Dramatic Irony In The Crucible
Arthur Miller, a great playwright of his time, wrote The Crucible. The Crucible, a 1953 play, was written at the time of the Red Scare in America. The author was accused of being a communist during this period of time and wrote the play to show how out of proportion the government was while the Red Scare was commencing. Miller used various forms of satire to show his feeling towards this ordeal in the play. The forms of satire were used to compare the Salem Witch Trials to the Red Scare. His drama was a major success and conveyed his message clearly to the audience. Various forms of irony are exhibited in The Crucible. Dramatic irony is just one of the varieties of satire used in this playwright’s ironic masterpiece. First and foremost, dramatic
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Situational irony is when an action has a different effect than what is expected, like a fire at a fire station. In the play the main characters are either trying to find the witches hiding in Salem, Massachusetts or trying to convince the court that they are not a witch. Proctor’s wife Elizabeth was accused of being a witch. In the play the character Hale accuses her and asks her questions about The Bible to see if she is a witch or not. He queried her and her husband John with what the 10 Commandments were. While she could answer them her husband could not; leaving out the 7th commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Earlier in the play it was shown that John had committed lechery against his wife with Abigail Williams. This is an example of situational irony due to Proctor forgetting the one commandment that he committed. Furthermore, another example is when Parris, the priest of the town of Salem, says that “I do not preach to children, Rebecca. It is not the children who are unmindful of their obligations towards this ministry.” (Parris 27). This shows the situational irony in that it was the children who needed the preaching, they were the ones accusing everyone of being a witch or wizard and needed God more than anyone else. From these examples we can conclude that situational irony is a great tool in the world of
Situational irony is when an action has a different effect than what is expected, like a fire at a fire station. In the play the main characters are either trying to find the witches hiding in Salem, Massachusetts or trying to convince the court that they are not a witch. Proctor’s wife Elizabeth was accused of being a witch. In the play the character Hale accuses her and asks her questions about The Bible to see if she is a witch or not. He queried her and her husband John with what the 10 Commandments were. While she could answer them her husband could not; leaving out the 7th commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Earlier in the play it was shown that John had committed lechery against his wife with Abigail Williams. This is an example of situational irony due to Proctor forgetting the one commandment that he committed. Furthermore, another example is when Parris, the priest of the town of Salem, says that “I do not preach to children, Rebecca. It is not the children who are unmindful of their obligations towards this ministry.” (Parris 27). This shows the situational irony in that it was the children who needed the preaching, they were the ones accusing everyone of being a witch or wizard and needed God more than anyone else. From these examples we can conclude that situational irony is a great tool in the world of