Language in the crucible - one of the most remarkable aspects of the crucible is
miler's creation of believable dialogue for his 17th century puritans although
partly based on what he found in salem records, most of it is his own invention
it is convincingly old-fashioned without it being hard to understand the
language carries echos of the king james bible; but word by word, apart from a
few achatic terms - such as 'harlot' and 'poppet' - the vocabulary is mostly
modern miller achieves his effects by linking words in an unusual way, using
double negatives, chnging verb tenses, and other devices of the same kind here
are some examples : pg 9 : he cannot discover no medicine for it in his books pg
10 : i know you have not opened with me pg 59 : seeing i do live so closely with
you, they dismissed it pg 95 : i am thirty three time in court in my life pg 114
: you wonder yet if rebellion's spoke ? with this shared language miller varies
the way his characters speak to suit their background and personality ministers
and judges naturally use more elaborate phrases than the villages giles is blunt
and coarse : pg 96 - a fart on thomas putnam, that is what i say to that john
protor usues some of the most poetic lines, whether he is describing his delight
in the massachusett's countryside (pg 51) or crying out in despair at the end of
act 3 (pg 119) there is an element of comedy in the language between protor and
mary in the scene where he told her to go to bed and she said she would not have
him order her around but when he gave her a choice, she decided to go to bed
after all this particular comic scene heightens the horrors of the situation as
influential people like proctor are at the mercy of silly girls accusing
everyone of witchcraft most characters use similie and metaphor example as
follows pg 20 : there be no blush about my name pg 102 : a very augur bit will
now be turned into your souls until your honesty is proved pg 10 : my daughter
and my niece i discovered dancing like heathen in the forest pg 29 : i know how
you....sweat like a stallion whenever i come near! on pg 132 where hale is
speaking to elizabeth, he uses elaborated language and he talked a lot about
himself before coming to the point his language reveals who he is as he was very
full of himself when he first came to salem that he was blinded to the truth and
when he finally came to the 'point' (turth) it was too late.