English Crucible Coursework Essay

In the established society of a small, Puritan town in the late 17th century, a lie by a minister’s niece sparks utter hysteria throughout the town of Salem. This quite minor fabrication causes a wildfire of deceit to burn throughout the town destroying homes, families and friendships. In the centre of this saga the marriage of John and Elizabeth Proctor has been diminished to a marriage of awkward silences and great mistrust by John Proctor adulterous relationship with Abigail Williams. As the town is in havoc, the Proctor’s marriage is also tested. The play portrays heir struggle to prevail I a world of treachery. In this essay of ‘The Crucible’, I am going to be examining the Proctor’s marriage in relevance to the theme of witchcraft and study why Miler put the marriage at the centre of the play.  When we first see the Proctor’s in Act Two, a conventional view of home life at that period time is portrayed the husband has been working hard on the land, while his wife cared for the children and tended to her family’s needs, but this scene also shows many things. I t shows the need for gratitude from each over, as if they need to please one another vastly. This is depicted many times when John begins to eat. Early on in the scene as Proctor comments on his wife’s food saying ‘It is well seasoned’ which we are aware is false as previously in entering the house he sampled the food and added more seasoning to it, the way this sentence is implied suggests that he is just trying to keep the peace between them. She is content with his praise and eve thrives on his delight in her and feels if she carries on pleasing him he will not go elsewhere for this gratitude, as to his previous mistress Abigail This is not one-sided as John states to Elizabeth after consulting her if she would like a cow he says, ‘I mean to please you’ with her reply being, ‘John I know’. This shows he is attempting to redeem his infidelity and prove to her al he wants is to make her happy and she is aware of his numerous efforts but cannot allow herself to forget the past months.  Elizabeth is still very apprehensive of John and questions him as soon as she is aware of his presence she begins to enquire into his delay home asking him, ‘what keeps you so late?’. Elizabeth shows great suspicion towards John; this is depicted through her eagerness to know what is keeping her husband. He justifies himself by declaring in his defence he was out farming. The premature view of the scene in Act Two reveals great suspicion in this marriage, as Elizabeth is fearful that he has been visiting Elizabeth. This parallels to the witchcraft trials of Salem and the scepticism of the inhabitants as to if someone may blindly accuse them next for minor things such as an argument in the past or over land restrictions. The weariness by the community is shown later in the Act when Reverend Hale is told of the arrest of Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse to this he declares, ‘†¦ Then nothing left to stop the whole green world from burning’. This statement refers to the suspicion in the town as when one lie has started it is difficult to stop it from causing more lies to arise, this declaration can also be interpreted as the ‘whole green world’ being the forest and when a forest fire is started it is almost impossible to stop the fire in comparison to the wildfire of lies spreading through the region. This leads to the lack of trust in the district of Salem and in the Proctor’s marriage .As we return to the early stages of Act Two we see the Proctor’s involved in a minor dispute as he tells Elizabeth of his moment alone with Abigail, this is where the mistrust in their marriage is exposed and laid bare Elizabeth in disbelief of what she was just confronted with, questions him and asks â€Å"you were alone with her†, and he discards her and tells her, ‘only for a moment, she reads into this as a lie and suspects their liaison has been reunited and is upset he has not informed her of this ‘moment’.  Elizabeth still detects that John is concealing something from her and because of her suspicions continuously questions him as we saw at the beginning of Act Two, her frustrations at him is shown when she says, ‘John you are not open with me’ which explains her distrust in John this is because she feels he is disguising a  Fabricat ion from her.