Some folks disagree — see the comments at the end of this post. This is my take on screenplay structure. Structure is the key to a successful screenplay.
Mar 18, Deborah Markus rated it it was ok I hate to rate this so low when it seems that the only people who do so are those forced to read it by a cruel teacher.
I'm even more troubled by the fact that I haven't seen anyone else bring up what bothers me about this play.
Yes, it's well written -- that is, the dialogue is expertly handled. There are truly beautiful passages, such as this one: I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched w I hate to rate this so low when it seems that the only people who do so are those forced to read it by a cruel teacher.
I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up.
Men have complex lives and motivations; women's lives center entirely around men, specifically around attraction to and dependence on men. Miller brought up the very real issues of property and land-lust that dominated the real trial.
Why did he insist on sexualizing the girls involved -- to the point where he had to make one of the girls several years older than she really was? The terrifying thing about what the real "afflicted girls" did was that it comes across as a sort of motiveless malignity.
They were lashing out at their own repressive society, possibly egged on by parents who wanted to use them as weapons in battles over land.
Instead, Miller decided to say that the girls really were engaged in "witchcraft" -- or at least in stereotypical witch behavior: He insists that "there are accounts of similar klatches in Europe, where the daughters of the towns would assemble at night and, sometimes with fetishes, sometimes with a selected young man, give themselves to love, with some bastardly results.
He really seems to believe that this went on. Then there's the main character: Can't imagine why I have a hard time sympathizing with him. Imagine you know a family with three young children. They hire an au pair. The dad has an affair with this young woman -- hardly older than a girl, a virgin, completely inexperienced in life or love.
The mom suspects that something is going on and fires her, but stays with the dad. The dad bitches at the mom for always giving him that look and not acting happy to see him all the time. The mom breaks down crying and admits that her cold behavior must have pushed him into having an affair.
The dad also bitches at the au pair, because this affair got her hopes up and she really thought it meant something to him the way it did to her. He screams at this teenager who was lucky not to get pregnant, btw, since they didn't use birth control to get over it, already -- he's married and he's staying that way.
If you heard about something like this -- maybe it happened to a friend of yours, maybe you read about it in a novel -- would your first sympathy really be with the poor, tormented man who has to put up with all these women acting like he owes them something?
Why has no one pointed out how creepy it is that John Proctor is genuinely supposed to be a sympathetic character, and Abigail is a monster? And by the way -- contrary to what Miller says in his afterword, the only "legend" that "has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston" is the one he started by writing this.
I'm not in 9th grade, and I still have problems with this modern classic. I understand why it is one; but I just can't give it the three "I liked it! There is also a black slave in this play, because black people were being forced to be slaves back then.
The some with women - they were treated like that back then. You are judging it as a work of history or historical fiction. Instead, I prefer to see this work through the lens of McCarthyism - it is a work of anti-McCarthyist propaganda, and as such it wouldn't be nearly as effective to make Abigail an innocent.
We need to be able to relate to John Proctor as a flawed but redeemable human character.Tension in Act One of Arthur Miller's The Crucible Miller builds up the tension using theatrical effects, language, the relationships of characters and the plot development, the structure of the act.
Miller masterfully builds suspense and tension in Act 3 through the following elements. 1. The judges and "afflicted" girls for once in the play have a worthy opponent in John Proctor.
Tension is a very important factor in The Crucible and Arthur Miller uses a lot of different techniques to create and illustrate it.
The tension repeatedly rises, and then falls. This could be displayed in a graph. Tension in Act One of Arthur Miller's The Crucible Miller builds up the tension using theatrical effects, language, the relationships of characters and the plot development, the structure of the act.
Turnitin provides instructors with the tools to prevent plagiarism, engage students in the writing process, and provide personalized feedback. The suspense created in Act 3 comes from the fact that the trials have started, and the people are in a full-blown fervor.
The suspense is high, because characters we care about are beginning to.