How Does Arthur Miller Create Drama and Tension in Act 1 of ‘the Crucible’?
How does Arthur Miller create drama and tension in Act 1 of ‘The Crucible’?
The Crucible is a play, which explores the witch- hunting hysteria that happened in Salem 1692. Miller uses this “organized mass-hysteria”[1] to comment on his own similar experience during the 1950s. Through “The Crucible”, Miller is able to draw an analogy between the hysteria of the Salem witch-trails and its modern parallel of the anti communist ‘witch-hunts’ which occurred due to the HUAC-House of un-American Committee, which were lead by Senator Joseph McCarthy; who with the help of the committee were “ruthlessly determined to hunt out communists as the Salem judges had been to hunt out witches”[2]. Miller used “The Crucible” to criticise this unmitigated evil, which led to so many innocent people being wrongly charged.
The play follows how fear of death, The Devil and the unknown causes people to submit to madness and how the sense of guilt which “generally it was a guilt resulting from their awareness that they were not as Rightist as people were supposed to be” [3] could cause them to lose all forms of their common sense and allow for insanity to overcome a whole community.
The abrupt opening of the play, with Betty Parris laid “inertly on a bed” and Reverend Parris knelt weeping and praying, instantly creates tension and suspense for the audience who are unaware of the situations, which have led to this strange occurrence now portrayed before them on the Stage. Parris’s concern and fear of what is happening to his daughter alerts the audience to the seriousness of Betty’s condition and so causes for a sense of drama and tension to further grow in the audience’s minds.
Reverend Parris is powerless to help the child, as is the doctor. 'He cannot find no medicine in his books' (This is inverted sentence structure and can be found frequently in the play). 'He bid me tell you that you might look for unnatural things for the cause of it'. This establishes one of the most
The Crucible is a play, which explores the witch- hunting hysteria that happened in Salem 1692. Miller uses this “organized mass-hysteria”[1] to comment on his own similar experience during the 1950s. Through “The Crucible”, Miller is able to draw an analogy between the hysteria of the Salem witch-trails and its modern parallel of the anti communist ‘witch-hunts’ which occurred due to the HUAC-House of un-American Committee, which were lead by Senator Joseph McCarthy; who with the help of the committee were “ruthlessly determined to hunt out communists as the Salem judges had been to hunt out witches”[2]. Miller used “The Crucible” to criticise this unmitigated evil, which led to so many innocent people being wrongly charged.
The play follows how fear of death, The Devil and the unknown causes people to submit to madness and how the sense of guilt which “generally it was a guilt resulting from their awareness that they were not as Rightist as people were supposed to be” [3] could cause them to lose all forms of their common sense and allow for insanity to overcome a whole community.
The abrupt opening of the play, with Betty Parris laid “inertly on a bed” and Reverend Parris knelt weeping and praying, instantly creates tension and suspense for the audience who are unaware of the situations, which have led to this strange occurrence now portrayed before them on the Stage. Parris’s concern and fear of what is happening to his daughter alerts the audience to the seriousness of Betty’s condition and so causes for a sense of drama and tension to further grow in the audience’s minds.
Reverend Parris is powerless to help the child, as is the doctor. 'He cannot find no medicine in his books' (This is inverted sentence structure and can be found frequently in the play). 'He bid me tell you that you might look for unnatural things for the cause of it'. This establishes one of the most