The Crucible

The Crucible - Arthur Miller
1.In Salem, Massachusetts a group of younger girls go into a forest with a slave named Tituba who practices witchcraft . Reverend Parris surprises them, discovering their activity and his daughter, Betty, falls into a coma. The townspeople suspect witchcraft but Abigail, the niece of Parris, swears they were only dancing. John Proctor enters Betty’s room and Abigail tries to rekindle their past affair. Reverend Hale, is called for help and suspects not only suspects but diagnosis witchcraft. Abigail puts the blame upon Tituba and Hale goes to her and she admits that they were communicating with the devil. She also mentions that there are other towns people who communicate with the devil. That is when Abigail and Betty start blurting out other names of people in the town who are supposedly dealing in witchcraft. People randomly start getting arrested, and that is when Abigail accuses Elizabeth, Proctors wife, of witchcraft. She goes even further by setting her up with a voodu looking doll, accusing Elizabeth stabbed her with a needle through the doll. Proctor demands Mary that she confess to the Judge but the other girls insist that Mary is bewitching them. Proctor tells the court that Abigail and him had an affair and her accusation is based on pure jealousy. Elizabeth is brought in to testify but she protects Proctors dignity and denies everything about the affair. Procter is arrested is then arrested, due to seeing the devil. Parris and Hale insist the prisoners to confess seeing the devil.The Judge wants him to sign his confession so it could be hung on the church door, and in the end, he is hung.

2. The theme of this novel would have to be the intolerance of the Puritan religion. This life style is very strict, and there doesn't seem to be room for error. It is either black or white. For God or against God. With the devil or against the devil.
ACT III-“A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it.”

3.The tone Miller has set u has to be a more formal and serious one. He gets the innocence of the girls across, and yet their role in this hole fiasco.

4.The two literary elements in the passages below show character development. Here you see Abigail’s threat and it shows that she will kill to protect her dignity. The other would be the language or diction used. the use of words by the author for example -“the edge of a word” it just adds to Abigail’s threat making her sound even more menacing.
-“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”