Crucible Act 2 Study GuideCrucible Act 2 Study Guide

The Crucible — Act 2 Study Guide Page 1

The Crucible — Act Two Study Guide

The Proctors' common room, eight days later · plus the "Act II, Scene 2" appendix

At a Glance

Act Two moves from Parris's house to the Proctor home. In eight days the rumor has turned into a functioning court with judges from Boston, a Deputy Governor, and power to hang. The act is built as a funnel. It starts with a strained domestic scene between John and Elizabeth, brings the outside world in through Mary Warren, then Hale, then Giles and Francis, then Cheever and Herrick, and ends with Elizabeth arrested on Abigail's charge. Proctor is left with a choice: expose Abigail and confess his own sin, or let his wife die.

Item Detail

Setting "The low, dark, and rather long living room" of the Proctors' farmhouse at dusk

Time Eight days after Act One; spring, planting season

Court

status

Four judges out of Boston, headed by the Deputy Governor; first 14, then 39 arrested; Goody Osburn "will hang" Main turn The poppet with the needle "proves" Elizabeth's witchcraft and Cheever arrests her on Abigail's charge Ending Proctor forces Mary Warren to agree to testify: "We will slide together into our pit" Appendix Act II, Scene 2 (the woods), cut from most productions, where Proctor warns Abigail the night before Elizabeth's trial

Scene-by-Scene Summary

1. Supper: a marriage in winter

Proctor comes in from planting "far out to the forest edge," tastes the stew, and quietly adds salt. When Elizabeth asks, he tells her it's "well seasoned." It is a small lie meant to please her, and it shows how carefully he is acting. He kisses her; "she receives it," and he returns "with a certain disappointment." He mentions buying George Jacobs' heifer and says "It's winter in here yet," asking her to bring flowers into the house. The rabbit that "walked into the house" and the talk of lilacs contrast spring outside with the coldness inside.

2. Elizabeth presses: go to Salem

Elizabeth reports what Mary Warren told her. There is "a proper court" with four judges and the Deputy Governor, fourteen people in jail, and hangings promised for those who won't confess. When Abigail walks through the crowd it parts "like the sea for Israel." Elizabeth wants John to go to Ezekiel Cheever and repeat what Abigail told him, that the sickness "had naught to do with witchcraft." John hesitates. He then lets slip that he was alone with Abigail, which contradicts his earlier account ("it is not as you told me"). Their quarrel peaks with his line "Your justice would freeze beer!" and her reply, "The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you."

3. Mary Warren returns: the poppet and the court

Mary comes back pale and "sick." She gives Elizabeth a rag doll (a "poppet") that she sewed in court. She reports that thirty-nine are now arrested and that Goody Osburn will hang. Sarah Good was spared because she confessed, and because she is supposedly pregnant at "near to sixty." Mary describes how she "remembered" Sarah Good's curses. She felt "a misty coldness" and "a clamp around my neck," then heard "a screamin' voice, and it were my voice." Osburn's failure to recite the Commandments counted as "hard proof." When Proctor reaches for the whip,

The Crucible — Act 2 Study Guide Page 2

Mary blurts out "I saved her life today!" Elizabeth was "somewhat mentioned." Mary now claims status as "an official of the court" and says "I am eighteen and a woman."

4. Elizabeth's analysis: "She wants me dead"

Elizabeth sees Abigail's motive clearly: "There is a promise made in any bed… She thinks to kill me, then to take my place." She points out that Abigail could safely accuse outcasts like Good and Osburn, but naming a farmer's wife is risky, so "there be monstrous profit in it." She asks John to go to Abigail and "tell her she's a whore." He agrees, but resents the suspicion: "The promise that a stallion gives a mare I gave that girl!" Elizabeth answers: "She has an arrow in you yet, John Proctor, and you know it well!"

5. Hale's visit: testing the household

Hale arrives "of my own, without the court's authority." He is "different now… a quality of deference, even of guilt." He says Rebecca Nurse is "mentioned somewhat." He questions the Proctors on church attendance ("Twenty-six time in seventeen month"), Parris's "golden candlesticks," and why only two of their three boys are baptized ("I see no light of God in that man"). When asked to recite the Ten Commandments, Proctor forgets adultery, and Elizabeth has to supply it ("Adultery, John"). Hale says "Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small." Proctor finally tells him what Abigail said. Hale asks whether Proctor believes in witches. Elizabeth says that if Hale thinks she is one, "then I say there are none."

6. Giles and Francis: the arrests begin

Giles: "They take my wife." Francis: "And his Rebecca!" Rebecca is charged with "the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam's babies." Martha Corey was charged by Walcott over a pig that died. Hale is shaken but holds his position: "if Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing's left to stop the whole green world from burning," and "until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven."

7. Cheever, Herrick, and the poppet