FREE ESSAY ON LANGUAGE IN THE CRUCIBLE

LANGUAGE IN THE CRUCIBLE

language in the crucible -
one of the most remarkable aspects of the crucible is miler's creation
of believable dialogue for his 17th century puritans
although partly based on what he found in salem records, most of it is
his own invention
it is convincingly old-fashioned without it being hard to understand
the language carries echos of the king james bible; but word by word,
apart from a few achatic terms - such as 'harlot' and 'poppet' - the
vocabulary is mostly modern
miller achieves his effects by linking words in an unusual way, using
double negatives, chnging verb tenses, and other devices of the same
kind
here are some examples :
pg 9 : he cannot discover no medicine for it in his books
pg 10 : i know you have not opened with me
pg 59 : seeing i do live so closely with you, they dismissed it
pg 95 : i am thirty three time in court in my life
pg 114 : you wonder yet if rebellion's spoke ?
with this shared language miller varies the way his characters speak to
suit their background and personality
ministers and judges naturally use more elaborate phrases than the
villages
giles is blunt and coarse : pg 96 - a fart on thomas putnam, that is
what i say to that
john protor usues some of the most poetic lines, whether he is
describing his delight in the massachusett's countryside (pg 51) or
crying out in despair at the end of act 3 (pg 119)
there is an element of comedy in the language between protor and mary in
the scene where he told her to go to bed and she said she would not have
him order her around but when he gave her a choice, she decided to go to
bed after all
this particular comic scene heightens the horrors of the situation as
influential people like proctor are at the mercy of silly girls accusing
everyone of witchcraft
most characters use similie and metaphor
example as follows
pg 20 : there be no blush about my name
pg 102 : a very augur bit will now be turned into your souls until your
honesty is proved
pg 10 : my daughter and my niece i discovered dancing like heathen in
the forest
pg 29 : i know how you....sweat like a stallion whenever i come near!
on pg 132 where hale is speaking to elizabeth, he uses elaborated
language and he talked a lot about himself before coming to the point
his language reveals who he is as he was very full of himself when he
first came to salem that he was blinded to the truth and when he finally
came to the 'point' (turth) it was too late