentences Miller uses to create the conversation between Elizabeth and John such as “What keeps you so late? It’s almost dark.” And “Aye, the farm is seeded. The boys asleep? Use lots of questions adding suspicion mainly seen in Elizabeth’s speech. This shows the reader there is a lack of honesty in their relationship because if they had complete honesty in the relationship there would be no need for questions. The questions might be a way of them trying to smooth the bumps out in their relationship, attempting to bring honesty back in but neither of them seem to be opening fully, shown by the short sentences. Any attempt to open up to the other person is quickly stopped by some sort of interruption “Now look you” “I see what I see John.”
To conclude the relationship between John and Elizabeth is similar to the events happening in the community of Salem. An example is when the people in the village are being suspicious of others doing witchcraft which is similar to Elizabeth being suspicious of John, with his affair with Abigail.
