Differences Between The Crucible Book And Movie

Words: 1365
Pages: 6

“The Crucible” by Arthur Miller is a screenplay about the Salem witch trials and a girl named Abigail weaving a convoluted web of lies around Elizabeth Proctor and other citizens of Salem in order to quell her jealousy over Elizabeth’s husband and exact revenge. “The Crucible” was translated into film pretty seamlessly in 1996; the plot of the movie remains true to the book and is very engrossing. That isn't to say however that there aren’t differences. A large part of the book is the ever present narrator, who clues you into a character’s history and their motives as or before they actually appear: “He is a sinner, a sinner not only on the moral fashion of his the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct.” - The Narrator on John Proctor (Miller 19). In the motion picture the narrator is nowhere to be found and while this is accounted for with visuals, body language and non narrator oriented parts of the story, it is a significant difference between the book and movie. Later in both the book and movie Abigail corners John Proctor and and speaks with him about how they slept together, in the book John tells Abigail that it meant nothing and she unsuccessfully attempts to stop him from …show more content…
While this occurs in the book it seems much more ‘witchy’ in the movie involving symbols painted around the fire that weren’t mentioned in the book. The movie also includes Tituba killing a rooster by swinging it around her head, even though neither the rooster, nor it’s centrifuge like death were ever mentioned in the book. Abigail goes a little crazy in the movie and drinks the roosters blood much to the terror of the other girls, many of which were never mentioned in the book. The purpose for the gathering while remaining opaque in the book is made clear in the movie: they are attempting the ensorcell some males of the species into finding them romantically