Well, IMO there are LOT of issues (sloppiness) with the play's writing that are papered over with the DRAMA and angst. I saw a youtube the other day where Arthur Miller and Daniel Day Lewis talked about the Crucible (Lewis went on to be Miller's son-in-law). This is from the 1990s when the movie was made. They edited the heck out of the conversation because it seemed Miller didn't know what he was talking about. He started by saying, "John Proctor is a farmer, who is in love with a servant girl." Then Miller said Abigail started out doing the lies "for fun", but when it turned serious, says Miller, "there is only one way to go after that!" And Lewis is trying to follow along, and Miller goes, "You (Abigail) have to start to believing it yourself!!" Then Miller started talking about how there were only hints at first that Abigail was after "Mrs. Proctor." Daniel Day Lewis tried to switch it to "I think John's big torment is that he caused great harm to the person he loved most in the world." (his wife) - but Miller was in no shape to respond. He was basically "It's a hell of a story!" So it seems to me he was most proud of the crazy girls part of it all, how he added that in and it got the audience excited.
Miller then went on about how girls in Puritan times had to behave, how repressed they were back then, but I know from what I've read he's got the details wrong about it.
Anyway, here are some of my problems with sloppiness in the story: The real Abigail accused in March-April (early spring). The play seems to take place at the same time, as the fields are not yet green, says John. We are told the affair happened seven months in the past, which would mean in September or October. But the affair, says Elizabeth Proctor, happened "last winter I was a long time sick with my last child." And unless John Proctor jumped on Abigail as his wife was giving birth, the baby was born even further back, giving Elizabeth time to be sick and not doing her wifely duties.
In Act II, Proctor goes: "the fields are full of flowers! The lilacs smell great!" But it's March or very early April. Lilacs bloom in May.
There's also the whole deal with Proctor and Elizabeth's marriage. Starting in Act II, Proctor is complaining and mad that Elizabeth is still distant with him, still removed. That would suggest that before she found out about the affair, she WASN'T distant and removed, because otherwise her being distant would be normal, not something she's punishing him with for seven months because he cheated.
So in Act II, the marriage goes like this:
Elizabeth had a baby, was sick afterwards, and presumably did not fulfill her wifely duties for awhile, leaving John vulnerable to Abigail.
When Elizabeth finds out, she kicks out Abigail and gives John the cold shoulder, for seven straight months, frustrating him and making him yell at her.
BUT, even though he's disappointed when he kisses her and she doesn't kiss him back, and things are tense, they are still having sex because she's pregnant when she's arrested. One wonders how the sex plays out. They don't talk? They don't look at each other? They don't kiss? How do you match up them having regular sex together with how they behave together in Act II?
In Act IV, Elizabeth tells John she's to blame for him going to Abigail because she was so insecure about herself she kept a cold house. If she's been cold the whole time they were married, why was John acting like she was only punishing him with coldness after the affair? Cause in Act II he's like, Hey, I'll kiss you, hey, on Saturday we'll walk in the flower fields! like there was a time their marriage was normal and he wants to go back. But in Act IV, she swoops in and says, "And hey, BTW audience I was frigid so it was never really his fault!" it's like she's saying she was cold in their entire marriage, so now John's complaints in Act II make no sense.
Then there's confusion about the affair with Abigail. Was it an affair or a one night stand? In court, John acts like it's a one night stand when he names the night it happened. Abigail talks about how he clutched her back behind the barn, which also sort of suggests a one off. Also, when one considers John is supposed to be basically a good man, a one night stand is forgiveable, but constantly running back to the barn with the maid isn't, so a lot points to one night. John even calls it "the single error of my life!" like it was a stallion and mare rutting once. But with Abigail he's like "I won't be coming for your more." as if he's been coming for her to sneak off in the past. And she says "You took me from my bed." as if he snuck into her room.
To me there is no deep meaning in this play. It's a spectacle. People are fascinated by the fatal attraction part, the hurt marriage part, and the noble drama at the end.
Also it's really weird that Abigail just disappears from the play after Act III.
I was in this play in school, and I remember we were all joking that Reverend Hale was the father of Elizabeth Proctor's baby.
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JaneThree
8 years ago
So, I did some more reading up on Arthur Miller. What one researcher said is Arthur Miller wanted to write an adultery play (not a McCarthy hearings play). In the Salem witch trials, he found the framework for his adultery play, by lowering John's age and raising Abigail's. BUT, he originally contemplated having John realize he really wants his wife dead, and that creates a crisis of guilt.
To me, the vestiges of a play where John Proctor wants his wife dead, and is in denial about it, are still in The Crucible, and make me not trust it. In the first place, Abigail, in Act I and in the Appendix (which was meant to come after Elizabeth's arrest), is given a soap box to rant about how cold and sniveling John's wife is, and how he's just doing his duty by her, but how he'll "Sing secret alleluias that his wife will hang." After Abigail sneers about how cold Elizabeth is in Act I, John tells Abigail not to speak against Elizabeth (he doesn't defend Elizabeth, just tells Abigail to shut it), and then later JOHN tells Elizabeth how cold she is.
So I think we see Miller's original idea still sneaking in there, which makes John not trustworthy. In the original play I bet we find that John subconsciously sought out Abigail because he could sense what she was and get rid of his wife via her, and when he realizes this, OY!
We have Miller using Abigail to drop "truth bombs" about John and Elizabeth, that John denies but are probably really true about how John feels in Miller's original intention.
The "I really want my wife dead" part was taken out, but the dialogue stayed in, and it makes John look shifty, IMO. He's one thing in Act I and denies it in Act II, and after he grandstands about saving his wife when she's arrested, something else happens. In a scene that is often dropped from the play, he goes to see Abigail at night under intimate circumstances. All that happens in the scene is a) she's crazy; b) she shows him wounds on her body (an excuse to show him her body); c) she talks about their amazing sex; d) and how he wants his wife dead. John hears the whole thing out til the end - she does all the talking, and then says "Whore!" and leaves. "Whore!" isn't a denial.
John is shifty in the play. I don't really trust him, even though the play changed. AND the play absolutely comes across like an adultery play that Miller drops after the beginning of Act III, and then he switches off then to the McCarthy hearing play.
The Appendix (to come after the wife is arrested) was commissioned by Lawrence Olivier, who ended up not using it because he said it destroyed the rhythm of the play. *I* think it exposed that Miller was really writing a play about a guy who wants his wife dead. He protects John by having Abigail say most of it, but John gives her plenty of room to say what she wants. Anyway, I think coming after his wife's arrest, that scene makes John look really bad, just the circumstances and how he's taking his time talking with her, and that's why it was cut.
In the movie, that scene becomes Daniel Day Miller riding in on a horse in broad daylight to confront a fully dressed Abigail, saying right away to Abigail - bitch, better knock it off or tomorrow I expose you as a fornicator. She makes a move, he knocks her to the ground and leaves. It's a 30 second scene. So I think the people making the movie saw what Miller thought he was hiding - that the original version of the scene gave the game away that John was conflicted about his wife's arrest. "Whore" isn't an answer. "Murderer!" isn't an answer. "I don't want my wife to hang, I love her, not you!" IS an answer and John never says it.
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