This Act establishes the characters and their objectives well. It shows that Reverend Hale’s objective is to find out the truth about what happened, Abigail’s objective was to save herself no matter what the outcome was on others, Reverend Parris’s objective was to save his own name as the Reverend of Salem by sticking up for Abigail so that he would not look bad if she were convicted as Abigail is his niece and Proctor’s objective is also to find out the truth, without uncovering his hidden sin, his affair with Abigail Williams.
In Act two we now move on to the rising action. The “basic conflict of the false accusations” in Proctors eyes, between him and Abigail becomes complicated as more conflicts interfere, including obstacles, “which frustrate Proctor’s attempt to reach his goal” of proving Abigail wrong about the witch-hunt. One of these secondary conflicts are, Proctor’s troubles with Elizabeth, when she is taken away as Abigail has accused her of witchcraft. There is lots of suspicion at the beginning of the act as there is a sense tat Abigail is in the room. Elizabeth begins to get suspicious; she cannot take her eyes off of John. “She sits and watches him taste it” this shows Elizabeth is questioning her trust for Proctor as once again we are told “He eats. She watches him.” This is immediately after the first time, and then finally once again we are told “She is watching him from the table” all this watching is within the first section of the first scene in Act two, the beginning is extremely calm, but all of Elizabeth’s suspicion through watching him erupts soon after. This sense of suspicion suggests that their relationship is not as strong as it is made out to be.
Miller juxtaposes the calm beginning of the act, when Proctor arrives home and has dinner, with the hysterical ending, when Elizabeth is taken away after being convicted by Abigail Williams as a witch. The setting, lighting and sound effects all create dramatic tension, as the lighting, a fireplace suggests peaceful surroundings towards the beginning of the act but towards the end the fire signifies hatred and anger. The setting of the dinner table and the kitchen shows that it is a normal home at the beginning of the Act but towards the end this is not the case as it is not normal that Elizabeth is convicted of being a witch. And finally the sound effects, like the door being knocked on when Herrick arrives with the warrant for Elizabeth’s arrest, it suspends the audience leaving them wandering, what will happen next? Who is at the door? How will it link in with what is happening at the moment?
This all leads up to the third Act of ‘The Crucible’, which is known as the climax (turning point). This is where here is a sudden change of events due to a bad decision by the protagonist. Miller manipulates the audiences response in this act by not showing them what is happening in the courtroom in the first scene. He does this because this is the only act which starts off hysterically, as all of the other acts start of calm and end hysterically, but this act starts off hysterically and ends also hysterically.
There are many parts of the Act that could be considered as the dramatic climax but these are all just scenes that create tension building up to the dramatic climax. Some of these are, when at the beginning Giles Corey bursts into the courtroom claiming that he has evidence that would make his wife, Martha Corey is innocent, and when Mary Warren admits that her and all the other girls were “pretending to be afflicted by witchcraft”, and when Mary warren cannot faint when she was told to, also when Abigail and the other girls accuse Mary of setting a spirit upon them and finally towards the end of the act when Mary confesses that Proctor was the devils man. These all create tension but none of these are in fact the real dramatic climax of ‘The Crucible’.
The real dramatic climax of ‘The Crucible’ is when Elizabeth says that Proctor did not commit lechery, which Proctor had already confessed but Elizabeth was un-aware of this. But the build up to this was what really made this scene such a strong climax. After Proctor had confessed, Abigail denied it so Danforth tested Proctor’s judgement when he said, “In her life, sir, she have never lied. There are them that cannot sing, and them that cannot weep- my wife cannot lie. I have paid so much to learn it, sir.” Tension is built up as proctor convinces Danforth that his wife cannot lie, what also creates tension was when Danforth ordered Proctor and Abigail to turn their backs so that when Elizabeth came in she could not look at her husband or Abigail’s face to get a clue of what she must say. When she does come into the room she is asked, “has John Proctor ever committed the crime of lechery!” and she replied “No, sir.” To save her husbands god name. She had lied to Danforth, which made Proctor seem as though he were lying, not only to the high court, but also to god. This was not acceptable in Puritan Salem.
The final act of ‘The Crucible’, it is known as the falling point. This means that it is usually where the problems in the play are resolved. This act could be considered more dramatic than Act three, but this is not true. As Act three contains he dramatic climax that made John Proctor worse off than he was at the beginning. It could be argued that this act also has a dramatic climax, when John Proctor confessed to witchcraft. But this was not as dramatic as the climax in Act three because the protagonist was still convicted of witchcraft due to his actions, so this made little or no impact on the final outcome.
It soon becomes quite clear that Act four is not about John Proctor being persuaded to confess, but about his close relationship with his dear wife, Elizabeth. With comparison to Act two when John Proctor and Elizabeth had the argument. This Act is much calmer and shows that the Proctor’s can talk in a civil way and are emotionally attracted to each other. In this act Proctor puts his children first when he confesses as he does not want them to have to grow up without a father figure in their life. But soon during the confession Danforth asks for too much when he asks John Proctor to sign the confession. Proctor soon gains his own opinion and realises that once he signs this confession he and his family will not be able to live properly; they will always be under suspicion.
John Proctor wishes to die as a martyr and not live the rest of his life in shame so he tries to have his confession removed by testing the nerve of Danforth by taking away the confession and ripping it up. Danforth then tells the marshal to take Proctor away. Elizabeth comes running up to him and cries on his hand, but he says “Give them no tears! Tears pleasure them! Show honour, show a stony heart and sink them with it!” He then kisses her “passionately” and goes. Then Danforth says angrily “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption!” Therefore, John Proctor dies as a hero, which ends the play very well, as it ends on a proud note. Because John Proctor dies with pride knowing that “Another judgement awaits us all!”
In conclusion, Act three is the dramatic climax of the crucible, as all the tension built up in previous act is all released in this act, which creates a greater climax. Act four is not the dramatic climax because the peak at Act three which was the dramatic climax made sure that it was more dramatic than any other Act. In Act four it was just calming everything down after the climax, but Act four’s climax was minute compared to Act three. Act four ended the play superbly, as Proctor the protagonist did not finish as the enemy but the martyr, and Danforth ended as the enemy.
