“Witchery’s a hangin’
error, a hangin’ like they done in
Boston two year ago! We must
tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be
whipped for dancin’ and the other
things”
This creates great interest and tension in the audience as they begin to fear what will happen to the girls. The fear of Mary Warren is very obvious from this quote in how she says “witchery’s a hangin’ error” and how she begins to beg Abigail to tell the truth. This is the first time we see Mary Warrens character properly and her first impressions are of being sensible and honest and this is basically how her character is shown throughout the play. The panic finally hits the girls hard and they turn to placing the blame on Mary Warren as she turns against them. When the girls, especially Abigail, are taken to the court and accused of witchery and lying about whom they think are witches they all begin to break down into a scene of hysteria! Abigail begins to act as if she sees a “yellow bird” on the church rafters and pretends it is Mary Warren. This shocks the audience as Abigail has now turned to blaming Mary Warren, who once was a good friend of Abigail, of witchcraft and contacting the Devil. This shows Abigail’s true character and makes the audience far more interested in Abigail and how she can be such a backstabber! The scene captivates the audience, as it is so dramatic and puzzling to how the girls could actually go along with Abigail’s accusation when they too were good friends with Mary Warren!
“Oh, Mary, this is a
black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop
my mouth; its God’s work I do”
Here Abigail try’s to make it clear that she believes that the “yellow bird” is Mary Warren and try’s to sway Danforth into believing that Mary Warren is taking part in some sort of “black art” and that she is sticking up for God. When the girls realise what Abigail is doing they all begin to join in tormenting Mary Warren.
Mary Warren: “Abby, stop it!”
Girls: “Abby, stop it!”
Mary Warren: “Stop it!”
Girls: “Stop it!”
Mary Warren: “Stop it!!”
Girls: “Stop it!!”
Here the girls reach a point of utter torment towards Mary Warren. The girls mimicking Mary Warren angers her so much that she begins to cry! The audience feel amazed at how the girls are acting and become very interested in how they are going to be able to keep up this act and be able to live with the knowledge that they accused so many innocent people of the worst crime you could commit, witchery.
The use of Tituba is to great effect throughout the play. Her character and personality all adds to the mystery and excitement of the storyline. This is because of the fact that Tituba is black and from an unknown background so she is seen as being very different from the others and makes the other characters, and the audience, very aware of how she acts. The other characters know she has a different culture that sees witchcraft as a more tolerable act and they use it against her as a reason for her being guilty of dealing with the Devil. Her first appearance is when she has been accused of witchcraft by Abby.
Abigail: “She comes to me while
I sleep; she’s always making
me dream corruptions!”
Tituba: “Why you say that Abby?”
This shows Tituba’s character as being weak and that she is obviously very confused as to why Abby has accused her of sending out her spirit to her. This is shown by the fact that Tituba asks Abby why she is accusing her of witchcraft as she cannot see why she would say that when its not true! Tituba does not seem to understand that the other characters see her as being a bit mysterious. She knows she’s different but she doesn’t understand that they see it as strange and that is why she is confused as to why they would think she’d compact with the devil. The use of a foreign and weak character such as Tituba adds a whole new side to the play. It gives the play many different storylines it could go through just from the fact that Tituba is misunderstood and has a different background. Miller mainly uses Tituba to create more interest in the audience as they try to look into how Tituba is thinking, does she realise what is happening?
From the beginning Abigail is shown as being one of the main characters as she plays a huge part in the end result of the play. The scene in the woods at the beginning of the film, “The Crucible”, gives us the first impression that Abigail is a strong character, which is then proven to be true mainly in the beginning of the play. Her scene where she threatens the girls shows how Abigail over-powers the other girls. The way they don’t speak up to her shows they are scared of what she is capable of doing and they don’t want to be on the receiving end of it.
“Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word,
about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of
some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will
shudder you”
The power of Abigail’s character is definitely shown here by how she blackmails the girls with such a nasty threat. Abigail creates such a high amount of tension in the audience, as she is such a hard character to work out and leaves you questioning what she will do next. She seems very cunning by how she plots revenge on Elizabeth and Proctor and shows no shame of what she is doing. Her strength is not shown just by her threats and how she betrays people but by how strong she is mentally. To be able to threaten friends and ex-lovers etc and still be able to put on an act of such a pleasant, God loving, angel like young girl to others must take an extremely strong, and evil, minded person. The other side we see of Abigail is that of a “whore”, in John Proctors words. We are informed of Abigail and John Proctors affair towards the beginning of the play when Abigail tries to seduce Proctor but he turns her down.
“I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again”
This shows how Proctor is not scared of Abigail, he seems to think of her as just a little “child” but he underestimates how clever and bitter she really is. He is quite strong character himself and this is perhaps what Abigail became so bitter about as she is used to getting her own way but when Proctor turned her down it brought out more of her revengeful side. Our first thoughts of Abigail are backed up throughout the play especially when she begins to turn against Elizabeth and Mary Warren. Her more crafty side is shown by how she sets up Elizabeth for having a voodoo doll in her house with a pin placed in the stomach. Abigail then makes this doll seem like a voodoo doll by placing a needle in her side to give the impression that Elizabeth had used voodoo to make it happen. Abigail plainly shocks the audience with her cunning side here and leaves the audience with a feeling of sickness as they try to work out how someone can be so plotting and carrying on with such a vile plan when she knows the result will be of death.
