The third act of “The Crucible” remains the most intense one, revealing the characters’ true traits and attitudes. It takes place in the Salem meeting house, with a vestry room serving as the tribunal. The courtroom shifted the power roles of the act, demonstrating the strong and weak sides of each character. This essay will discuss which primary personas of Salem take control in Act 3.
Putting various heroes on the stand revealed their sincere attitudes, allowing them to manipulate the opinions. In the courtroom, judge Hathorne is questioning the figures as if they are on the witch trial. The leadership roles in the play shift with each scene, holding the audience in suspense. In my opinion, no character vividly controls the events throughout the whole act; this role is rather delegated.
The first scene puts Danforth in control of the events, with him being the figure with the most power in the room able to decide on peasants’ lives. He explicitly demonstrates the influence he holds and at times even overuses it. A vivid example is a case when he demanded to interrogate 91 people, attempting to prove the sincerity of the suspects (Miller, 2003). The second scene introduces Proctor as the most influential character in the room. His convincing arguments save his wife from death, and assure the judge to postpone her trial; however, the control he held was not lasting.
The character who indeed controlled the act with and without her presence was Abigail. Starting from the accusations, she was the one who began such distress. In the last scene, John Proctor ultimately loses influence in pleasing the mob and worsens his status by revealing the affair with Abigail. Her intellect and the performance she acted out in court strengthened her control, which seemed to increase with each conviction.
By analyzing the power roles throughout Act 3 of “The Crucible”, one can conclude that the audience may be fooled at first by who is in control in Salem, where the explicit explanation is only unveiled towards the end of the scene. Abigail manipulates other characters’ inability to inject critical thinking into the proceeding, creating a chaotic atmosphere out of self-interest, which confirms her role of authority in this particular scene.
Reference
Arthur Miller (2003). The crucible. Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1953).