Self Check: The Wicked and the Damned

Read Act 3 of The Crucible, keeping in mind the following pre-reading questions, then return to this page to check your understanding of the text:

• What is the main conflict of the play?
• What internal conflict does John Proctor face?
• How is Proctor vulnerable? How is he powerful?
• How is Abigail vulnerable? How is she powerful?
• How does situation snowball out of control at this point?

Complete the self check activity by reading the passage below, answering the questions using the text boxes that follow, and then clicking on the "Answer" button to review the explanations.

In Act 3, the characters in the play clearly fall into two symbolic camps. The characters who stand for reason and justice fight to be heard in the face of the more powerful characters who symbolize corruption and insanity.

Name four key characters who fall on each side of the conflict at the onset of the act.

Corruption and Insanity: Reverend Parris, Abigail, Danforth, and Hawthorne. Reason and Justice: John Proctor, Giles Cory, Francis Nurse, and Elizabeth Proctor

Miller keeps the scales balanced by turning one character from each side to the other. The most likely force of good who could end the witch trials embraces the darkness, and one of the powerful forces of evil who began the process realizes the horror that has been unleashed and tries to stop it, but is powerless now in the avalanche of accusation.

Which force for good is turned to evil? Which force for evil is turned to good? How is each turned?

Mary Warren knows the truth and promises to tell it to save Elizabeth, but when Abigail intimidates her by starting to call her out, Mary cannot stand up to her. Instead of stopping the trials, she accuses John Proctor to save herself. Reverend Hale was party to the start of the investigations, but at this point he realizes it has all gone too far. Cory, Nurse, and Proctor come to the court with logic and affidavits, which have Hale nearly turned. The final straw for Hale is when Proctor confesses his affair with Abigail. Then he is sure that Abigail construed the whole thing in a lover's rage. The picture becomes clear to him, but Danforth, Hawthorne and Parris have come too far to turn back. They are determined to see the trials through rather than admit they have been fooled by a teenage girl.

Act 3 also contains one of the most dramatic moments of the play. To decide whether or not John and Abigail have had an affair, Elizabeth is brought before the court to testify. With John and Abigail's backs to her, she is asked why she fired the girl. The moment of her answer is a moment of intense dramatic irony.

What is dramatic irony? And how is Elizabeth's response an example of it?

Dramatic Irony is the dramatic effect achieved by leading an audience to understand an incongruity between a situation and the accompanying speeches, while the characters in the play remain unaware of the incongruity. The audience knows that Elizabeth, who is known to be honest, must tell a truth that will hurt her husband's good name but save his life and the lives of others as well. But in an act of love, she lies to protect him, thereby condemning him and herself to death.