Here in my second post on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, we’re going to look at Act Two. First, I’ll give an overview of Act Two, then I’ll make a few comments.
An Overview of Act Two
Act Two takes place at John and Elizabeth’s Proctor’s house outside of town, eight days later. We learn that a mere eight days after the hysterical events of Act One, fourteen people have already been arrested and there is an official court set up, with trials, with the Deputy Governor already saying that if those arrested don’t confess to being witches, they’ll be hanged. On top of that, Abigail Williams is leading the other girls in all of this.
Elizabeth tells John he needs to go to the court and tell them that Abigail had told him before all the hysteria started that it wasn’t witchcraft and that the young girls just got frightened when the Reverend Parris happened upon them dancing in the woods. In the course of their conversation, we see that the two are still hurting over John’s adultery with Abigail seven months earlier.
At that point, Mary Warren, the girl they hired to replace Abigail, shows up. She is now an official in the court and one of the girls claiming witchcraft. She brings Elizabeth a small poppet (rag doll) she had made in court that day. It turns out that now there are THIRTY-NINE people arrested, that Sarah Osburn is already sentenced to hanging (because she said she wasn’t a witch), that Sarah Good confessed, and that someone had even accused Elizabeth. Mary Warren, though, had told the court she had seen no evidence of that, so that seemingly put an end to it. Elizabeth suspects her accuser was Abigail Williams. She’s convinced Abigail wants her dead so she can get back together with John. (It’s a veritable episode from The Young and the Restless!).
The Reverend Hale then shows up to talk with the Proctors about their sparse church attendance lately. In that conversation, it comes out that they don’t like the Reverend Parris because he is a vain, greedy man. In addition, John tells Hale that Abigail had told him that there was no witchcraft and that the girls were just all lying. Hale can’t believe it—after all, a few people confessed to being witches after they were told that if they didn’t confess, they would hang!
At that point, Giles Corey and Francis Nurse show up—it turns out that Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse have been accused of witchcraft and arrested. They are two of the most morally good, Christian women in Salem. Right then, Ezekiel Cheever and the jailers show up…to arrest Elizabeth! Sure enough, it was Abigail Williams who had accused her.
And the evidence that Elizabeth was a witch? Well, Abigail had shown up to dinner that evening at the Reverend Parris’ house with a needle, stabbed into her abdomen! She claimed Elizabeth had “sent her spirit out” and stabbed her. Abigail claimed Elizabeth kept poppets in her house and used them in her witchcraft (basically like voodoo dolls). And, sure enough, they find Mary Warren’s poppet (the one she gave Eliabeth) in the house. And, oh my gosh, there is a needle in the poppet! Mary Warren, though, tells them she made it in court that day, put the needle in the poppet for safekeeping, and gave it to Elizabeth.
Well, it turns out that common sense explanation wasn’t good enough. Immediately, the Reverend Hale asks Mary if she is sure that is what happened, or was the Devil putting those false memories into her head. “No, I’m sure I made the poppet in court,” she basically says. Then Elizabeth blurts out that Abigail “is murder” and must be “ripped out of the world.” Obviously, that is a reasonable thing for anyone to say about someone who is making a false allegation in order to kill you to get to your spouse! But in this play, not so much. Instead, Ezekiel Cheever basically says, “Oh, did you hear that! She’s a witch!” And they take Elizabeth off to jail. In anger, John Proctor rips up the warrant and says, “Damn the court!” but it’s no good. Elizabeth is arrested.
After they leave, John tells Mary Warren she has to go to court the next day to tell the court everything she just said. Mary Warren doesn’t want to because she’s afraid of Abigail. She says Abigail would kill her if she told the truth, and that Abigail would then accused John of adultery. At that point, John realizes his secret sin isn’t so secret anymore, because Abigail has been telling her friends about it. John, though, wants to save Elizabeth, so he says, “Well, if Abigail publicly accuses me, she’s publicly accusing herself too! Fine!”
Oh, the Potholes: A Few Things Just Don’t Make Sense
Another thing I find irritating about the play, in addition to the “breaking the fourth wall” Miller constantly does, is the numerous plot holes that make the storyline ridiculous and simply unbelievable. Take the whole situation with Mary Warren’s poppet, for example.
Let’s put aside the ridiculousness of having Mary Warren tell them it is her poppet, that she made in court that day, and that she gave it to Elizabeth that evening—and having the Reverend Hale immediately suspect the Devil is putting false memories in her mind, and everyone else completely ignoring that vital information. Let’s just look at how convoluted all this is.
Abigail showed up to dinner, stabbed with a needle. She says Elizabeth “sent her spirit out” to stab her, and that Elizabeth kept poppets at her house. That’s the core allegation. But here’s a basic question: How did Abigail even know Mary Warren gave that poppet to Elizabeth in the first place? Sure, she saw Mary Warren make it in court that day, but at no point did Mary Warren tell Abigail, “Hey, I’m going to give this to Elizabeth tonight!” Therefore, how in the world could Abigail know Mary Warren did? And if there is no way she could have known that, then how would she know to cook up this “I’m going to stab myself and accuse Elizabeth’s spirit of stabbing me…then they’ll find the poppet at Elizabeth’s house and arrest her” thing?
In addition, if Abigail claimed Elizabeth kept many poppets in her house, but then they don’t find any, and the only one they find is the one Mary Warren made that day…I’m sorry, that makes no sense. “Oh,” someone might say, “the play is showing how hysteria can take over.” Okay, but in the actual Salem witch trials, the main evidence used was “spectral evidence”—which amounted to whatever the victim claimed that no one else could see. Miller here, though, brings in a supposed actual physical claim and evidence that is easily debunked, but pushes the ridiculous storyline through this gapping plot hole, nonetheless.
As I will focus on in a later post, when one looks at what really happened during the Salem witch trials, one realizes that the whole thing was just crazy hysteria–none of it made sense. It strikes me as similar to the McMartin Preschool trial in California in the 1980s. There was an initial accusation that some preschool workers were sexually molesting a child, but then, due to the blind belief that the children were telling the truth and a failure to realize just how impressionable children could be to questioning, the whole thing blew up, not just in that town, but nationwide. All of a sudden, everyone was suspecting daycare workers of sexual molestation, kiddie porn, and Satanic rites.
That, I propose, is what cultural insanity looks like. But Arthur Miller’s core problem with his play is that he takes a similar event in 1692 Salem and tries to give a “rational” reason for it–17-year-old Abigail Williams had sex with John Proctor and cooked up a plan to have Elizabeth Proctor killed so that she could end up with John. The result is a convoluted storyline that has to be spoon-fed via Miller’s “breaking the fourth wall” and that contains so many logical plot-holes that one could sail the Mayflower through them.
And we’re only halfway through the play!
Next up, Act Three…
