The Crucible Form - Essay paragraph PDF

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How does Miller use dramatic form and language techniques in “The Crucible” to present new insights into human experiences? Arthur Miller’s drama “The Crucible” (1952) is a form of protest that parallels the McCarthy era of the 1950s and the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, as he attempts to unveil the political corruption and distortion of truth within his society through an allegorical lens. Miller’s context involved the unsparing McCarthy investigations into communism in which the Senator’s vitriolic anti-Communism ignited the spark needed to propel the United States into a dramatic and fractious anti-Communist hysteria. In ‘The Crucible’, Miller allegorically uses the Salem Witch Trials as a historical particular to address this problem where in both contexts, social and moral rights had been stripped away by autocratic prejudice in order for the audience to draw parallels to their own world through their self-recognition. Miller specifically states that the mass hysteria that had developed in the United States motivated him to parallel the Salem Witch Trials, “That John Proctor the sinner might overturn his paralysing guilt and become the forthright voice against the madness around him was a reassurance to me, an inspiration…” Furthermore, the title of the play, the ‘Crucible’, is symbolically used to generate the advancing climax within each act, mimicking how objects inside a small container destroy each other over high temperature; each act begins in a small private space that eventually gets crowded with characters that begin to deflect blame and accuse each other out of self-interest. This can clearly be seen within the first Act as Miller narrates the setting of the scene as, “a small upper bedroom…the room gives off an air of clean spareness” and then progresses into a heightening climax as a claustrophobic environment develops when Abigail starts hysterically accusing people, “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osborne with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!” In addition to this, Miller uses dramatic irony throughout the play where the audience is aware that Abigail and the girls are making false accusations, shifting our focus to the deceptive cruelty of the characters and the flaws of the judicial system in a theocratic governance. This can be particularly seen within Abigail’s character, where before she begins her part in the play he gives a brief character overview in order to make the audience aware of her “endless capacity for dissembling”, and as the act progresses the audience observes how her apprehensive façade breaks as she is overcome with jealousy when she ironically yells, “I will not have my name soiled in the village! Goody Proctor is a gossiping liar!” however the audience knows that the only “gossiping liar” within the play will be Abigail. Through the form of tragedy, the audience watches the characters desperately trying to save themselves by letting any scapegoat be hanged as Miller aims to make the audience feel fear and hysteria within themselves for the characters in the play in order to realise the similarities that exist in their own society, and hence forging a change in society by presenting new insights into human experiences....