‘Recognition’ is presented in the play through the declaration of Mary Warren. In Act 3, Proctor persuades Mary Warren to confess that Abigail and the other girls, including her, had been faking the possessions. The aim of this was to aid Elizabeth Proctor’s case and the wives of other townspeople. However, due to Elizabeth’s wanting to protect John’s name, the declaration had the opposite intended effect as it was the reason that John was prosecuted.
This declaration is also examplatory of ‘Catharsis’ where we see the ‘tragic hero travel from happiness towards undeserved misfortune and fear.’ We see in this case, John travel from the hope of his wife’s release to the misfortune and fear of his own death.
‘Unity of Action’ is a single action shown through a series of related events. In ‘The Crucible’ this is the progression from the dancing in the woods, to the trials, to the hangings. This demonstrates the solidarity of the play as it does not focus on one character but rather a community, making it more impactuous because of the scale of the tragedy.
‘Universality’ is shown because the play is based in actual events, Miller used court records of the Salem witch trials in 1692, which are fairly well known, making the play seem even more tragic because you are watching a recount of similar events to that which happened to actual people at the time.
The only element of plot in tragedy, according to Aristotle, that the play doesn’t follow is a ‘defective plot’, because Miller does not include and create themes and ideas merely to make the play longer and only includes elements which are essential to the story or effectiveness of the reality of the piece.
The second of Aristotle’s rules to tragedy is ‘Character.’ The first part of this is ‘Goodness’ clearly demonstrated within the character of Elizabeth Proctor. As the wife of a man who has committed adultery, her continual support of him, despite being a non-guilty party, herself, shows goodness. This character also contains the ‘Appropriateness’ within her because she is courageous in a circumstance where is would be unusual for a woman, seen as inferior in this time period, to be so. While facing probable death herself, soon after she bears a child, she supports her husband through his ordeal and shows strength when he is taken to be hung.
John Proctor contains the ‘Consistency’ throughout the play as his character is believable, being consistently inconsistent. We see his faults and his virtues throughout the play and because they are small, everyday virtues, this keeps his character in a light of believability to the audience as they could occur in everyday life.
John also portrays the ‘tragic hero’ in ‘The Crucible.’ His hanging shows the audience incredible strength and is incredibly admirable. The role of a tragic hero is filled by this character because John has not upheld morals as well previously in his life, shown by his affair with Abigail, but makes the right decision at the end of the play, and acts as a martyr to his cause, and dies merely due to an error of judgement, such as Mary Warren’s confession and his believing in Elizabeth’s truthfulness.
The play is written to be viewed as a ‘slice of life’ or using the audience as ‘the fourth wall’ where the action taking place does not involve the audience at all, with no asides directed towards them and as if the audience was not involved and was ‘looking through a window’ at the lives of the characters.
The appearance of reality draws on several different ideas to make it effective and believable. ‘Unity of Time and Place’ is not one that ‘The Crucible’ uses well. However, it is said that to effectively use this technique, the action should take place in real time. A play that takes place over three hours should take three hours to view. Miller’s piece does not do this as it takes place over three and a half months. Despite this; in relation to tragedy, the piece works well with the unity of time, action and place. The play uses place well as it does not take the action outside of an ‘internal space’ another rule of ‘The Appearance Of Reality’; using only Paris’ house, Proctor’s house, the side room to the court and the prison cell as sets. Each of these are separated by acts, with each act taking place in a different set, minimising the amount of scene changes; this allows the audience to still feel involved with the play as a piece of realism because they are areas which almost belong to one or more of the characters. An example of this is Act 2 in Proctor’s house belonging to Proctor, so this does not break the spell of reality for the audience.
Also, ‘Reality beyond the stage space’ is used to create an air of realism, but again ‘ The Crucible’ does not completely apply to this rule as it not only makes mention of what has just happened, such as John planting the fields, but also of the past, such as Proctor’s and Abigail’s affair. Although, despite the reference to previous events, the only mentions of them are incredibly beneficial to the plot, therefore, working in conjunction with the tragic plot line. For example, the first communication between Abigail and Paris, discuss the happenings the night before in the woods, a particularly important part to the play as it outlines the entire reasoning for the witch trials initiating.
‘Realistic Dialogue’ is greatly used in order to create a sense of a different time period. Miller uses dialogue from court records of the time, taking phrases and terms to make the time period come to life. This means that the characters use 17th century terms and dialogue, making the audience quickly adapt to, and accept the time in which the play is set. Examples of terms include ‘Goody Proctor’ instead of ‘Mrs Proctor’ or ‘Miss Proctor’ and ‘Aye’ rather than ‘Yes.’ This also incorporates the idea of ‘Realistic Characters,’ because the characters on the stage behave and, in a sense, show that they think the same way as real people in the 1600’s would. For example, it was still the ‘natural way of life’ for men to go out and work the fields while the women stayed at home and bore and raised the children. The play was also set within the time period when the slave trade was still around; allowing Tituba’s character to be looked down upon and spoken to in the way we see Paris doing in the scene with Hale where they are accusing Tituba of witchcraft. ‘You will confess yourself, or I will take you outside and whip you outside and whip you to your death, Tituba.’ This shows the extent of the slavery at the time because this phrase is not reprimanded by any of the other characters present at the time. The use of accurate language and the building of these ideas, which an audience in modern day would know are historically accurate, allows the sense of the era to come alive, challenging the audience’s morals because we know that this sort of treatment is wrong, but as you become more submerged in the play, you feel as if you are there and can understand the priest’s actions and feelings.
The sub-text of the piece is what really involves the audience and makes them feel as if they are there. For example, although it is not outline clearly in the text, we can see Elizabeth’s struggle with her emotions for John. Her closed presentation of her character would allow us to see that she is almost a woman scorned, angry at his betrayal, but her willingness to try and help him do the right thing shows us that she is truly hurt by his actions and truly does love him as she has stayed with him and supported him. The aspect of Elizabeth and John’s conversation that deals with John’s affair with Abigail never directly mentions the affair, it is a sub-text, left to the audiences imagination to picture what happened, as they merely talk about the way Elizabeth has acted since and how John has earned the treatment. This also builds tension between the characters in a greater sense than it would had they been open and stated the facts about the affair. This sub-text is also explored at the beginning of Act 1 when Paris asks Abigail if her ‘name is good in the village.’
The whole aspect of realism is deeply written in with the involvement of tragedy, allowing some aspects of a ‘typical’ realistic piece to be diminished to allow for the tragedy to be involved.
