The Crucible

The Crucible is composed of different types of imagery. These can be broken off into color, emotion, and setting. They all affect one another. Arthur Miller uses imagery to help add to the overall impact of the play. It gives The Crucible a distinctive style.

Arthur Miller uses a term known as color to help add a certain mood to the play. The town of Salem, to me, doesn't seem too bright. He paints a picture of this really gloomy town. On page 4, it mentions "... but we today would hardly call it a village... there were a few small windowed, dark houses." The way Arthur Miller "colors" this picture of the town of Salem in 1692 is not very radiant.

Another type of imagery used in this play is emotion. This is what Arthur Miller used to create drama within the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. Enter John Proctor and Abigail Williams and their secret, forbidden affair. This is a dramatic and emotional part of the play because Proctor is on the verge of losing his wife over a young he lusts not loves. On page 20 it talks about John and Abigail's affair and how he is about to end it.

The setting is the last important piece of imagery crucial to The Crucible. The play takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. On pages 4 and 5 it states "Salem had been established hardly 40 years before" and "no one can really know what their lives were like." This means that all the "characters" were all living in a relatively new society which no one ever really knew much about. What went on in the town is a mystery to others.

All these techniques add to the overall impact of the play. Color helps the reader get a sense of how these townspeople lived. Emotion helps them to understand how these people felt and dealt with their problems, such as the witch trials. The setting shows us in what environment these occurrences took place. All these devices