The Crucible Act Structure Essay

Words: 526
Pages: 3

The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller is a four Act play that reveals the heinous crimes and the malicious vendettas brought upon the people of Salem, due to nothing but their own greed, envy, lust, and fear with an overall fable that compares the similarities of the atrocities in Salem of the 1690’s to false accusations and murders of McCarthyism during the red scare. While most plays follow the guide lines of The Five-Act Structure or even the more simplistic Three-Act Structure, The Crucible seemingly tends to ignore both and land comfortably in the middle with only four acts to its name. While only possessing four acts, “The Five-Act Structure” is not so easily applied with a visual glance, but with careful examination the play is effortlessly stretched to reach the criteria of the Five-Act Structure.
Act I contains the first part of the five act structure, the Exposition. The reader quickly learns of the colonial American setting, and is thrown into the conflict straight away, with Abigail
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John Proctor soon finds out through his house servant Mary Warren that the girls are faking attacks and framing random people for attacking them. With that in mind John confronts Abigail about the lying, and deception only to be stunned that Abigail intends to frame his wife, so she can have him to herself. To throw a socket into the already dysfunctional gears, Cheever comes for her, and when John asks who John is meet with “Why, Abigail Williams charge her.” Creating a friction between John and his star crossed lover Abigail, sending John to get vengeance of his own. All of these examples are how Act II expertly thickens the plot for a richer story, and eventually leads the highest point of suspense in the