Name:______
Ms. Grande
English 11
November 2013
The Crucible-Figurative Language Part I
In each of the following lines, identify the speaker and the type of figurative language illustrated (metaphor, simile, personification, allusion). Place your answer next to the quote. Turn the page over for additional instructions.
1. “She were swaying like a dumb beast over the fire.”
2. “And I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you.”
3. “…we may open up the boil of all our troubles today.”
4. “You are God’s instrument put into our hands.”
5. “It’s warm as blood beneath the clods.”
6. “… an everlasting funeral marches round your heart.” John Proctor, metaphor
7. “Theology, sir, is a fortress.”
8. “”My wife is the very brick and mortar of the church.”
9. “Pontius Pilate! God will not let you wash your hands.”
10. “I will fall like an ocean on that court.”
11. “We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment.”
12. “… be clear, open as the sky and honest.”
13. “Now remember what the angel Raphael said to the boy Tobias.”
14. “Children, a very augur bit will now be turned into your souls until your honesty is proved.”
15. “I have made a bell of my honor! I have rung the doom of my good name.”
16. “… his eyes were like coals.”
17. “He sits like some great bird.”
18. “Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part.”
19. “I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion.”
20. “I have gone this three month like our Lord into the wilderness.”
The Crucible-Figurative Language Part II
Write a paragraph that explains how Arthur Miller’s figurative language impacts the audience by engaging in analysis. Please use the model on the back to guide your thinking and writing.
*Do not use the same quote that I use for your paragraph!*
“[…] an everlasting funeral marches round your heart.”
METAPHOR- a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is
not literally applicable (because they are unlike in most ways)
Context: John Proctor says this to Elizabeth during the beginning of Act II. The conversation has been strained. Elizabeth wants John to go to town and let people know that Abigail told him that the whole situation is just sport. She learns he was in the room alone with Abigail, which troubles her, and bickering ensues. John accuses her of not forgiving him. Preceding the quote he says, “I have not moved from there to there without I think it please you, and […]” (54).
Diction / Significance/representationeverlasting
funeral
march
heart
round / eternal, nonstop
death, mourning, where the metaphor lies- a funeral is not literally marching around her heart, but there is a death of something, and a sadness, a somberness, associated with the loss. What is dead? Lost? Mourned?
Formal
Love, emotions, feelings
Encircled, enveloped, reminds me of “everlasting”
In the beginning of Act II of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, there is a strained tone in the Proctor household. It is clear from the stilted dialogue that Elizabeth and John are trying to get along, but that their efforts hold just as much pretense as the courts. There is a cold undercurrent that originates in Elizabeth’s mistrust of John since his affair with Abigail seven months ago, but John’s frustrations are bubbling to the surface as well. His frustration becomes apparent when he comments to Elizabeth that “[…] an everlasting funeral marches round your heart” (54). The implied metaphor, or figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable, compares Elizabeth’s sad disposition with that of a dying heart. The diction, or word choice, of the metaphor is nuanced. “Everlasting” implies an eternal state, and shows us that John feels that it has gone on long enough and fears it will go on forever. A funeral evokes death and mourning, but what is dead? What has been lost? It seems the heart is the center of the funeral, and since a heart represents love, perhaps John is suggesting through the metaphor that Elizabeth has lost her love, or the ability to feel any joy again. The image of the funeral marching in a circle emphasizes the feeling that John has of it as everlasting, as circles are symbols of eternity. A reader can have empathy for both characters in this situation, but in this single moment we get a sense of how desperate John feels about his wife’s inability to forgive him.