1a. What does Abigail claim to see on the beam? What does Abigail say is "a deadly sin"?
2a. What question does Danforth ask Mary after she says, "I'm not hurting her"? What does Mary mean when she says that the girls are "sporting"?
3a. Of what does Mary accuse Proctor? To whom does Mary rush at the end of the selection?
4a. In Puritan New England, debate raged over the admissibility in court of "spectral evidence," the evidence of spirits seen by some people but not by others. What example of such "spectral evidence" appear in this selection? What other "evidence" does Danforth have for believing that Proctor is "the Devil's man"? How would you describe the method of questioning that Danforth uses with Mary? Explain, giving examples from the selection.
5a. What pressures are put on Mary to denounce Proctor? Is what Mary does understandable? excusable? moral? Why, or why not?
1b. According to Abigail, who is making the image appear?
2b. What pressure does Danforth's question put on Mary? What might happen to Mary if the court believes Abigail and the girls? Does Mary see the bird? What explanation for the bird does she offer at first?
3b. Why does Mary change her mind and accuse Proctor?
4b. Would such a method of questioning be acceptable in a court of law today? What is the weakness of this strategy? Explain.
5b. What would you do in Mary's position? What do you think will happen next?
Stage Directions. Find examples in this scene of stage directions that indicate parts of the setting and stage directions that indicate how characters are to speak or move.
Character. Who are the major characters in this scene from The Crucible? Who are the minor characters? Briefly describe the personalities of the major characters, based on their words and actions in this scene. Which characters do you admire? Which do you not admire? Why?
Dialogue. Find examples in this scene of dialogue that would probably not be spoken by characters in a modern setting but that is appropriate to Miller's setting of the play in colonial New England.
Set and Properties. If you were designing a set for this scene from The Crucible, what elements would you have to include? What properties might you have the actors use?
Blocking. What movements described in the stage directions for this scene would have to be taken into account by the person, such as the director, who was planning the blocking of the scene?
Theme. What do you think is the theme of this scene from the play? What does the scene reveal about the forces that cause people to give in to mob hysteria? Why do some people forsake their convictions in situations like the one described in this scene?
1. Imagine that you are John Proctor. Write a speech, or address to the jury, defending yourself and refuting the "evidence" that has been collected against you.
2. Write a summary, or abstract, explaining what happens in this scene from The Crucible.
3. Imagine that you are Reverend Parris. Write a sermon you might deliver to your congregation about how to recognize whether a witness is telling the truth about an accused "witch."
The Parts of Speech. Identify the part of speech of each italicized word in the paragraph below. For more information, see the Language Arts Survey 3.7, "Parts of Speech Overview."
[1] Joseph Raymond McCarthy entered the United States Senate in 1946. [2] After two undistinguished years in the Senate, [3] he gained national recognition in 1950 by charging that over two hundred Communists [4] had infiltrated the State Department, that part of the government that oversees foreign relations. At the time, the United States was at war with the Communist government in North Korea, and many citizens of the country were [5] deeply fearful about Communist advances in Europe and China. McCarthy's charges struck a chord with the people, and for several years thereafter, [6] innocent people were hounded from their jobs in government and in the entertainment industry because of "suspected" Communist activities and "associations" with Communists. Targets [7] of McCarthyism included such well-known literary figures as Ring Lardner, Jr., and Lillian Hellman. McCarthy went too far, however, when he made accusations against such popular figures as President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1954, the Senate formally voted to condemn McCarthy for his [8] conduct, and the McCarthy Era came to an end. Did anything positive come out of the McCarthy Era? [9] Yes, this period in American history gave people a new understanding of the dangers of character assassination, guilt by association, [10] and mass hysteria. It also gave us Arthur Miller's fine play, The Crucible.
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Researching the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Hearings. Depending upon which task you have been assigned, research the Salem witch trials of 1692 or the McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s.
Salem Witch Trials or McCarthy Hearings (select one)
What were the origins of your assigned event?
How many people initiated it? Who were they?
What motivated the instigators as well as those who subsequently support the trails or the hearings?
Did anyone speak out against these crusaders? What happened to them? Why?
Our group used the following sources of information:
Examining the Criminal Justice System. Locate a news or magazine article which tells the story of someone wrongly accused of a crime.
News article author/news service, headline title, publication title, date, page number:
According to the article, what evidence was used in the case against this person? Was a false confession coerced, or forced, from the suspect? Based on what you learned about the case, was the person truly "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"? Why, or why not?
