The opening scene of act three shows the courtroom of the Salem house as Judge Hathorne questions Martha Corey about her allegedly engaging in the practice of witchcraft. Giles the husband of Mary stood up to defend his wife of the accusation and because of his act of questioning the court, Danforth along with Cheever and Paris tries to control Giles and stop him from giving unpleasant remarks about the court’s authority. The scene goes on with the commotion happening inside the court as the people argue and try to determine the real story about the witches in Salem, a story that was told by the girls Betty, Abby Mercy and Mary. Other people involved in the commotion Francis and his Wife Rebecca who is also reported as a witch. The scene ends with John Proctor showing Danforth a list of people who testified against the allegations but still Danforth orders Cheever to prepare the warrants of arrest for the suspects and Danforth saying that it is either people stays with the court or counted against it and no in betweens.
Scene two of act three opens as Giles and Danforth are arguing about another issue involving Thomas Putnam being the mastermind of accusing George Jacobs a witch, which led to Giles’ arrest or contempt for not telling Danforth where he got the information about Putnam having dirty plans for Jacobs’ land. The scene continues with Proctor talking to Danforth claiming that he lied about the witchcraft, and then Hale asks Danforth to let Proctor have his own lawyer and Danforth denies this. Then Danforth went on to question the girls again about the truth, but this time it was Susanna, Betty, Abigail and Mercy. His talk with the girls went too confusing as the girls told different stories and reasons which ended up with Mary asking them to stop it and not accuse her of lying.
The scene three shows John yelling at Abby and calling her a whore and accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft because Danforth got him to tell the reasons why he is doing this to Abby. And because of what John told him, Danforth then again goes to question Elizabeth in court about this new lead in the story. The scene goes on until another commotion happened in the court that shocked the people because of the girls acting like they are seeing something on the ceiling and all of them then started acting weird. Danforth continues on his queries but was unable to elicit responses because the court especially Mary are distracted by what is happening. As everyone begins to scream and panic, John tries to comfort Mary but instead she shouted to him and said that he is the devil. The scene closed with Danforth arresting Giles and Proctor and Hale walking out quitting the court because of his anger with Danforth.
Work Cited:
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. 1953.
