The Crucible

1. The Crucible Play Terminology

2. Dialogue • Refers to the words characters speak • Advances the plot • Reveals characters’ personalities and backgrounds

3. Stage Directions • Usually indicates: • Where a scene takes place • What a scene should look like • How the characters should move and speak • Usually set in italics to distinguish them from dialogue

4. Dramatic Exposition • Conveys critical information about a play’s settings, props, characters, and even historical or social context • Most playwrights provide such information in the dialogue or stage directions, but Arthur Miller does it differently. • Arthur Miller interjects lengthy prose commentaries that contain a wealth of dramatic exposition (essay-like passages).

5. Questioning the Characters’ Motives • Characters’ Motives- reasons for behaving as they do • Examples: fear, greed, guilt, love, loyalty, and revenge

6. Allusion • Allusion- a brief reference within a work to something outside the work. Usually relates to one of the following: • Another literary work • A well-known person • A place • A historical event • The Crucible makes many biblical allusions. • Example: Act I contains a reference to the New Jerusalem, a term for the holy city of heaven

7. Historical Context • Historical context- key factors of life in the time period in which a literary work is set. • Example in The Crucible: • Biblical allusions which aid in showing the Puritans as a deeply religious people which helps the plot begin

8. Indirect vs. Direct Characterization • Indirect Characterization- character is revealed through dialogue, opinion, reactions, and actions • Example: “Good looking!” cried Mr. Hendrick contemptuously, “she always looks as if she wanted to be kissed! Turning those big coweyes on every calf in town!” • Direct Characterization- writer simply states a character’s traits • Example: He was a simple, good-natured man; he was moreover a kind neighbor and an obedient, henpecked husband.

9. Foil Characters • Foil Characters- two contrasting characters • Examples: • Harry Potter vs. Neville Longbottom • John Watson vs. Sherlock Holmes • Wicked Witch of the West vs. Glinda the Good Witch

10. Irony • Irony- involves a contrast between what is stated and what is meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens • Dramatic Irony- • Contradiction between what a character thinks and what the audience knows to be true • Verbal Irony- • A character says one thing but means something different

11. Logical Fallacy • Logical Fallacy- an idea or argument that appears logical though it is based on a faulty premise. • Example: • Judge Danforth explains his reasoning for believing the accusations of witchcraft. Though his thoughts seem logical, all are based on a mistaken premise.

12. Theme • Theme- central idea or insight into life that a writer conveys in his writing • Examples: • Fear and suspicion are infectious and can turn into mass hysteria • Destructive power of guilt, revenge, and failure of a judicial system fueled by ideology instead of justice

13. Extended Metaphor • Extended Metaphor- comparison that is developed throughout entire piece of writing • Example: • Comparison between Salem witch hunt and late 1940s and early 1950s McCarthyism • Fear of communism and a widespread hysteria that Communists had infiltrated the State Department • Panic based on witch hunt tactics—those who opposed McCarthy’s hearings were charged with Communism themselves