The Crucible

1. The Crucible Redraft Tips

2. Respond To Both Parts of Your Task

3. Part One • Six developed points. • In order of importance / relevance to your question.

4. John displays free-will / individuality in an oppressive society. • John’s tragic flaw is his adultery and the guilt it causes him to feel. • Reluctance to damage his reputation causes John to delay exposing Abigail. • John and Elizabeth have a difficult relationship. • John heroically gives his life, thereby undermining the witch trials. • John attempts to expose the real motivations behind the trials. • John challenges hypocrisy in Salem. • Initially, John confesses in order to save his life. • John admits to adultery.

5. Topic Sentences • Should be clear. • Should not be narrative-based. • Should demonstrate continuity / development in your argument. • Should be varied/ not all begin in the same way. • You could: begin with the playwright’s name; begin in a personal way; begin by identifying a technique / aspect.

6. I thought that John’s most heroic moment came in the play’s climactic scene. • Furthermore, Miller portrays John as displaying great courage by challenging the court. • Despite his many qualities, Miller depicts John as having one major flaw. • Another admirable aspect of John’s character is that he challenges they hypocrisy in Salem. • John partly redeems himself for his delay in challenging the court by admitting to adultery.

7. Activity • Turn your first three points into topic sentences.

8. Themes • This is what your are asked to discuss in the second part of your task. • You should be explaining how the points / incidents you are discussing relate to the key themes. • You should also be explaining what Miller is saying about these themes.

9. Activity • Make a note of which points relate to the following themes: Reputation; Individual Conscience; Conflict with Authority; The Power of Fear & Mass Hysteria ; Truth and Lies. • Choose two points, and, for each of these, write a couple of sentences explaining how this point and the theme are related.

10. John’s hesitancy to expose the trials as a fraud helps to develop the theme of reputation. This is one of Miller’s central concerns in the tragedy. Through the actions of characters such as Parris and Abigail – who both encourage the evil of the trials to prevent their names being soiled- the playwright is effective underlining how concern for reputation is often a damaging motivation. I also believe that Miller is illustrating how damaging it is when we listen not to our own conscience, but to our worries about how others will judge us.

11. Quotations • More, more, more! • At least two per paragraph. • Lots of short, embedded quotations. • Some longer quotations but not too many.

12. Embedded Quotations • Proctor’s final dilemma suggests that he is his own man yet, and although loses his life, he retains his integrity and dignity, as Elizabeth states, ‘He have his goodness yet’ as he is about to be executed. • It is, as John says, a ‘whore’s vengeance,’ despite his failure to prove it. • Giving his life enables John to see ‘some shred of goodness’ in himself.

13. Change to an Embedded Quotation • John helps Abigail to understand the flaws within Salem society: “I never knew what pretence Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men.”

14. Analysis • You do not need to analyse every quotation you use. • However, there should be some analysis of quotations. • These could explain the meaning / significance of quotations; identify and explain the use of techniques; give evaluation /personal reaction. • Ensure that you link your analysis back to your task .

15. In one of the play’s key scenes, Miller depicts John as unmasking the true motivations for the witch hunts: “now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” Miller’s use of personification is effective here in underlining that petty feuds – over land, power and sex- are the real causes of Salem’s misery. Furthermore, the use of biblical imagery in John’s dialogue reinforces that he is a devout Christian who understands that Salem’s Puritan values are being corrupted by the witch trials.

16. Activity • List as many synonyms for shows as you can.

17. Miller powerfully depicts John’s courageous decision to give his life: “Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”

18. Avoid Retelling Lots of the Story • At the play’s end John is offered the chance to save his life. Danforth wants Elizabeth to persuade John to confess to witchcraft, which will mean he will be spared. Elizabeth tells Proctor that almost one hundred people have confessed to witchcraft. She relates that Giles was killed by being pressed to death by large stones, though he never pleaded guilty or not guilty to the charges against him. Elizabeth refuses to sway John one way or the other, but he decides to confess.

19. Miller makes John’s martyrdom more heroic by portraying him momentarily confessing. As John was a well-respected man in the village, his confession, which would spare his life, would bolster the trials. At this point, the trials were losing public support. In my opinion, the reason John initially confesses is that, due to his affair with Abigail he believes ‘I am no good man.’ Miller portrays him as a broken man, whose sense of his own worth is obscured by his tragic flaw: “Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.” I found Miller’s dialogue here to be incredibly powerful. To here such an admirable man as John speak of himself, of his soul, as something corrupt or ruined evoked great sympathy in me.