how doe arthur miller create tension in the crucible

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How Is Tension Created And Maintained Between John And Elizabeth, And How Does Their Relationship Change?

Arthur Miller was born in the year 1915 and grew up during the great depression. His fathers business crashed during the great depression, this meant there was no money for Arthur miller to exploit his great talent that was play writing. Fortunately through earning small amounts from odd jobs he was able to save up enough to go to university where he received several awards for his early plays. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in the year 1952. He used the play as a way of criticizing the government for what is know as McCarthyism. McCarthyism is a communist witch hunt where anybody could be accused of being communist. One of the many people to be accused was Arthur Miller; this is why the main themes of the play are justice and truth. Arthur Miller normally uses society and individuals as main themes for his plays this can also be seen in the crucible. A good example of this is how all the other members of the puritan community look down on John Proctor for not being a regular church-goer. This is relevant today because it could be translated into a suppression of individuality and a pressure for people to fit into society. Another area it explores is the increase of tension and panic in a society.

The Crucible is set in a small puritan town where everybody knew each other and it was a very tight community. The despised local preacher called Parris stumbles across several of the village's girls performing a sinful dance including his own daughter Betty. While the girls are performing the dance with his slave Tituba , Betty falls into an unconscious state causing panic. The girls are accused of witch craft. The girls admit to this but one of the girls called Abigail who had an affair with one of the central characters called John Procter sees a chance to exploit the situation and claims there are more witches in the village. Abigail still has feelings for John claims that his wife Elizabeth is a witch. John goes to court to appeal against this, he also tells the court about the affair he had with Abigail to ruin her credibility. The court gets Elizabeth to come in and confirm John's confessions but unfortunately she denies it to save his reputation. John is sentenced to be hung; Elizabeth who has survived so far due to her pregnancy tries to convince John to confess to witchcraft; however he chooses to die with his dignity rather then live without it.
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The Salem witch trails was a real event and John , Abigail , Elizabeth and some other characters were real people however a lot of the story was written by Arthur Miller. The language of the play is accurate because it uses the correct accents and the characters would have been played by English actors because the modern American accent would not have developed yet. To show the fact that the characters live in a very religious community the characters often make references to the Bible this can be seen were Elizabeth describes Abigail's affect on the court ...

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