Throughout the play the contrast between light and dark is a prominent feature. In the footnote at the begging of act one Miller has used the image of light "There is a narrow window at the left. Through it's leaded pains the morning sunlight streams. This symbolizes that everything is good and well nothing bad is happening. Light in the play shows goodness and hope. As the story unfolds the atmosphere and feeling of the play become darker, like there is something bad coming even the scenery becomes dark. Dark symbolizes that there is bad things happening.
I also think Arthur Miller makes it very easy for us to tell the difference between the good and the bad characters in the play even at the start of the play you can tell who is going to be good and who is bad, but some do turn from good to bad and from bad to good. At the beginning of the play I found Reverent Hale to be very single minded about the whole crisis and to be pretty annoying. However as the play developed he was one of the two people who could see sense in the whole situation. Towards the end of the play many characters became undistinguished as good or bad.
Arthur Miller also makes the play very frustrating and annoying at some points. The fact that know one in the play could come to the conclusion that this was all a hoax concocted by some teenage girls trying to save themselves from being hung, and also the fact that only John Proctor and Reverent Hale could see through the girls and actually truly know what was going on, even though it took them a while to figure this out. An example of this would be John Proctor's reaction to Abigail stumbling in with a needle in her stomach, claiming that John Proctor's wife is a voodoo witch. "Why she done it herself I hope you aren't taking it for proof, Mister". Abigail did this to get back at John Proctor, but the audiences are led to believe that she did this to herself.
All of this would make the audience very frustrated and angry, and would make us start to blame and damn other characters that completely ignore the most obvious things. It makes me slapping those kinds of characters round the head, its like one day you find that your chocolate cake has been eaten and there are two suspects, one of is wearing clean clothes and has clean hands, but the other is filthy and has chocolate all over his clothes and hands and some how you cant draw a conclusion to who is guilty of the crime. I'm going to point out Judge Danforth because he is so wrapped up in his own little world and doing what he thinks is "right". He is blinded by his own ignorance and can’t see what is really going on.
At the end of each act Miller leaves the play in a state of climax. At the end of act one Miller draws the curtain on the girl's firing frenzied and false accusations of witchcraft against many women in Salem, act three ends with the dramatic exit of Mr Hale "I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court!. Through this kind of approach he keeps the audience guessing. Leaving the audience with the climax at the end of each act allows the audience to think about what has happened and what may happen next, and also to pass judgment of characters of the play.
The violence in the play is shocking, mentally and physically; it even makes us reflect after the play has finished. I think Arthur Miller is trying to make us think about morality, group mentality, Puritanism, good/bad and self-interest. The play includes interesting messages about how reasonable individuals can become completely irrational and get carried away when they become part of a mob.
The whole story starts of with the girls rebelling against being repressed by Puritan beliefs, this ties in with the religion side and group mentality portrayed in the play. As in the case of people being so shocked and furious about the children dancing in the woods, "Now the, ir, the midst of such disruption, my own household is the centre of some obscene practice. Abominations are done in the forest", to us, the audience dancing in the woods would not mean anything good or bad, maybe for a laugh but back then in the Puritan religion dancing in the woods would be a terrible sin and forbids any contact with the woods as it was known as the Devils wood back then.
Miller is deliberately making the story line complex by introducing many different emotional and moral layers to each of the characters, for example, Mary Warren. Towards the beginning Mary and Abigail have an argument about what they should do about the accusations of witchcraft. "What'll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country's talkin' witchcraft! They'll be callin' us witches, Abby!" From the text it is clearly obvious that Abby is not going to give up or turn herself in.
It's also interesting to see how different relationships develop as the plot unfolds. For example, the relationship between John and Elizabeth Proctor goes through almost unrecognizable changes. At the beginning of the play we see there relationship very bitter and cold, almost love-less. On the first introduction of the two characters together this coldness is portrayed to us with Proctor's declaration of his only intent to please Elizabeth and Elizabeth's cold acceptance. However at the end of act four Elizabeth opens her heart to John and wishing for him to confess and live so they could raise there unborn child together.
In the end I think there is not one person we can point the finger at it was many. People like Abbey, trying to save herself and taking many innocent lives just to get be with John Proctor. Judge Danforth for being blinded by his own ignorance and not seeing that Abigail was not a sweet little innocent Puritan girl but instead was the devil that walked among the twisted people in an eerie town in Salem Massachusetts.
