Crucible Act III Quiz

1.In one of Judge Danforth's passages in Act III, he shows logical fallacy. In our court system, there are witnesses to help make the decision on whether the person is innocent or guilty. Judge Danforth said in his passage that there is no witnesses for witchcraft and the only person who could testify is the one being cursed by the witch because the witch would not accuse themselves. The wrong thing with that is the girls saying they are being cursed could be totally lying and say what they want to say and no one would ever know because they are the only witnesses of this trial. The best example would be Abigail and all the lies she makes and still everyone believes her. Judge Danforth shows many other examples of logical fallacy and it is easily observed.


2.When Mrs. Putnam explains the reasons for expelling Abigail, she is showing dramatic irony. Before Elizabeth even comes to the courthouse, John admits he committed adultery with Abigail to erase the accusation of Elizabeth being a witch. John also says his wife would never lie and that she is a good woman. Then Elizabeth is called in to testify whether John committed adultery or not. Then when Elizabeth is asked, she stops to think and then answers no and she has lied when John said she would not. The dramatic irony is that Elizabeth lied when everybody thought she would but she only did it because she thought she was helping her husband and doing the right thing.


3.While in the courtroom in Act IV, Mary Warren turns on Proctor and rushes to Abigail saying she would not hurt her anymore. In Arthur Miller's stage directions, it says "Abigail, out of her infinite charity, reaches out." The two words "infinite charity" is an example of dramatic irony and to the reader, verbal irony. There is much irony in this because everybody knows that Abigail was not being nice to Mary Warren and accepting her back but the only reason she did was to make it seem that she is being truthful with the whole witchhunt deal because she knew Proctor was going to force Mary Warren to explain what was really happening and then she would be in a good deal of trouble.