Verbal Irony In The Crucible

Arthur Miller, one of America’s greatest playwrights, living or dead, is a master of verbal irony. An examination of three strong examples of verbal irony in Millers play, The Crucible, will prove this out. While Miller started the genre of the tragedy of the common man, and is also know for his thoughtful and decisive plot lines, much of his fame, possibly can be attributed to his brilliant use of language generally, and his use of verbal irony in particular. Amidst the drama of the court scene in Act III, Proctor and Mary Warren are being questioned in relation to Elizabeth’s possession of poppets. Parris is trying to prove the fact that maybe they were unaware of her possession of these, that she could have hidden her poppets. In a response to Proctor, Parris sites that “We are here, Your Honor, precisely to discover what no one has ever seen.” Parris’ meaning is very simple; he is simply commenting that the court is trying to discover the poppets that supposedly Elizabeth had hidden at her house, that no one has seen. But to read Miller, one must be more perceptive, and in examining this quote by Parris, there is
Deep in the conversation, Hale asks John to recite the Commandments with the intent to prove he is a covenanted Christian man. John can remember only nine of the ten. It says in the stage directions that Proctor is lost, and is flailing for the last commandment. Then delicately, Elizabeth says, “Adultery, John.” Of the Ten Commandments he was reciting, the single one he forgot was the single one he had broken. Add to this, to have the primary person it affected other than him remind him of it is great irony. The Guilt that the irony brings on here is amazing work on the part of Miller. To harness the already blackened ties between John and Elizabeth to produce such a powerful line is