Why is Betty unconscious? Free Essay Example

Because the stage directions control the characters’ body language, Miller can make them come across as confident and self-assured or tentative and hesitant. For example, Mary Warren is a very shy and intrusive character, but Abigail is a very commanding character. When she enters the stage she looks like she owns it; ‘Abigail Williams, seventeen, enters- a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling. ‘ By saying she is ‘strikingly beautiful’, Miller has immediately brought the audience’s attention to Abigail.

Abigail tends to speak on behalf of all the girls when they are there.

She is like their spokesperson. This makes her seem more important and more in control of what is happening. She is a kind of leader to the girls because she is oldest of their group. The younger girls look up to her as a role model. This gives her more dramatic influence over the plot. Questions are raised immediately from the very start.

Why is Betty unconscious? Why do these characters bear grudges against each other? What is really going on? As the Act progresses the audience becomes more informed and begins to fit the pieces of the story together.

As well as having roots in the real witchcraft trials in 17th century Salem, Miller has also been influenced by McCarthyism form the late 1940s and early 1950s which he felt was similar to the witch-hunting of past centuries. Miller uses the play as a kind of satire on McCarthyism. He was able to show his views through literature.

He is able to show that he didn’t think that the people deserved to die. When Miller himself was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he felt himself being placed in the same situation as his character, John Proctor, when he was asked to name others who may be going against the law-as himself.

He refused, just as John Proctor does, although he has later played down this similarity saying, “I was just trying to stay out of jail”. So, on this count, there are links between the fictional world, the old theocratic world and the modern democratic one. The book was also seen as a political parable. Had Miller expressed his political views in a more direct fashion then the outcome of his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee might have been very different. Miller seems to structure the play into waves of hysteria and chaos, and calm and placid.

Take, for instance, scene one. The action starts immediately. Betty is lying unconscious on the bed and within a few pages, the room is full of people and very soon, they are all arguing and shouting. Because there are so many people coming and going this creates a sense of confusion. Miller does this because he wants the audience to feel a little of the same confusion as the characters in the play. This makes the audience feel like they’re well into the play and part of the action. The instant plunge into the action makes the audience think about the storyline and what is going on.

Even though we are in the same bewildered state as the characters, there is an element of dramatic irony involved. As the audience, we are allowed to see conversations and meetings between characters that many characters would not actually get to see. We have more knowledge of what is going on than the characters. Miller does this to give the audience a slight upper hand over the understanding of the storyline. The tension is created in these waves. Each time the atmosphere is calm it makes the audience anticipate a climax, but each time there is hysteria there are no real break-throughs in the story.

This is how the tension is sustained. Because people come and go, it seems like the act is organised into mini scenes, each of which ends in big arguments and show grudges towards other characters. It is important to know about these grudges because they factor heavily in the miscarriage of justice in later Acts. The mini-scenes are used as a way of informing the audience. They give you the very intricate details of each family or group of friends which are woven together later on to create a high octane ending to the play.

It is also worth noting that Act One takes place in one room. This is helpful because it limits the confusion and the audience doesn’t have to think about where all the action is taking place. We don’t have to worry about where the characters are when they leave the room – all that matters is that they’re not in that room and what is important to the plot line is being said in that room. The act ends in a big crescendo where the girls are shouting out random names of who they ‘saw’ with the devil. It is on this hysterical note that the Act is at its highest tension.

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