The Crucible Language Features

Hysteria 

#1: There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!

Act 1

Characters: Mrs. Putnam (Speaker), Parris, Proctor

Techniques: Repetition, conduplication, symbolism

#2: I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—vengeance is walking Salem.

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Herrick, Elizabeth, Hale

Techniques: Antanaclasis, truncated sentence

#3: We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Herrick, Elizabeth, Hale

Techniques: Repetition, contrast, metaphorical imagery

#4: A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth!…God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!

Act 3

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Parris, Mary Warren

Techniques: Repetition, biblical allusion, metaphor, paradox

Fear

#5: The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone.

Act 1

Characters: Hale, Reverend John Hale of Beverly

Techniques: Simile

#6: Don’t lie!..She comes to me while I sleep; she’s always making me dream corruptions!

Act 1

Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Tituba, Parris, Hale, Putnam

Techniques: Dramatic irony, symbolism

#7: the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points!

Act 2

Characters: Hale, Francis, Giles

Techniques: Foreshadowing, synecdoche  

#8: Oh, the noose, the noose is up!

Act 2

Characters: Elizabeth (Speaker), Mary Warren, Proctor

Techniques: Metonym, repetition, metaphor 

#9: Elizabeth, with great fear: I will fear nothing.

Act 2

Characters: Elizabeth (Speaker), Proctor, Herrick

Techniques: Contrast, irony

#10: She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris’s house tonight, and without word nor warnin’ she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. 

Act 2

Characters: Cheever (Speaker), Abigail, Parris, Hale, Proctor

Techniques: Polysyndeton, simile, bestial connotations, alliteration

#11: I am not empowered to trade your life for a lie….Mr. Proctor, a score of people have already testified they saw this woman with the Devil. 

Act 4

Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Proctor

Techniques: Dramatic irony, alliteration, biblical allusion

#12: It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God’s most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it . . ..it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride.

Act 4

Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Giles, Parris

Techniques: Contrast, asyndeton, repetition 

#13: I would to God it were not so, Excellency, but these people have great weight yet in the town.

Act 4

Characters: Parris (Speaker), Hathorne, Danforth

Techniques: Comparison, dramatic irony

#14: Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part; reprieve or pardon must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now. While I speak God’s law, I will not crack its voice with whimpering.

Act 4

Characters: Hathorne (Speaker), Parris, Hale, Danforth

Techniques: Oxymoron, metaphor, contrast

Reputation

#15: I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.

Act 1

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Putnam, Parris

Techniques: Dramatic irony, contrast

#16: My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is soiled! Goody Proctor is a gossiping liar!

Act 2

Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Parris

Techniques: Exclamation, metonym, motif

#17: I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another…I have no tongue for it. 

Act 4

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Hale

Techniques: Tricolon, metaphor, motif

#18: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life.

Act 4

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Danforth

Techniques: Metonym, motif, biblical symbolism

Autonomy

#19: I want to open myself! . . . I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!

Act 1

Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Hale, Tituba 

Techniques: Anaphora, biblical allusion, contrast 

#20: You are not undone! Let you take hold here. Wait for no one to charge you – declare it yourself. 

X

Act 1

Characters: Putnam (Speaker), Parris, Tituba, Ruth

Techniques: Exclamation, caesura 

#21: Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now…And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Mary Warren

Techniques: Repetition, imagery, juxtaposition

#22: I’ll plead no more! I see now your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Elizabeth

Techniques: Biblical imagery, metaphor, hyperbole 

#23: A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is . . . She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance.

Act 3

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Abigail, Danforth, Francis

Techniques: Parataxis, juxtaposition, metonym 

#24: He knows it is insane: No, it is not the same! What others say and what I sign to is not the same!

Act 4

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Danforth

Techniques: Rhyme, repetition 

#25: You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of salvation that you should use me!

Act 4

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Danforth

Techniques: Biblical allusion, dramatic irony, juxtaposition, epistrophe 

#26: Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I’ll cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again.

Act 4

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Abigail 

Techniques: Contrast, juxtaposition, imagery 

#27: Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. “More weight,” he says. And died.

Act 4

Characters: Elizabeth (Speaker), Proctor

Techniques: Symbolism, parataxis, metaphor 

Power

#28: HALE, with a tasty love of intellectual pursuit...Here are all your familiar spirits – your incubi and succubi; your witches that go by land, by air, and by sea

Act 1

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Rebecca, Paris

Techniques: Mythological allusion, tricolon

#29: John – tell me, are we lost?

Act 2 

Characters: Giles (Speaker), Proctor

Techniques: Metaphor, symbolism

#30: Oh, Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer!

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Elizabeth

Techniques: Hyperbole, metaphor  

#31: Do you take it upon yourself to determine what this court shall believe and what it shall set aside? . . . .This is the highest court of the supreme government of this province, do you know it?

Act 3

Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Giles

Techniques: Metonym, rhetorical question 

#32: I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up.

Act 4

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Danforth, Elizabeth 

Techniques: Simile, connotations, symbolism

Violence

#33: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!

Act 1

Characters: Parris (Speaker), Tituba, Abigail, Hale, Putnam

Techniques: Declarative tone, imagery, juxtaposition, foreshadowing 

#34: What work you do! It’s strange work for a Christian girl to hang old women!

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Mary Warren

Techniques: Contrast, paradox, juxtaposition, characterisation 

#35: Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers?

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Mary Warren

Techniques: Tricolon, simile, motif

#36: There is fear in the country because there is a moving plot to topple Christ in the country!

Act 3

Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Hale, 

Techniques: Alliteration, repetition, metaphor 

#37: You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time—we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it.

Act 3

Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Francis, Hathorne

Techniques: Contrast, metaphor, motif

#38: Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims – and they do testify, the children certainly do testify.

Act 3

Characters: Danforth (Speaker), Mary Warren, Hale

Techniques: Paradox, logical objective tone

#39: HALE, to Parris, trying to contain himself: Is every defense an attack upon the court? Can no one—?

Act 3

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Parris

Techniques: Rhetorical question, characterisation

#40: Excellency, it is a natural lie to tell; I beg you, stop now before another is condemned! I may shut my conscience to it no more

Act 3

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Danforth, Proctor

Techniques: Juxtaposition, emotive language

#41: Life, woman, life is God’s most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.

Act 4

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Elizabeth, Danforth, Hathorne

Techniques: Dramatic irony, biblical allusion

Good VS Evil Quotes

#42: I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!

Act 1

Characters: Abigail (Speaker), Proctor 

Techniques: Foreshadowing, biblical reference, metaphor, consonance

#43: if Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing’s left to stop the whole green world from burning

Act 2

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Francis, Rebecca Nurse 

Techniques: Hyperbole, metaphor

#44: Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.

Act 2

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Giles

Techniques: Metaphor, biblical allusion, allegory, contrast 

#45: I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I’ll not conceal it.

Act 2

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Hale

Techniques: Characterisation, dramatic irony, metaphor 

#46: Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profits nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl.

Act 2

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Proctor

Techniques: Juxtaposition, connotation 

#47: You are pulling down Heaven and raising up a whore!

Act 3

Characters: Proctor (Speaker), Hale, Danforth 

Techniques: Juxtaposition, metaphor, metonym, exclamation  

#48: I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.

Act 3

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Mary, Danforth

Techniques: Characterisation, ambiguity

#49: I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!

Act 4

Characters: Hale (Speaker), Elizabeth, Danforth

Techniques: Metaphor, symbolism, metonym, connotations, dehumanisation 

#50: He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!

Act 4

Characters: Elizabeth (Speaker), Hale

Techniques: Motif, dramatic irony, exclamation