Most of the main characters are introduced in Act One. Showing that right from the start they are important to the story and that the audience should not forget about them.
By using large amounts of narration in the play, Miller can control the appearances of the character's in the reader's mind. Because the characters are introduced properly, before they feature heavily in the plot, Miller's idea of how they look and behave is fixed in the audience's mind. If narration was done later, it would be harder to change the mental images that have already been formed. For example; 'Proctor was a farmer in his middle thirties...with a quiet confidence and an unexpressed, hidden force.'
As well as narration, Miller also uses very detailed stage directions. This means that he can control the play completely. From how the characters look, to the way that they behave on stage.
For example, at the point when it is just Abigail, Betty, Mercy and Mary in the room, Miller uses a very precise stage direction for Abigail, 'Smashes her across the face'. Miller uses the word 'Smashes' to show Abigail's complete fury at what Betty is saying. He wants to show that Abigail is wild and irrepressible in her anger. Miller wants to show early on that Abigail is a very powerful and influential character and he does this, partly, through stage directions.
Because the stage directions control the characters' body language, Miller can make them come across as confident and self-assured or tentative and hesitant. For example, Mary Warren is a very shy and intrusive character, but Abigail is a very commanding character. When she enters the stage she looks like she owns it; 'Abigail Williams, seventeen, enters- a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling.' By saying she is 'strikingly beautiful', Miller has immediately brought the audience's attention to Abigail. Abigail tends to speak on behalf of all the girls when they are there. She is like their spokesperson. This makes her seem more important and more in control of what is happening. She is a kind of leader to the girls because she is oldest of their group. The younger girls look up to her as a role model. This gives her more dramatic influence over the plot.
Questions are raised immediately from the very start. Why is Betty unconscious? Why do these characters bear grudges against each other? What is really going on? As the Act progresses the audience becomes more informed and begins to fit the pieces of the story together.
As well as having roots in the real witchcraft trials in 17th century Salem, Miller has also been influenced by McCarthyism form the late 1940s and early 1950s which he felt was similar to the witch-hunting of past centuries. Miller uses the play as a kind of satire on McCarthyism. He was able to show his views through literature. He is able to show that he didn't think that the people deserved to die. When Miller himself was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he felt himself being placed in the same situation as his character, John Proctor, when he was asked to name others who may be going against the law-as himself. He refused, just as John Proctor does, although he has later played down this similarity saying, "I was just trying to stay out of jail". So, on this count, there are links between the fictional world, the old theocratic world and the modern democratic one. The book was also seen as a political parable. Had Miller expressed his political views in a more direct fashion then the outcome of his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee might have been very different.
Miller seems to structure the play into waves of hysteria and chaos, and calm and placid. Take, for instance, scene one. The action starts immediately. Betty is lying unconscious on the bed and within a few pages, the room is full of people and very soon, they are all arguing and shouting. Because there are so many people coming and going this creates a sense of confusion. Miller does this because he wants the audience to feel a little of the same confusion as the characters in the play. This makes the audience feel like they're well into the play and part of the action. The instant plunge into the action makes the audience think about the storyline and what is going on. Even though we are in the same bewildered state as the characters, there is an element of dramatic irony involved. As the audience, we are allowed to see conversations and meetings between characters that many characters would not actually get to see. We have more knowledge of what is going on than the characters. Miller does this to give the audience a slight upper hand over the understanding of the storyline.
The tension is created in these waves. Each time the atmosphere is calm it makes the audience anticipate a climax, but each time there is hysteria there are no real break-throughs in the story. This is how the tension is sustained.
Because people come and go, it seems like the act is organised into mini scenes, each of which ends in big arguments and show grudges towards other characters. It is important to know about these grudges because they factor heavily in the miscarriage of justice in later Acts. The mini-scenes are used as a way of informing the audience. They give you the very intricate details of each family or group of friends which are woven together later on to create a high octane ending to the play. It is also worth noting that Act One takes place in one room. This is helpful because it limits the confusion and the audience doesn't have to think about where all the action is taking place. We don't have to worry about where the characters are when they leave the room - all that matters is that they're not in that room and what is important to the plot line is being said in that room.
The act ends in a big crescendo where the girls are shouting out random names of who they 'saw' with the devil. It is on this hysterical note that the Act is at its highest tension. Most of the names shouted out may be random, but Abigail has a vengeance to settle. This is why Elizabeth Proctor is later called to trial. Act One doesn't show Abigail shouting out Elizabeth Proctor's name because it would ruin the climax when Elizabeth must go. It would make it far too obvious and the audience would be expecting it.
Even though confusion runs high in this act, Miller manages to slip in a few important and easily understood facts, such as who has a grudge against who and why they bear that grudge.
Some of the grudges are quite complex and are over complicated matters such as Abigail disliking Elizabeth Proctor. This grudge is quite complex because it is mixed up in the fact that Abigail is jealous of Elizabeth for being John Proctor's wife. Others, such as Thomas Putnam's grudge against Rebecca Nurse are quite simple. These grudges manage to affect justice later on in the play, because everybody is just out to settle a personal score. Act one is a good introduction to this.
Each character adds the influence of their personality. They also bring forth their own piece of information to the story. Each character has a small, domestic story line which is eventually shown to give an extra insight into the story. Each character adds tension to the story line in the shape of what information and dramatical influence they have to give to the play.
One other question is that of witchcraft. Did the girls actually do anything magic in the forest or were they just mucking around and pretending that what happened was worse than it actually was, just to get a bit of attention?
There are conflicting statements about what they were doing. At the beginning Abigail is saying that all they did was dance. Then, slightly later, Mrs Putnam says that her daughter, Ruth, was trying to conjure up the spirits of her seven dead babies. Also, when Betty wakes, she talks about Abigail drinking blood and making a charm to kill Elizabeth Proctor. It is also mentioned that Tituba did some of her 'Barbados magic'. With these different explanations, the reader and audience must rely on attitudes and behaviour to give them the answer. Mary Warren, for instance, is very nervous and this must be for a reason. Also, Abigail gets very tetchy and defensive to start with whenever witchcraft is mentioned. It is here that the phrase 'there's no smoke without fire' comes into play. The girls were obviously doing something which wasn't allowed otherwise they wouldn't act so anxiously around the subject.
The film had an interesting take on the opening sequence. Whereas in the book, the girls were supposed to have been dancing in the forest to Tituba's songs, the film shows them performing proper black magic. They have a cauldron and are standing in a circle around it. One by one they drop a herb or some flowers into the mixture before, finally, Tituba kills a bird and puts that in as well. This was an interesting way to start the film as it makes it look as if the girls were actually dabbling in the occult. This is another example of how Miller uses confusion constructively as it makes you think about what's really happening.
This play has roots on many different levels, not least in the domestic family life - Most referred to in Act One and Act Two. It is a kind of commentary on family life, neighbourly feuds and shrouded affairs gone public. Miller's play tells a story of guilt, regret, darkness, anger, vengeance, mass hysteria, hope, benevolence among the unscrupulous and heroism. In his lavish text Miller makes sure that there is always at least one emotion which you can relate to and that there is always a saving-grace for each character, something to make you sympathise with them-if only a little.
