Ich hab jetzt mal mein Buchexemplar ( methuen drama student edition/Bloomsbury) hervorgekramt. Darin steht in den Annotationen zur Sprache des Stücks folgendes:
Zitat:
He (Miller) wanted his audience to be drawn into the world he created but felt the archaic speech of the period might be off-putting. He developed his own poetic language for the play, based on the language he had read in Salem documents. Wanting to make his audience feel they were witnessing events from an earlier time, yet not wanting to make the dialogue incomprehensible, he devised a form of speech fro his characters that blended into present-day speech an earlier vocabulary and syntax. Incorporating more familiar archaic words like " yea" " nay" or " goodly", Miller created the impression of a past era without distancing his audience from the action
Interessant ist auch, dass Miller das Stück erst in Versform geschrieben hatte und erst später in Prosa. Erhalten blieben aber die poetischen Metaphern ( oft bezügl. blood, fire-> z.B. schon im Titel ( crucible bedeutet Feuerprobe) and ice) und viele symbolische Elemente.
Bzgl. Proktor
Zitat:
Miller wants his hero to be realistic and he shows him with his human flaws. He is a man of deep passion, which not only led him into an affair with his servant, but can also be observed in the intensity oh his frustration and anger. His rocky relationship with Elizabeth highlights this passion: one moment he is deeply solicitous, the next furiously angry...
Once Proctor controls his anger, however, he is able to act in a far more positive fashion. His ultimate refusal to go along with the confession indicates his awareness that he has a responsibility to himself and his community. He would rather hang than participate in the false jidgment of others. Through Proktor and the ohers who die with him, Miller acknowledges the heroism of these victims in order to recognize and celbrate the existence of such personal integrity even in the bleakest of worlds.