How Effective Is The End Of Act Iii As An Ending To This Act And As A Preparation For The Rest Of The Play?

The play 'The Crucible' was written by Arthur Miller in 1953, but set in 1629's Salem. It was written as "an act of desperation" by Miller during the McCarthy period, where Americans were accusing fellow Americans of having pro communist beliefs. Miller and his friends were later accused and Miller was found guilty. The Salem trials and McCarthyism were both based on witch hunts (the Salem trials both figuratively and literally speaking), people were blaming each other of crimes, mostly for the sake of saving themselves, and in both situations, mainly because of propaganda, everything spiraled out of control. Miller used the play 'The Crucible' to express his views on McCarthyism in an allegorical like way.

The crucible starts when, after dancing in the woods of Salem, two children take sick, one being the minister of Salem's, Rev. Parris's daughter. Being a theocracy, speculation in the village arouses about the causes of the children's illness after the towns doctor could not discover a medicine for it. Because of this another minister, Rev. Hale, who has good knowledge of witchcraft, was called out to ascertain it. Tituba, Reverend Parris's slave confessed to witchcraft, and so do the rest of the girls who were dancing in the forest, but both say that they saw other citizens of Salem with the devil, to take the blame of themselves. This starts the trials. The girls, led

by Abigail Williams, the niece of Parris conjure many tricks to incriminate their innocent victims. Towards the end of act III, Mary Warren, one of the girls who had been dancing in the forest, shows courage and decides to tell the truth to judges Danforth and Hanthorne. Courage is also a theme in The Crucible, as courage is shown by the people who are accused of crimes they have not committed and are prepared to die for truth. This causes Abigail and the girls to start another ridiculous trick, which goes horribly wrong for Abigail. I will be writing about how effective the end of Act III is as an ending to the act and as a preparation for the rest of the play.

Abigail realizes that not everyone is being fooled by her deceitfulness after Hale exclaims "This girl has always struck me false" while pointing at her. Abigail is also angry about her fornicatious adultery with Proctor being in the open, because to some people it would question her judgment about who was league with the devil, especially after having Proctors wife incarcerated. So she decides to implicate Mary Warren of being in league with Satan, to save her own name, and hopefully make people forget about what happened with Proctor. Abigail then screams up to the rafters. This in itself is a dramatic technique, as before this the audience/ reader think that the truth will be released after all of the previous tension, and that the hanging on innocent people will stop, but Abigail comes up with another murderous plan. The screaming is also dramatic as it makes the audience wonder what Abigail has plotted next.

Abigail later ends the wondering of the people in the courthouse by saying "Why do you come, yellow bird". The yellow bird was supposed to be a sign of some one being in league with Satan. "Does someone afflict you child? It need not be a woman, mind you, or a man. Perhaps some bird invisible to others comes to you", was said by Hale, to Betty while she was "sick". Abigail was in the room, and subconsciously picked up what he was saying, and used the things he said against people. The yellow bird is an example.

Danforth was genuinely scared by this as all of the girls were following Abigail's lead. I believe the girls were genuinely afraid of Abigail, as they knew what she was capable of and that's why the followed her lead, and also said things which they new Abigail would approve off. In the first Act Abigail threatened Mercy, Betty and Mary, saying "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... I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!"

This also creates tension, as all of the girls seem transfixed, and no one else knows what is wrong with them. Proctor is bemused by this and questions Danforth saying "Where's a bird? I see no bird!" I deem Proctor said this to Danforth, not to ask him if he saw a bird, but to show Abigail to be the liar she was and to make the whole situation seem ridiculous. Danforth was bewildered also I think but told Proctor to "Be Quiet!" so that he could fully follow what was going on. Abigail then says [to the ceiling, in a genuine conversation with the 'bird', as though trying to talk it out of attacking her] "But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary". Here Abigail accuses Mary of being envious of her. In reality there was very little about Abigail that Mary had to be envious of her for, even though at the beginning of the play in the stage directions it describes Abigail as being a "strikingly beautiful girl". In Salem Abigail was nothing. She was an orphan and unmarried, and already had a bad reputation. We know this from the beginning of the play where Parris says to her "You name in the town - it I entirely white, is it not?" Abigail replies that "there is no blush about my name". Parris then goes on to say "Abigail is there any other cause than you have told me, for you being discharged from Goody Proctors service? I have heard it said, and I tell you as I heard it, that she comes so rarely to church this year for she will not sit so close to something soiled. What signified that remark?" Even thought the affair between Abigail and John was not public knowledge yet, in Salem there was still some speculation. This sentence is also an example of how well Miller writes. Because Parris was a minister and a learned man, the language is formal, but also clear and concise. Envy is a theme that runs through the whole of The Crucible, as the whole situation started when Abigail was envious over Elizabeth, as she was married to Proctor and also Ann Putnam was envious over Rebecca Nurse, as she had many children and grandchildren.

Mary pleads with Abigail to stop, but she continues to speak with the 'bird' "Oh, Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot, stop my mouth; it's Gods work that I do". . The people of Salem were Puritans. They had left England to escape persecution of Christians, and they followed and extremely tough kind of Christianity, where they took a fundamental view of the bible. Previously in Salem,