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One of the more intriguing historical events Arthur Miller included in The Crucible was Giles Corey's refusal to answer his indictment for witchcraft in order to preserve his land for his sons' inheritance. In punishment, Corey was pressed with great stones, still refusing to confess to witchery. Corey died, still in defiance, uttering as his last words, "More Weight." Miller assigns great significance to Corey's words for he uses them in Act Four at a decisive moment for his protagonist, John Proctor. In hearing about Giles's death, Proctor repeats Corey's words, as if to consider their meaning for himself. In fact, Miller intimately connects the word "weight" to the theme of the play by employing it ten times throughout the four acts. Tracing the repetition "weight" in The Crucible reveals how the word supports one of the play's crucial themes: how an individual's struggle for truth often conflicts with society.
Some critics have conducted similar language studies of The Crucible. In "Setting, Language and the Force of Evil in The Crucible," Penelope Curtis maintains that the language of the play is marked by what she calls "half-metaphor," which Miller employs to suggest the themes. For example, she examines the interplay of language between Elizabeth and Abigail which indicates reputation, such as "something soiled," "entirely white," "no blush about my name."(1) John Prudhoe, in "Arthur Miller and the Tradition of Tragedy," notes how the characters use Biblical imagery in their language because "a large context of traditional beliefs gives meaning to their words."(2) Stephen Fender, in "Precision and Pseudo-Precision in The Crucible," refutes Prudhoe's analysis and argues that the language of the Salemites actually reveals "the speech of a society totally without moral referents."(3) Leonard Moss, in "Arthur Miller and the Common Man's Language," discusses how Miller as a playwright has a "talent for expressing inward urgency through colloquial language."(4) Among the articles which discuss the importance of "name" in the language of the play are Ruby Cohn in Dialogue in American Drama, Gerald Weales in "Arthur Miller: Man and His Image," and Michael J. O'Neal in "History, Myth and Name Magic in Arthur Miller's The Crucible."(5) The only critic who makes a similar linguistic analysis is Edward Murray. In Arthur Miller, Dramatist, Murray examines how...