Dramatic Impact in Act 3 of The Crucible

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Explore how Miller creates dramatic impact in Act III of the Crucible.

        There are many different ways/techniques in which miller creates dramatic impact in act 3.

        It all starts in the beginning when the play is set off-stage, ‘The room is empty’, which creates an air of mystery and make people hear and listen hard to what is going on. It also makes the audience/reader wonder who the new voices are (Hathorne and Danforth). Then when Giles roars into the court, ‘I have evidence for the court’, the audience who are so concentrated on hearing will immediately jolt and get a fright from the noise and there starts the drama.

        The dramatic structure of this act plays a key role in the dramatic impact/tension of the act. It starts off with a bang, then goes down in tension, then rises to another climax, continuously. An example of this is: in the beginning Giles roars into court, then this is questioning and explaining, ‘Your Excellency, I only said she were readin’ books…’ which lowers the tension then Fransis shws his deposition and the tension and expectation rises again. Most of the act rises and falls in this manner. This technique emphasizes the dramatic points in the play because it sort of isolates them between parts that aren’t so dramatic. All the little high drama points in the act are leading to the main one in the end.

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        The 3 depositions, Nurse’s, Giles’s and Mary’s, create huge drama in the way that they are presented and out hopes are raises that the court will see justice and then turned down by the court for a small reason. For example: Giles deposition, which stated that Putnam was out for land, was turned down because he wouldn’t give the name of the witness, ‘Why, I-I can not give you his name’. This raising of our hopes then destroying them, continuously, mirrors the impact of the structure of the act. The mention and showing of each deposition creates high drama/tension and ...

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There are considerable strengths to this essay. The student clearly is very knowledgeable about the play and the events and the characters. The quotes have been selected carefully and appropriately. The weakness really comes from the lack of clarity of expression, with points not clearly framed to signal to the examiner that the student is commenting on a dramatic technique.