Dramatic scene Essay

The courtroom scene of act two is described as the most dramatic scene of the play. How does Miller make it dramatic? In your opinion is it more dramatic than act 4?  The Crucible was written in 1953 by Arthur Miller who was born on the 17th October 1915 in New York City, and wrote many plays including No Villain and All My Sons. The play is based on real events that happened in Salem Massachusetts, and even uses real people for characters in the play such as John Proctor and Abigail Williams, although some details like Abigail’s age has been changed to make the play more acceptable. In 1692 mass hysteria took over due to the witch trials as a group of girls started falling ill and accused people of being witch’s and claimed they where helping the devil, casting spells, sending their spirits out, and various other acts of witchcraft. By the time the trials where over, 140 people where accused in Salem alone and 19 where hanged, 13 died in jail and 1 man named Giles Co rey, who is a minor character in the play, was crushed to death. When Miller visited Salem he was able to look at the court papers, and other resources which helped him to write the play. The crucible was written during McCarthyism when Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee), started searching for Communist within the American public. People with grudges would accuse their own neighbours of being involved with communism. Senator McCarthy and special congressional committees would then investigate and the accused would have to go to court and be put on trial where it would be decided whether or not they would go to prison as a consequence, which has a similar structure of that to what happened in Salem. Miller had been interested in the witch trials in Salem since he had started writing plays at the University of Michigan and saw the parallel between the two events and wrote â€Å"The Crucible†. Critic’s newspaper etc immediately saw this as an act against the court, and so in 1956 he was called to court accused of being involved with communism. These chapters of his life where capturing those of a mixture of the characters in his play, as when Miller was asked to give names of those he had seen at a communist meeting, he refused even though it could of resulted in prison. Fortunately Miller did not go to prison. The trials had started to come to an end so that could of effected the result of his trial, but he was also married to Marilyn Monroe at the time who was a well known wealthy celebrity who had contacts who where high up in court and so, that may of also had an helped keep him out of prison. The play starts of inside Reverend Paris’s house. His daughter Betty is lying unconscious on the bed and he is praying at her bedside. The doctor has suggested that her illness may be unnatural, and there are rumours of witchcraft going round the village. Parris is scared to go down and talk to them as it could put his position as minister in jeopardy. We find out that Betty had been dancing in the woods with her cousin Abigail Williams, Tituba who is a black slave from Barbados, and other girls in the village, and Parris suspects that it was what caused Betty’s condition, and challenges Abigail about it. She tells him â€Å"it were only sport† and that Betty took fright and fainted when he jumped out at them. Ruth, the daughter of the Putnam’s is also ill and Mrs Putnam talks of her seven dead babies and tells us she thinks they where murdered by a witch. She introduces the theme of revenge as she believes Rebecca Nurse, who was her midwife and praised throughout the village, killed her babies and wants revenge on her for that. Once the girls are alone Abigail threatens them not to tell of what they did in the woods â€Å"Let either of you breath a word, or the edge of a word, about other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you†. Abigail goes on to talk about what happed to her parents, who where murdered in front of her by Indians â€Å"I’ve seen some reddish work done at night† and we feel so I sympathy for her, and understand why she would be so aggressive. Betty wakes up screaming and Abigail violently tries to shut her up. When John Proctor arrives on the scene Mary Warren is intimidated and he tells her to leave, the rest of the girls soon follow leaving Abigail and Proctor alone. Like Abigail John is also aggressive, especially towards Mary as at the end of act 2 he puts her in a position where she must choose between him and Abigail, and throws her to the floor where she is left in hysterics as she is being threatened by two powerful and aggressive people who are both threatening to hurt her is she doesn’t side with them â€Å"(In terror) I cannot I cannot they will turn on me -â€Å".