We only really become informed of Elizabeth and Proctors relationship in act two. In this act we see Proctor and Elizabeth in their own home with nobody around but yet they seem to have an uncomfortable feel around them. Usually when a couple are in their own home on their own they are relaxed and have a long, interesting conversation which runs smoothly without having to make it work but as we see in this act Elizabeth and Proctor seem to just make small talk, like a new couple would who are just getting to know each other. This seems extremely weird but as we know already they are just starting their marriage over again since Proctors affair. The tension is high in their conversation and they both seem to be checking their words in their head before speaking aloud to make sure they don’t say anything that could bring up their painful past.
Proctor: “If the crop is good I’ll buy George Jacob’s heifer.
How would that please you?”
Elizabeth: “Aye, it would.”
Proctor: “I mean to please you, Elizabeth”
Elizabeth: “I know it, John”
From this part of their conversation we can see that Proctor seems uneasy as he knows he upset Elizabeth very badly with his affair and now all he wants is to please her. We can also tell that Elizabeth is still very upset about it and feels that Proctor needs to do more than just buy a heifer to please her. She seems very unhappy from the way she just gives Proctor short answers such as “Aye, it would” and doesn’t tend to make any attempt to make conversation. Although the relationship seems rough from this act we know that their love is still strong from further on in the play when Proctor admits to adultery in order to get the court aware of how Abigail is out for revenge but when Elizabeth is asked if this is true she answers
“My husband-is a goodly man, sir”
Here we can see that Elizabeth cares for Proctor very much so and she even lies in court in the hope of keeping him from trouble.
At the end of the play Elizabeth and John Proctor have both been accused of witchcraft and placed in jail. We then find out that Elizabeth is pregnant and this is where the main tragedy begins. The amount of upset and tragedy has already been of a great amount as innocent people have had their lives taken away from them, but towards the end we see the main character, John Proctor, be accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death for this crime that he did not commit. The main reason that this is such a huge tragedy is that Proctor was only accused due to Abigail’s want for revenge. When his wife, Elizabeth, is freed from her death sentence due to her pregnancy, Proctor finally hits rock bottom. He knew that his child was on the way but his only way of surviving to see his child born was to lie to the village, himself and God. He knew that just a confession to witchcraft would give him the freedom he wanted so badly but the costs of that confession could change his life for the worse too. He knew that once the church had his signature on that confession, his name, and his families, would be forever blackened in the village.
“I blacken all of them when this is
nailed to the church the very day they hang for silence”
From this speech Proctor made against confessing on paper we can see that Proctor is not so much bothered about the fact that his name will be blackened but by the fact that it will blacken his families too. Proctor was a good family man and here we can see that he sees his families well-being more important than his own, he’d rather them be without a dad than with one and having their names blackened for the rest of their lives. His decision was shown as being such a hard one to make after he has been brought up in a village with such a strict religion and strong belief for God. He knows that confessing to this sin would go against his religion and count against him on the day of judgement with God.
We see evil in this play as mainly being connected with the devil but what isn’t as obvious is that Miller tries to show how evil comes from the actions of ordinary people. We see how Abigail hurts many people in many ways. She uses the evil within her to blackmail, tease and indirectly kill innocent people. For anybody to be able to act in such a way they must have an evil side to them. As the play is set in a remote village with a strong belief of God and such a strict religion, the acts of evil stand out more as they are more shocking and more of an abnormal thing to happen! Also a sense of evil, which is through actions of many people in the play, is the type of evilness that is done without intent. This is such as when the judges sentence innocent people to death when they have no real proof. Any killing of an innocent person has to be connected with some sort of evil. Even though the judges truly believe the person is guilty of witchcraft, no one should have their life taken away from them, or changed for the worse, until real proof has been found. This is the type of evil that is less likely to be noticed in the play but it is still there as Miller has tried to create a sense of evil from many different actions of the people to keep the tension high and create many dramatic moments!
Miller has created many dramatic moments, not just from obscene events such as the hangings or the hysteria of the girls, but also from simple acts such as Proctor and Abigail’s confrontation of how they feel. These are all dramatic and cause a lot of tension for the audience but they’re all from many different uses of emotions and actions. The main dramatic events came from moments of wickedness and hysteria because, as I said in the last paragraph, they were seen as being more outrageous due to the way of life in that time and were a lot more surprising for the audience. They also seemed a lot more dramatic as they were seen as outrageous for even our day society as they were so cunning and appalling acts of behaviour. I think Miller has got his message across well of the society he was living in at that time with, the hunt for people with communist sympathies, as being just like the acts of mainly the girls and how they have been tracking down innocent people for reasons that are not always harming our society. The communists have not been harming anybodies lives with their beliefs and not all witchcraft is used for bad! In conclusion I think Miller created his Dramatic effects mainly with the use of the girls and their obscene actions. I think he did this very well and overall the amount of dramatic events in the play was what kept the audience interested. The audience were always awaiting the next act of outrageous behaviour. It was what kept the play going and without such dramatic events I feel the play would not have succeeded in making his point about the political purity test being ridiculous and unnecessary.
