Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a...
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Transcript of Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a...
![Page 1: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Presentation 4.1
The ending of The Crucible
![Page 2: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Why do the court want Proctor to confess?
‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor confess.
• Centrality of names and reputations in Salem village.
• How do the audience feel about the court bringing the visibly pregnant Elizabeth to persuade John to confess?
![Page 3: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Proctor’s dialogue with Elizabeth
• Contrast to the stunted formality and awkwardness of the beginning ofAct II :How and why has their relationship evolved?
• Importance of stage directions to emphasise emotions / intuitive understanding of one another:What kind of atmosphere is Miller generating? Audience response?
• Elizabeth taking some of the blame for Proctor’s adultery: ‘I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery’; ‘You take my sins upon you’;‘Suspicion kissed you when I did’;‘It were a cold house I kept!’Breaking down of barriers, mutual forgiveness and understanding.
• Recognition of Proctor as a ‘good man’: ‘I never knew such goodness in the world!’
![Page 4: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Proctor’s dilemma: to confess or not to confess?
• Elizabeth’s refusal to judge him: ‘I cannot judge you, John … As you will, I would have it’:Audience response?
• Proctor’s feelings of hypocrisy:‘It is a pretence’;‘My honesty is broke … Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before’;‘Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls’.
• Example of friends: although ‘There be many confessed’, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse refuse:How does Proctor feel about the fact his friends refuse to confess?
![Page 5: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Affirmation of Life
‘I want my life … I will have my life’
How does the audience feel about Proctor’s initial decision to confess to save his life?
![Page 6: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Why does Proctor go back on
his decision?• ‘It is evil’• Identity: ‘What is John Proctor?’• Need for confession to be written and posted on the church
door ‘for the good instruction of the village’.• Example of Rebecca Nurse: ‘Oh John – God send his mercy
on you!’• Distaste at pressure to incriminate others: ‘I speak my own
sins; I cannot judge another… I have no tongue for it.’
![Page 7: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
The sanctity of Proctor’s name
• Refusal to sign name to confession to show publicly: ‘Is there no good penitence but it be public?’
• Self assertion: pride in name – ‘I am John Proctor!”• Shame: ‘I have three children – how may I teach them to
walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends?’• Stage directions suggest Proctor’s wild, emotional state.• Impassioned dialogue: ‘Because it is my name!’:
What does Miller suggest about the importance of Proctor’s name to him? Is this superficial pride or does the significance of his name run deeper?
![Page 8: Presentation 4.1 The ending of The Crucible. Why do the court want Proctor to confess? ‘It is a weighty name; it will strike the village that Proctor.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022072006/56649cf85503460f949c8626/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Tearing of the confession
• Audience response?
• Has Proctor achieved a kind of moral victory over the court / society or is this sacrifice fruitless?
• ‘He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him.’