Crucible Commentary - In this passage, Arthur Miller uses punctuation, diction and stage direction to show how Abigail is a selfish and greedy little girl seeking only her benefits

Authors Avatar by dhy01265 (student)

Crucible Commentary Essay

English

Abigail is a desperate woman seeking her own benefits. She says everything that is necessary to others along with mockery even though it may hurt them. But the irony is, she does not like being hurt either. She is selfish and greedy. Although some people may argue that humans are greedy animals that do anything to gain their profits, there is always a limit to how far a person can go. For example, a person may love a person for their own benefit as long as they don’t intrude the other person’s rights. But in this play, Abigail has gone over the limit. The play is based on a place called Salem where a lot of people were being accused of witchery at 1692. This particular passage is a scene where a young girl called Abigail is arguing with a farmer John Proctor over the fact if she had an affair with him or not. In this passage, Arthur Miller uses punctuation, diction and stage direction to show how Abigail is a selfish and greedy little girl seeking only her benefits.

Arthur Miller used punctuation to show how Abigail selfishly says anything she must although the listener does not like hearing her talk. Abigail was talking to Proctor how she had an affair with Proctor when he was already a married man. But Proctor did not want to talk about it and tried to avoid admitting the act he committed before. Abigail kept on projecting her voice and described how Proctor had passion during the act and enjoyed having an affair with Abigail. However, Proctor did not like Abigail saying such things about him and replied “Abby, that’s a wild thing to say—”. The dash at the end signifies the sudden interruption as Abigail cut into the conversation, again, an act that shows how Abigail selfishly speaks only by herself and does not give a chance for the other to defend himself. Abigail talks to Proctor in an unarguable manner, assuming that the other person would not refute. This can be seen during the line “I have a sense ~ looked up my window?”. Using a question mark at the end of the sentence, Abigail almost forces the fact onto Proctor so that he cannot deny whatever mistake he could have made. This shows Abigail’s selfishness and her wanting to be the correct one. Abigail’s selfishness can also be seen in the use of diction.

Join now!

Arthur Miller used diction to show her selfishness and have no respect to others. As Proctor was denying the fact that he loved Abigail, Abigail accused Elizabeth as the one that took Proctor’s heart away from her. She said that Elizabeth was a “cold, sniveling women” implying that Elizabeth took away Proctor in an unfavorable way for Abigail. She also stated that Elizabeth was a “sickly” wife, almost insulting Proctor himself for marrying her. It can be seen from this statement that although Abigail did not liked getting insulted, she insulted other people herself using strong words such as ...

This is a preview of the whole essay