Studying characterization in Arthur Miller’sThe Crucible (original) (raw)
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Pragmatic Analysis of the Dialogues in Arthur Miller’s Drama “The Crucible”
Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics
Ever since its publication in 1953, The Crucible has attracted much attention for its tragic theme and vivid characterization. Reviews on The Crucible have been numerous and various in approaches. The present study mainly adopts pragmatic theories as its analytic approaches and analyzes the dialogues in The Crucible. It intends to find out how characters achieve their communicative purposes when they produce their utterances. Moreover, it is expected that this study may help shed some light on the pragmatic approach to the interpretation of drama. In this study, 16 fragments of dialogues are taken as the data for analysis. This study applies the Speech Acts Theory, the turn-control strategies, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the methods of Critical Discourse Analysis in data analysis. The turn-control strategies could help us learn how and why the character yields or claims a turn, and help us understand the communicative strategies of the participants. In a drama, dialogues between the characters are important ways of completing certain speech acts. The analysis of the dialogues may help us understand the real intentions of the characters. The present study carries implications for English teaching, the appreciation of drama and daily communication. Teaching turn-control strategies to students can help them communicate more successfully. The study of the theories and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis may improve students' critical language awareness. The application of pragmatic theories to the appreciation of drama contributes to the revelation of the real intentions of characters, and helps us understand how the playwright displays the story, portrays the characters and expresses his /her intentions through various language skills.
A Stylistic Approach to Power Relation Shifts in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
مجلة کلیة الآداب .جامعة بورسعید
The present paper tackles the concept of power relations and surveys some of the specific techniques, in which power relations are represented in the language of two major characters in Arthur Millers' The Crucible. The researcher adopts Brown and Levinson's (1978) Politeness theory and Culpeper's (2011) Impoliteness to contrast the language of the two major characters, namely, John Proctor and Mary Warren. The objective of the study is to highlight how the two theories contrast each other and how they can be used to manifest the power embodied in the use of language. The study highlights how the characters in the text world gain power over their superordinate by examining their language that signifies social and religious power.
2016
The present study attempts to examine the relationship of husband, John Proctor, and wife, Elizabeth Proctor, in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1953) by clarifying how their use of language in communicating with each other reflects the nature and the development of their tensed relationship. Their relationship, though personal, yet it has been influential in setting in motion the disastrous events which upset the whole community of the 1697 Salem, Massachusetts. Speech act theory associated with the work of J. L. Austin (1962) and John Searle (1975) is employed to reveal 1) a failure of communication between the two at the beginning of the play due to their troubled marital life, 2) a true rapprochement achieved by them near the end due to their long suffering during the witch hunt and also to Elizabeth's essential honesty and courageous self-awareness. Her heroic integrity forces her husband to face the truth and soon he makes his final noble choice i.e. death with ho...
Characterization and Literary Discourse
In the past few decades, there has been a growing interest among scholars and researchers in applying pragmatic tools, primarily developed in relation to spoken interaction (Black, 2006), to literary discourse; an interest in the whole texts and their communicative functions and uses in particular contexts (Short, 1995). It is growing simply because most of the pragmatic analysis was basically done on the spoken side of language use and considerably less on written use and very little on literary activity. Linguistic politeness has been proved, by many linguists and scholars we well, to be a successful device to study literature linguistically, in particular studying that aspect of characterization. This study aims at investigating Anne's character and character traits in Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, which has a very powerful meaning in children's literature, in relation to other characters inside and outside Green Gables as she grows and develops from a socially marginalized female character to a productive contributing citizen of Avonlea. The analysis shows that super and sub-strategies of linguistic politeness are capable of reflecting the character's interaction in relation to social role(s). To achieve the purpose of the study, the researchers utilize Brown and Levinson's linguistic politeness model (1987) in addition to Rossen-Knill's Face Attentiveness model (1995). The value of the study can be estimated not only by those working within the branches of linguistics or literature, but also it can be of value to students and teachers especially those teach and study the novel as part of their curriculum.
Characterisation -an intrinsic aspect of dramatic text
A playwright creates a play text with many inherent parts like plot, character, idea and language. Among these parts, characterisation is an important aspect as it helps to further the plot, to express idea and contribute to spectacle. A playwright creates character appropriate to the play and according to the dimensions in which it revolves such as physical, social, physiological and spiritual dimension. Therefore this study explores the process of character development by the play wright in the dramatic text and perseverance of this character construct in performance.
Character Analysis of Drama Text, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Faculty of Letters, 2011
In every short story, novel, or drama, there are characters. Characters have very important role in developing the plot of the story and also learn more on how people act they do, and sometimes, by what others say about them. The aims of this research are to finds ...
