Act Three

1. Act Three

2. Literary Devices • Opening to the act is incredibly descriptive- Miller has specifically said how the meeting house is meant to be- significance- perhaps this room will hold the fate of many. • Stage Directions – very precise in this Act. Miller perhaps knew specifically how each character would respond and didn’t want it up to interpretation when being performed. • Plosive- ‘where my beast are bedded’ • The lack of emotive and figurative language isn't really seen until the last few moments of Act Three. Proctor has given up on his quest to persuade Salem, he finds that he can either confess or stand his ground, he chooses to do the latter. It is taken by the community that he has confessed and the audience may agree when he starts saying ‘God is dead!’ and ‘I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his dirty face!’

3. LINGUISTIC dEVICES • Interrogatives- majority of this scene is made up with these, they are used mostly to gain information or sometimes used to confirm their beliefs. Mostly closed question which doesn’t give much room for explanation • Repetition – uses to emphasis a point ‘But Proof, sir, proof’ • False Starts – used to waste time or can show uncertainty and nervousness in a character Mary Warren: ‘I – [she looks about as though searching for the passion to faint.] I – have no sense of it now, I –’ • Declaratives- often used by Danforth to assert his authority and so that the community is clear where he stands • Adjacency Pairs- many due to the setting of a courtroom where the main talking structure would be to question and answer

4. Characters of interest • Giles Corey - he is disrespectful in this scene to everybody including Danforth -‘I am asked the question and am old enough to answer it’- interrupt Parris - • (this is part of Giles character profile- he cares little for public opinion). We see a change in his character in this scene from the town joke to a very vulnerable, sensitive old man. The stage directions Miller uses to describe Giles are very childlike ‘beginning to plead’, ‘beginning to weep’, ‘through helpless sobs’, ‘covers his face ashamed’. The relationship that Giles has with Danforth in this scene is very much like headmaster punishing a naughty pupil: Danforth: ‘Now be gone!’, Giles: ‘They be tellin’ lies…’ • Judge Danforth– he has a higher status than everybody else, most refer to him as ‘Your Excellency’ and ‘sir’ . He is an assertive, authorative figure that uses imperatives ‘now sit you down’ and interrogatives ‘Have you ever seen the Devil?’ which help him hold the floor, he frequently interrupts other and uses derogatory impersonal words when referring to other ‘who is this man?’, ‘you are a foolish old man’ and ‘woman’.

5. Rhetorical Devices • Metaphor- Danforth: ‘we burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment’ • Proctor: ‘ when you know in all your black hearts that this is fraud’ • Personification- Giles: ‘she has been strivin’ with her soul all week’, Danforth: ‘…the entire contention of the state in these trials is that the voice of heaven is speaking through….’ • Danforth: ‘… there is a moving plot to topple Christ in the country!’ • Figurative Language- Proctor: I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud- God dams our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!’ • Used very little throughout this Act as many of the sentences are short and precise to avoid confusion, which could lead to trouble and to assert a characters belief

6. Themes, ideas & CONTEXT • Fear- Mary Warren, when she realises that Proctor has lost his case she turns sides out of fear ‘ [pointing at Proctor] You’re the Devil’s man!’. Hale & Danforth talk of fear but have opposing opinions on what fear is in relation to Salem Hale: …’There is a prodigious fear of this court in the country-’ Danforth: ‘ Reproach me not with the fear of the country; there is fear in the country because there is a moving plot to topple Christ in the country!’- Hale knows the truth but Danforth believes what people force themselves to fear in case of persecution • Shame- Giles that he has brought the accusation of witchcraft to his wife and now she is condemned ‘He covers his face, ashamed’. Proctor has finally admitted to having ‘known’ Abigail, this is a struggle, he doesn’t feel ashamed for himself but that he has dishonoured Elizabeth and that the whole town now knows ‘his voice about to break and his shame great’. Parris when it is revealed that he knew about the girls dancing in the woods, Abigail has done wrong and this may affect his standing in the community and may bring accusations to him Danforth: ‘but she danced?’ Parris: ‘[unwillingly] Aye, sir.’ • Religion- the law is based upon the Bible, to go up against the law is to go against the Bible and therefore God.

7. CONTINUED… • Proof- the evidence that Danforth asks for is ‘proof’ but they don’t realise that they are supporting their arguments with the idea that there is no proof except the word of the girls- Danforth: ‘But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not?’ and Parris: ‘We are here, Your Honour, precisely to discover what no one has seen.’ • This Act in which it is played out in a courtroom, we see what Miller may have compared the Communism trials to. How you would have been asked to defend yourself but most of the Jury/the judge would have already condemned you as guilty. • The way in which Proctor reacts at the end of Act Three may have been what Miller secretly felt like in his society. That he was supressed, and couldn’t fully explore himself and that anyway he tried to redeem himself that society had already labelled him as guilty.