The World of Miller’s The Crucible: A Cognitive-Historical Approach
2017
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is one of the most controversial American plays in the 20th century. Although it deals with the Salem witchcraft trials in the 17th century, Miller intended it as an allegory about McCarthyism and as a basis for the censure of political issues after WWII. Being aware of the readers’ acquaintance with the events of Salem witchcraft trials, Miller chose the 17th century historical context in such a way that the readers understand the political circumstances of their own time through equating those religious schemata with the political ones a couple of centuries later. This paper tries to shed light on the fact that the readers’ awareness of the political conditions of the time can be enhanced by their familiarity with religious conditions of the period of confrontation with witchcraft. To that end, the article addresses the historical context of The Crucible adopting a cognitive point of view. It subsequently distinguishes the opposing discourses (dominant...
Examining the Language of Drama Texts with a Reference to Two Plays: A Stylistic Study
Examining the Language of Drama Texts with a Reference to Two Plays: A Stylistic Study, 2016
Analyzing the language of drama texts stylistically can be somehow challenging, due to the fact, dialogues need certain tools and techniques to be used. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of conducting this work is to show how to analyze plays stylistically. This paper focuses on two plays, namely, Major Barbra by G.B. Shaw, specifically, act (1) and knuckle by David Hare. In addition, showing a kind of comparison between the two playwrights' writing style, their choices and the linguistic variations, which the two texts have. Mainly, the analysis is based on Thornborrow and Wareing's (1998) model. This model applies methods of stylistics to analyze the aesthetic side of the language of the selected texts. This model also allows researchers to refer to certain tools related to pragmatics and discourse analysis to investigate the dialogues in order to reach to rightful interpretation. Since the language of drama texts shows diversity in its form, this methodology looks at a drama text as a combination of different genres which they need different tools from linguistics. In this way, readers can gain an understanding of the texts by following rational and tangible evidences from the language of the texts.
Arthur Miller’s Tragedy as Reflected inThe Crucible
In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theatre was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche because he was profoundly influenced by the depression and the war that immediately followed it. His dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times; allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken.1 Miller has his own concept of tragedy as a modern playwright. He believes that tragedy may depict ordinary people in domestic surroundings instead of talking about a character from a high rank, a king or a queen. Miller’s main concern lies in dramatizing the whole man as he is part of a family and as he is part of a society. In this paper, The Crucible is going to be considered in detail as one of the major tragedies of Arthur Miller. Miller’s The Crucible is based on the events surrounding the 1692 witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts. Miller used that event as an allegory for McCarthyism and the Red Scare, which was a period of time in which Americans were in fear of communism and the government blacklisted accused communists. The play was first performed on Broadway on January 22, 1953. The reviews of the first production were hostile, but a year later a new production succeeded and the play became a classic. The play in the present time is often studied in high schools and universities because of its status as a revolutionary work of theatre and as a document to political events of the 1950s. This play is regarded as one of the best plays of the modern age, due to its deep and captivating plot.2 Miller’s The Crucible is essentially a critique of McCarthyism and the communist scare of the 1950s. Miller saw the parallels between the witch hunts and the McCarthy trials, and found the witch trials to be a compelling vehicle for discussing modern events. The play is a great tragedy, but remains a tragedy for the modern times. The characters in this play suggest what Miller tries to show his readers the lessons from the witch hunts which still apply.3 After performing, the audience is convinced that this play remains relevant and powerful in the twenty-first century. This play can be related to the contemporary world events. It shows the willingness of human beings to blame anyone but themselves. It reinforces the belief that humans are not ready to take responsibility for their actions and would rather find a scapegoat. Miller went back to American history and dug up the records of the Salem witchcraft trails and created his own characters based on the few facts of “known behavior” of the persons involved. The result is a powerful indictment of mass hysteria and savage fury born of terror and superstition. In John Proctor, the tragic hero of The Crucible, Miller has created one of the few heroes of modern drama. A blunt, honest man, but neither an exceptionally good nor a complicated one, Proctor grows with the pressure of circumstances. Like most of Miller’s heroes, Proctor asks to preserve the honour of his name, his right to face himself and his children without apology. However, when a society has gone mad, such a simple reasonable desire makes a man on enemy of the state.4 This paper deals with Arthur Miller as a great playwright of tragedy. It consists of an introduction and two sections. The first section tackles Miller’s concept of tragedy and his view about the common man. Then, section two deals with The Crucible as Miller’s special tragedy and the conclusion reflects what is found out in this paper.
Journal of Literary Semantics
This article establishes the theoretical bases for a more direct and detailed exploration of fictional minds in cognitive stylistics. This discipline usually analyzes narrative discourse in terms of how readers process language and conceptualize narrative meaning, treating literary language more or less explicitly as a window into readers’ mental experiences. However, it is also possible to treat literary language as a window into characters’ minds, which, in spite of their obvious fictionality, could enhance the potential for cognitive linguistic analysis to inform our understanding of the human mind and consciousness more generally. This article explores the nature of linguistic meaning in different speech and thought presentation techniques primarily through the lens of Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar, ultimately prioritizing the representational semantics of Free Indirect Thought. It proposes a more precise understanding of the concept of ‘conceptualizer’ which would validate a ty...